FLEX (Focus on Labour Exploitation) have published a new report today ‘Policy Blueprint: Combatting Labour Exploitation through Labour Inspection’, ahead of the Second Reading of the UK Immigration Bill tomorrow, which proposes a new ‘Director of Labour Market Enforcement’.

Key findings of the Blueprint include:

• UK labour inspector figures come bottom when compared to similar EU countries: The UK has just 0.9 inspectors per 100,000 workers as compared to 4.6 in Ireland, 5.1 in the Netherlands, 12.5 in Belgium and 18.9 in France.
• Labour laws are not being enforced and unscrupulous employers are getting away with exploiting workers with impunity, while labour inspections are declining with reductions in budget and remit.
• Victims of modern slavery want labour inspectors to help them escape and tackle exploitation in the workplace.
• Overlap between immigration control and labour inspection actively prevents cases of modern slavery from being uncovered.

The Blueprint and the Immigration Bill will be discussed at a closed meeting of the APPG on Migration today.