Agency workers' Bill support hopes

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Labour MP Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) said he was confident that his Bill would draw the necessary backing of more than 100 Labour MPs to take it to the committee stage for further examination.

Mr Miller, encouraged by the country's biggest trade unions, is seeking legislation giving new rights to 1.4 million agency workers to have equal pay and conditions as full-time employees.

The CBI warned that a law could lead to 250,000 job losses and would dent the UK's flexible labour market, which it said has helped to create tens of thousands of jobs.

Mr Miller said he had received pledges of support from a wide cross section of the Labour Party and he is confident that the Bill will attract one of the biggest-ever turnouts for a backbench Bill being considered on a Friday, traditionally a day when many MPs are in their constituencies.

"I am confident that the Government will not seek to obstruct the bill going forward to the committee stage," he said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is proposing a commission of inquiry, chaired by Sir George Bain, to study agency workers' rights rather than agree to legislation and will meet unions on Monday to discuss the idea.

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: "It is incredibly premature for the Government to be talking about setting up a commission, with an independent chairman, to study the issue of agency workers' rights.

"What is being offered so far is a second-hand fairy tale, which certainly does not have a happy ending. If every other country in Europe is prepared to give agency workers rights, why should we have to put up with being second or third class citizens? The Government is trying to appease the business lobby."

Tony Woodley, joint leader of Unite, said the Bill would start to halt the "slide to the bottom" in employment standards in the UK, adding: "It is something we would ask our Government to support and expect honourable businesses to applaud."