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Lord Livsey of Talgarth: I strongly welcome the Minister here today. We have worked together across the Table many times. It is strange to think of Denis Howell; I am sure he would have enjoyed the cup final in Cardiff last Saturday. It was a sunny day, and I must tell the Minister, a Birmingham man, that all the reservoirs are full as well. The supply of water in Birmingham this summer looks okay to me.

However, there are issues with these regulations, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for giving us the opportunity to discuss some of them. I, like her, find it strange that it has taken almost two years to get the regulations into place. There is some justification, however, in that they must get it right. Whether it could have been got right sooner is another question. Workers are, of course, still picking cockles in Morecombe Bay—legally, I hope—under supervision.

Is the Minister now satisfied by the progress of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority? Who is its chair? I should know, but I do not. How many members does it have? When we debated the Bill we agreed on a figure, which escapes me for the moment. I am sure the membership will be in line with that, but I am intrigued to know. How many gangmasters have been licensed since the launch of licensing on 6 April? Or are we waiting for this statutory instrument to go through here first before any gangmasters are licensed? I suspect that the process has started already.

On licensing conditions, what checks and balances exist on seasonal imported labour? Are papers in order, for example? Are the gangmasters checking them out, or are inspections taking place to ensure that they are all here legally? Obviously, we welcome the imposition of this important legislation, and congratulate the Government on bringing it in. However, I would like to know more about these points.

In Herefordshire, which neighbours my area, there has been much discussion about accommodation for seasonal workers. I presume that that is inspected and up to standard, as far as possible. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, mentioned some of the discussions. It is perfectly acceptable, for example, that it will take six months from 6 April for gangmasters to apply for a licence, given that we are a couple of years on anyway. That process will take some time, and I am hopeful that that target will be met.

There is some concern that publicity for these changes is not sufficiently adequate. Is the Minister satisfied that Defra and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority have between them adequate resources for an effective publicity campaign in sufficient time for the regulations to be clearly understood?
 
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The Gangmasters (Appeals) Regulations refer to an appointed person in charge of a tribunal. We learn that the hearing will be an oral one. I am sure that the Minister cannot answer this question precisely, but what sort of timescale are we thinking of? It will be important to determine appeals quickly. Given that there are references to the need for that in the regulations, how will they be expedited on time? Obviously, speed is crucial. When crops, fruit or vegetables are ready they need to be harvested at optimum quality.

4.15 pm

The other matter that we should discuss is the exclusion regulations. I praise the flexibility outlined in page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the exclusions regulations, which allow agricultural contractors to be involved and excluded. There is another important issue concerning agricultural students supplied by an educational establishment. I worked in Lincolnshire one summer when I was a student, and I certainly felt exploited, gathering potatoes in thunderstorms and rain to try to get them to Manchester within four hours. Things like that go on. I welcome these regulations and the flexibility contained in part of them.

There is another issue in which I am particularly interested: the gathering of shellfish. Paragraph 7.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum gives a precise definition:

"Paragraph 15 makes it clear that after 1st October 2006 the gathering of shellfish will be brought within the scope of the licensing scheme with the exception of workers employed directly to gather shellfish from a fishing vessel and workers employed to gather shellfish by diving".

Noble Lords who know the Gower peninsula will appreciate the importance of cockles to its economy. My grandmother took me there long ago to Penclawdd, which is famous for cockles. Quite a lot of local people gather cockles, almost as of right, from one generation to another. How are they incorporated? There is specific reference to people who have fishing vessels, but some of those people are land based and also work in the food processing and packaging sector on dry land, away from the inlets. There are important issues for local economies. Without more ado, those are my comments on the three statutory instruments.

Lord Skelmersdale: I agree with my noble friend Lady Byford and the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, that these regulations are desperately needed and will greatly improve the law. Members of the Grand Committee will know that I have been involved in horticulture all my working life. I started self-employment in horticulture as a sole trader. Many of the gangmasters we are talking about in these regulations, whether involved in shellfish picking, horticulture or farming, will be sole traders. Rule 3(1) provides that a gangmaster's licence will be granted only to a business. In law, does the word "business" cover the operations of a sole trader? If not, the good
 
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gangmasters and those who employ the services of a gangmaster could be unfairly disadvantaged. One would not want that to happen.

