To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what measures the Department has introduced to protect the employment rights of agency workers; and what plans he has to introduce further such measures. (187415)

Agency Workers are already entitled to employment rights such as the national minimum wage and working time entitlements such as paid annual leave, and new regulations to protect vulnerable agency workers will come into force on 6 April 2008.

The Employment Bill will also give greater investigative powers to Agency Inspectors, increase the potential level of fines for breaching the regulations and reform the current system of dispute resolution at work.