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Mr. Luff: This is a technical point, and I am happy if the right hon. Gentleman wants to write to me rather than answer it now. There is one quite sophisticated packing operation in my constituency, which requires a large supply of office labour to deliver its services. If it used a recruitment agency to recruit staff for the office rather than the packing side of its operation, would that recruitment agency also be required to register as a gangmaster?

Alun Michael: As often seems to be the case, I am happy to engage in correspondence with the hon. Gentleman on arcane detail. I think the answer is that if staff were recruited to undertake activities that fall within the ambit of the Bill, that would be caught by its provisions. Were those activities outside its ambit, they would not be caught. On the other hand, if the activities are ancillary, that is the kind of area that needs to be clarified. I believe that we have ensured that the Bill casts the net as widely as possible, so that we can provide by exclusion, which is allowed for in the Bill, that those not intended to be covered are not caught. That provides flexibility in the architecture of the Bill, which I hope will be effective.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras helped at an early stage, applying his experience as a Cabinet Minister and his acute sense of the practical, by asking the most challenging questions about how the Bill would operate in the mists of the morning in some of the flatter areas of England. As a result of responding to those questions, we have improved the Bill considerably. He was absolutely right to underline the legitimate concern about swindlers who do not pay tax, national insurance or the minimum wage, and to remind us of the long history of parliamentary concern about exploitation, which goes back much further than a generation. I agree entirely that action not just in terms of co-ordinating raids but in terms of following up intervention should be made much easier, which goes to the heart of the Bill and of what I meant when I described it as providing an antisocial behaviour order for gangmasters.

A number of questions were asked about who would be caught. I was asked whether the Bill would cover workers in a meat processing plant. The Bill covers all processing and packaging of produce derived from agricultural work, which includes meat. We will consider the coverage of downstream processing activities in more detail when the regulations are made, to ensure that we do not inadvertently catch those for whom the legislation is not intended. All such work is included unless it is excluded by regulation.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) asked how quickly licences would be introduced, and whether we could ensure that there was not a long period before licences could be obtained. The Bill allows for transitional provisions, which would allow temporary registration or provisional licences, to
 
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ensure that labour providers can be brought into the licensing scheme quickly and allow us to concentrate on operating the scheme and ensuring that it restricts those who seek to break the law. The hon. Gentleman referred to his experience in East Anglia in the missionary field. I reflected that my experience was of stone picking after ploughing during bob-a-job week in north Wales—he will appreciate that there are some areas of the uplands in which stones are quite a significant crop. That activity may well come within the ambit of the Bill. I make it clear for the record that that was before my experience of the Transport and General Workers Union, when I was employed on the buses.

As the hon. Gentleman said, it is important to encourage gangmasters into the system straight away. It would be a tragedy if they hung back and waited to see what happened. We need to get them into the system and to make it clear that being outside it will not be tolerated and will lead to swift action. On the other hand, we do not want a bureaucratic system that produces just statistics. In terms of the Select Committee's comment yesterday, putting effort into bean counting is not the way to approach the matter; we want to ensure that it is unrewarding to evade the law.

Much preparation work has been done with the Ethical Trading Initiative. Two or three hon. Members have referred to the fact that the Ethical Trading Initiative has discovered some flaws in the audit system. I do not think that that is terribly surprising. Those who have been involved in the Ethical Trading Initiative have effectively had to accept an additional burden as legitimate providers of labour, while those who do not bother to get involved do not have that burden, and those who operate completely outside the law obviously avoid all sorts of overheads. The Ethical Trading Initiative and the systematic approach that some providers have sought to develop will be greatly strengthened by the legislation.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) made a series of important points. I congratulate him on his positive approach to the Bill. He has genuinely supported it and sought to help to improve it. I hope that that does not reach the ears of the Leader of the Opposition and damage the hon. Gentleman's political career. He showed himself to be courageous, even adventurous, by referring to immigration policy. I gently remind him that the Leader of the Opposition had personal responsibility for immigration policy as well as wider areas of the law for a number of years. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was wise to draw that to the attention of the House because it was not exactly the most productive period, in respect of either immigration policy or enforcement of the law.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the scope and execution of subsidiary legislation. We are trying to give the shape of the subsidiary legislation, such as on the membership of the board of the non-departmental public body that will run the scheme, so that, as has already happened, points can be made about whether there is a gap, or whether the balance of the membership is right to ensure that the expertise is there. The final version of the statutory instrument that provides for the membership of the board will follow soon after the legislation has reached the statute book, but we have outlined a proposed membership, which was not dreamt
 
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up within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but arises from the discussions that I referred to earlier with all the participants to try to ensure that we get it right. That is the way we are approaching the subsidiary legislation generally: we aim to develop policy and the drafting at the same time as the Bill goes through the House, and to give as much clarity as possible to those who will look at the Bill in another place as to how the provisions will be used. That has not always been the case. My first experience of legislation in the House was with the Immigration Act 1988. The Minister who led for the then Government was Tim Renton, who later became their Chief Whip. I spent a lot of time trying to tease out of him the slightest indication of what the subsidiary legislation might look like. We even offered the old regulations as a gift-wrapped package at Christmas in the hope that he would relent and give some insight into what would happen after the Bill became law.

The position this time is very much the reverse. We are seeking to work with all the organisations and to be open with hon. Members about the way in which the subsidiary legislation will be used, because the experience of all the organisations and the application of the knowledge of hon. Members can help to get it right. We will continue in that spirit. I undertake to my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrewshire, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness and others who served on the Committee to keep them informed as we develop those ideas.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness made some points about delivery. We could give the impression that nothing much is going on. The message needs to go out that a lot is going on in order to catch those who are defrauding the Exchequer as well as undertaking exploitation. Operation Gangmaster has delivered benefits to the Exchequer of some £10.6 million in 2002–03. That includes recovery of income tax worth some £4 million and a reduction in benefit fraud through the prevention of claiming benefits while working. Government enforcement action has led to a number of high-profile arrests and prosecutions of gangmasters in recent weeks.

The Department for Work and Pensions has identified 235 over-payments and 1,023 adjustments to benefits worth £405,000, securing 138 sanctions and prosecutions. The Inland Revenue specialist team is settling 46 inquiries and reviews, and identifying unpaid tax and national insurance contributions worth £4.3 million. In addition, there have been criminal prosecutions of 14 gangmasters for VAT offences involving £5.9 million and resulting in prison sentences totalling 31 years.

Some of those recoveries have been done without the sort of prosecutions that bring the matter into the public eye and lead to headlines, but people should be in no doubt that enforcement measures and co-operation between Departments are having a positive effect.

Mr. Luff: Would the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to remind police forces that another area where enforcement is very important is traffic offences?
 
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It would be helpful if police forces showed more enthusiasm to tackle the obvious white mini-buses that run around illegally.

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