Repealing regulation 7 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 (“the Conduct Regulations”) is an unnecessary provocation to UK trade unions that will bring no economic or societal benefit. 

In its impact assessment of the regulations, the Department for Business and Trade provides a whole economy range of net financial gain from £51k to £3.5m. Taking the maximum of this range (which represents an unrealistically high productivity of agency workers and a relatively high level of the use of agency workers during strikes) the total effect on the UK economy with a GDP of £2.2tn is an increase of 0.00015%. This infinitesimally small increase is before any of the negative non-monetised impacts are taken into account.

We agree with the analysis in the impact assessment that the use of agency workers during strike action has the potential to worsen the relationship between employers and workers, which could lead to more prolonged strike action. We also agree that weakening the right of workers to collectively bargain on wages will reduce the money flowing to often low paid workers, thus lowering their spending power with inevitable societal impact. 

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