To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy to ensure that those temporary and permanent employees at the same grade in his Department who are paid at an hourly rate are paid at the same rate. (244391)

The Department does not employ any permanent staff paid at an hourly rate.

Since July 2008 temporary clerical and administrative workers are supplied from agencies to the Department under the Home Office Framework. The supplying agencies are selected by fair competition on the basis of value for money. The Department contracts with the supplying agencies and not their temporary employees.

The Department cannot interfere in the commercial relationship between an agency and its employee and so cannot ensure parity in the rates paid by the agency to its employee as compared with the Department’s own employees.