The government's new Employment Bill will increase powers to seize documents, search financial records and clamp down on rogue employment agencies.

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform told Recruiter that the bill, which received its first reading in the House of Lords last December, will help enforce the National Minimum Wage, employment agency standards and trade union membership laws.

A BERR official told Recruiter that the new legislation will increase BERR's investigative powers to seek information from recruiters.

He explained: "If there are suspicions about an agency, there will be a written warning requesting information, and if it is not forthcoming we will have the power to seize documents.

"Where that is financial information, and the request is not met, we have the right to go the agency's bank to seek the information.

"Where we have cases of illegal changes and non-payments, and we get complaints from employees, if we have suspicions that things are not above board we can check financial records."

The other main changes are the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures and the automatic unfair dismissal procedure, which will cut down on the number of cases going to tribunal.

The Acas code of practice is also being substantially revised and will be re-issued when the bill comes into force.

The official added: "We are well aware that legitimate businesses are being undercut by rogue elements and this will help take the rogue element out of the market."

The bill will seek to make certain serious offences, triable in crown court as well as magistrates' courts.

Breaches of the new act could result in unlimited fines in very serious cases, such as illegal charges by agencies for work-finding services and failure to pay workers.

The employment agency provision will come into force on 1 October this year.