It has now been superseded (though is in all material respects identical) by the Temporary and Agency Workers Directive (2008/104/EC), which the UK was required to implement by December 2011 at the latest.

However the government has recently indicated that it will introduce a modified version of the Bill, through a statutory instrument under the European Communities Act 1972 to implement the TAW Directive, with a 12-week (3-month) waiting period before agency workers will get equal pay and working time conditions.

The latest reports suggest a 12-week qualifying period has been agreed between the private MP backers and the government, meaning a significant step back from the protection the Directive would offer.

A significant omission therefore was any regulation on reasonable notice before dismissal (in the UK, ERA s.86; Germany has this for all workers already, regardless of their agency status, §622 BGB).

But by 2007, the government was yet to deliver, and Paul Farrelly MP introduced the Temporary and Agency Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Bill.

In the Court of Appeal case James v. Greenwich LBC[3] which further entrenched the subordinate position of agency workers,[4] Mummery LJ pronounced it "doomed to failure for lack of support from the Government".

Identical in every way, save a tighter definition of employment agency and more provision for regulatory enforcement, it won the support of almost the whole Labour bench in the House of Commons.