The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): I will do my best to answer the last question, which is wholly reasonable. I am grateful for the contributions of noble Lords. One of them took me back more than 40 years. I was a young tool-making apprentice in Birmingham in 1960 when I saw an advert in the paper: "Holiday with a difference: fruit picking in Scotland". It was at Letham Grange, near Arbroath. I picked the biggest raspberries I had ever seen in my life. I was a Brummie: I thought they were strawberries! Concordia organised that employment. There were only three or four Brits there. The other 60-odd were from all over the place. I was so keen on it that I went back the following year. It just shows you that there may be two ex-Concordia fruit pickers who have ended up as Ministers.

The issue of regulation of gangmasters goes back a long time. In 1997, my maiden speech on the Front Bench, two weeks after being appointed, was to answer Richard Body's Adjournment Debate on behalf of my noble friend Lord Donoughue, literally within a couple of weeks of the general election. The process started from then to try to do something about gangmasters. The problems are well understood by noble Lords.

The set piece that I have will cover most of the points that have been raised, and for those that are not included, I will refer to the detailed notes. It is true that many gangmasters operate respectable and legitimate businesses, but many do not. The licensing arrangements are important. They will ensure that workers are treated fairly and they will protect some 600,000 workers from exploitation. They will of course protect the interests of legitimate businesses so that they are not undercut by the cowboys.

The rules and regulations that we have been debating today complete the second stage of the process. With the completion of this element of the regulatory framework, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was able to commence licensing operations on 6 April, and I will give the latest figure on that. In its 30th report, the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee criticised the time that it had taken to establish the gangmasters licensing arrangements, as the noble Baroness said. Royal Assent to the Act was received on 8 July 2004. The authority commenced work on 1 April 2005 and has been working hard since to bring the licensing scheme into operation. There was initial consultation on the Gangmasters Licensing (Exclusions) Regulations in February 2005, and consultation on the Gangmasters (Appeals) Regulations in March 2005. A second consultation on the Gangmasters Licensing (Exclusions) Regulations took place in October 2005, when the authority also consulted on its licence standards.

Although it has been time-consuming, and I fully accept the arguments about delay, the consultations were necessary to ensure that the rules and regulations
 
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delivered a robust scheme that is called for by the stakeholders and one that everyone understands. That is important. Consultation was also necessary to ensure that the evidence supported the application of the licensing throughout the food chain. That process has taken longer than we had hoped when early predictions on the timetable were made. On the other hand, it is complex, but we did not sit back and wait for consultation to end. Steps were taken during this period to prepare labour providers for the introduction of licensing. As an interim measure, we worked closely with the Ethical Trading Initiative Temporary Labour Working Group to adapt its voluntary code of practice as a business development tool. Defra funded that work, and the labour providers who volunteered for an audit were able to use the feedback to make their business ready for licensing. Some 400 labour providers have used that facility.

The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee made specific reference to the delay in introducing licensing in the shellfish-gathering sector, which the noble Baroness also referred to. Here the licensing will apply both to the supply and the use of labour, which are two very different concepts—it is different from agriculture, where only the supply of labour is licensed. The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee's concerns are understandable, but the authority needs more time to adapt its licence conditions to the specific circumstances of the shellfish gathering sector. In developing its initial licensing standards proposals, the authority was able to draw on more than two years of work done by the Temporary Labour Working Group, which developed a code of practice for labour providers operating in the fresh produce supply chain. That gave the authority a head start in the farming and food processing sectors. The authority had no prior work to draw on in relation to shellfish gathering; it was new. We did not have that background.

The initial consultation on licence standards confirmed that shellfish-gathering requires a different approach from farming on land. As a result, finalising the licensing standards to apply to shellfish gathering will require more time; this work is in hand. A number of workshops involving industry interests have been held, and detailed proposals for shellfish licensing standards will be published shortly. We are keen to ensure that licensing is introduced as quickly as possible. There is no merit or gain for the Government in delaying this. Consequently, the regulations make it clear that licensing will apply to the supply and use of labour to hand-gather shellfish from 1 October 2006.

A number of further steps need to be taken over the coming months to finalise the licensing arrangements. If the application process goes smoothly, we plan to make it an offence for a gangmaster to operate without a licence with effect from 1 October 2006. At the same time, regulations will be made, or guidance issued, setting out the steps a labour user must take to ensure that a gangmaster whom he or she engages has a licence. As I have said, we will commence licensing in the shellfish sector from 1 October. It is anticipated that it will become an offence for a labour user to use
 
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an unlicensed gangmaster in December of this year. We expect that the labour-provider and labour-user offences will be introduced in the shellfish-gathering sector from April 2007. There is a gap between the requirement to be licensed and the offences being committed, which is wholly reasonable in the circumstances.

I have mentioned the industry's need for a flexible labour supply. Indeed, I have some personal experience of that—I was on strike for the second year I was there, by the way.

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