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Employment Bill [Lords]

I apologise. I had some very testing meetings with the right hon. Gentleman, and to be fair some of the practices taking place in the employment agency industry were unacceptable. Quite rightly, he outlawed them, and hopefully they no longer take place. However, I accept that there is a small rump of people operating in employment agencies who let everyone else down. I do not want the employment agency sector to be tarred with the same brush as those whose business behaviour is still outside the bounds of the acceptable. Employment agencies play an important part in our labour market. The Government recognise that, and very early on after introducing the new deal they included employment agencies among the bodies placing difficult people who had been out of the workplace for a long time. My party recognised that employment agencies play an important role, too, and when we form the next Government we will hopefully pledge to use employment agencies to help people get back into work. Employment agencies are extremely good at helping the economy to flex in response to changes in the market. There can be sudden increases in demand, and employment agencies are very good at identifying a labour pool and filling that demand. Employment agencies are very useful for allowing women who have been out of the workplace for a number of years to re-enter it. They are very useful for placing youngsters in the workplace—yes, in temporary jobs, but jobs that allow them to prove their worth to a future employer.