Will the Fair Work Agency work?

The Fair Work Agency is being established in April 2026 and aims to consolidate the responsibilities that were previously split between the Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), the Employment Agency Standards Authority (EAS) and HMRC. None of these has been able to lay a glove on the serial labour exploitation that characterises the recruitment industry, which is unsurprising, given that HMRC has many more pressing concerns and the GLAA and EAS are both hopelessly underfunded. The latter potters along on a budget 0f £1.5m per annum, which equates to around £50 for each of the UK's estimated 30,000 recruitment agencies. Their last annual report states that just a single prosecution was achieved in 2023.

The Fair Work Agency will have state powers to punish offenders, to name and shame, and also to take action to penalise end users of labour, who are partly responsible for pushing labour prices down to levels which make ecploitation inevitable. Much will depend upon what budget it is allocated, how well it trains its staff, and whether it can swiftly establish that it is efficient. History suggests that an effective labour rights enforcement body is highly unlikely to materialise and the creation of this new body, as part of the Employment Rights Bill that is a flagship Labour policy, will be an early, and probably key, sign as to whether this government is serious about workers' rights, or whether this is simply window dressing.