Anne Begg (Lab, Aberdeen South), introduced her Bill to extend the rights of compliance officers to ensure workers get paid holidays.

The Labour MP called on the government to give officers who enforce the minimum wage, powers to ensure workers get their holiday entitlement.

“The employer who keeps his workers on illegal poverty wages is highly unlikely to be fulfilling the provisions of the working time directive, and in particular the right to four weeks' paid holiday. Yet as things stand, national minimum wage compliance officers are unable to take action against employers who fail to give workers their proper holiday entitlement by, for example, not paying them the full rate or by not giving the full four weeks' holiday.”

“Some workers get no paid holiday at all because their employer tells them that they do not qualify, or that they have to have a particular length of service. In Aberdeen, where there are a large number of "temp" agency workers, there is a particular problem in respect of those who are told that they are receiving a slightly higher hourly rate for the hours that they work to cover their paid holiday entitlement.”

House of Commons

First reading: March 2 2005 (HC Bill 75)

Second reading: Never reached.