Labour targets exploitation of migrant workers with new investigative unit

A Home Office investigative unit which targets the illegal exploitation of migrant workers will be set up by a Labour government, Ed Miliband will announce on Saturday.

The team of more 100 police officers and specialists from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will be given new powers to stop the abuse of workers and increase the prosecutions and fines of employers who breach employment laws.

The announcement is the next step in Labour’s plan to show that it can control immigration. One of their most important weapons, party officials say, will be to stamp out exploitative practices that drive down wages.

Party officials hope the announcement will emphasise the difference between their policies and those of David Cameron and Nigel Farage, who tend to ignore the role of rogue employers.

Miliband will say: “This will be a unit of at least 100 officers whose will have one overriding duty: to stop the abuse that makes the working families of Britain poorer. This new unit will have the powers and funding it needs to increase the prosecutions and convictions of Britain’s worst employers: those who exploit workers and drag down the wages of everyone else.”

Miliband will also claim that the Tories and Ukip will never be able to tackle immigration properly because they have failed to understand that exploitation is driving up the number of low-skilled workers who enter the UK.

“Too often, this is an anything-goes economy: people who live in the most appalling, cramped conditions, sleeping 20 to a house; people who are paid well below the minimum wage; people who have their wages stolen.

“It’s exploitation of the worst kind. But it isn’t just bad for those people directly affected, it drives down standards for everybody else, undercutting local workers, and making life harder for responsible employers. It is an epidemic of exploitation and we will end it,” he will say at a meeting in north-west England.

The proposed investigative unit follows previous party announcements to make it illegal for employers to undercut wages by exploiting workers; ban recruitment agencies from hiring solely from overseas; raise the national minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2019 and increase fines for failing to pay the national minimum wage to £50,000.

Miliband has previously said he would close loopholes in agency worker rules to stop employers undercutting directly-employed staff, and increase fines for employing illegal immigrants to £30,000.

The new unit would be staffed by enforcement officers coming from the 1,000 newly-recruited border agency personnel announced last month by shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, officials said.

It will be paid for by levying a charge on non-visa visitors to the UK which is expected to raise £55m, Labour said.

Miliband will condemn Cameron for making false promises on immigration at the last election when the Tories promised to cut levels to tens of thousands.

He will say that the politics of “broken promises” by the Conservatives and the exploitation of legitimate concerns by UKIP have corroded public trust in democracy.

Miliband was asked by several northern England MPs to harden up the party’s stance on immigration in October, after Ukip came to within 617 votes of winning the Heywood and Middleton byelection in Greater Manchester.

An internal party document which was leaked to the Daily Telegraph in December suggested that campaigners could tackle the issue of immigration on the doorstep by “moving the conversation” on to other issues such as healthcare and housing where Labour tends to be rated more highly.

But the decision to make controlling immigration one of Labour’s five pledges has caused some anger from leading figures on the party’s left.

Last month, Diane Abbott – who had once been hopeful of gaining the Labour leadership – tweeted a picture of a party mug bearing the slogan “Controls on immigration” with the words: “This shameful mug is an embarrassment.”