:00:00. > :00:17.National Good evening. An investigation by this programme has
:00:18. > :00:21.uncovered evidence of a black market trade in cheap migrant labour. Our
:00:22. > :00:24.undercover filming discovered workers from Eastern Europe being
:00:25. > :00:30.paid ?40 cash or even less per day, lower than the minimum wage. The
:00:31. > :00:40.Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has promised to act against employers
:00:41. > :00:45.breaking the law. Every day on some streets in London,
:00:46. > :00:51.there are people, many Eastern European, waiting to be offered work
:00:52. > :00:56.as builders or casual labourers. But are they paid at least the minimum
:00:57. > :01:02.wage? To find out, we asked two Romanian workers to go undercover.
:01:03. > :01:08.Both carried a hidden camera. While waiting for work, they heard others
:01:09. > :01:15.talk about low wages. TRANSLATION: My boss was paying me ?37.50 a day
:01:16. > :01:20.full op TRANSLATION: I worked from 9:30am till four for ?10. Then one
:01:21. > :01:24.of our two Romanians was offered work moving mattresses in north
:01:25. > :01:35.London. His pay at the end of that day? ?40 for a seven`hour day with
:01:36. > :01:44.only a five minute break works out at ?5.71 an hour, and the national
:01:45. > :01:50.minimum wage of ?6.31 an hour. It was basically, do that, do that, do
:01:51. > :01:56.that, go away. Then our second Romanian is offered a week's work in
:01:57. > :02:07.Birmingham, but the man who is hiring does not want to pay him very
:02:08. > :02:11.much. He is driven more than 100 miles, put to work at the back of a
:02:12. > :02:19.shop and paid ?40, which for nine hours' work comes to about ?4.70 an
:02:20. > :02:24.hour. And what does the government think of such low wages? It is a
:02:25. > :02:30.serious breach of the law. I don't know the details, but it must be
:02:31. > :02:34.investigated. It is our aim to drive this not just off the streets of
:02:35. > :02:39.London, but throughout the country. The campaigning group Migration
:02:40. > :02:44.Watch says such practices are driving down wages for all builders.
:02:45. > :02:50.The influx of migrants from Eastern Europe has driven down wages in that
:02:51. > :02:57.sector. Jamal Sayeed says he agreed to pay our labourer ?40 for a single
:02:58. > :03:04.job of plastering only, and says he did not work nine hours. Our secret
:03:05. > :03:08.recording, though, suggests he did. Our political editor, Tim Donovan,
:03:09. > :03:11.joins us now from Westminster. Is this situation likely to improve or
:03:12. > :03:19.worsen now that Romanians and Bulgarians have full access to the
:03:20. > :03:26.labour market? It is impossible to say. There are too many variables
:03:27. > :03:30.and it is too early to draw any links or understand the relationship
:03:31. > :03:35.between people working off the book is, the people we see mysteries of
:03:36. > :03:37.north London, and linking that with those Bulgarians and Romanians who
:03:38. > :03:42.are no longer restricted from working here legally since January
:03:43. > :03:46.the 1st. On the face of it, the fact that they can now work here legally
:03:47. > :03:50.should reduce the numbers of them working off the books because there
:03:51. > :03:54.will be legitimate employment for them here. They will be paying
:03:55. > :04:00.national insurance and taxes. On the other hand, there may be more people
:04:01. > :04:05.coming and looking for work and not finding it officially, and then they
:04:06. > :04:08.have to work for cash, or they have a job and lose it, and instead of
:04:09. > :04:13.being able to claim benefits, they will then need cash for that reason.
:04:14. > :04:19.Labour and the Conservatives think the wave to tackle this is by more
:04:20. > :04:27.enforcement against employers who employs a low the minimum wage, and
:04:28. > :04:30.putting up vines. `` finds. The government has unveiled a new
:04:31. > :04:33.training which it hopes will ease overcrowding on one of the country's
:04:34. > :04:36.busiest commuter routes. The larger carriages will carry hundreds of
:04:37. > :04:39.thousands of passengers across the Thameslink network.
:04:40. > :04:44.Thameslink commuters heading home tonight on one of the busiest
:04:45. > :04:49.stretches of railway in Europe. It's 2014! Train services seem to have
:04:50. > :05:00.been stuck in the 1970s for a long time. They are pretty awful, dirty,
:05:01. > :05:04.old, cold. Not good. Is this the answer, the new Thameslink trains,
:05:05. > :05:10.part of a ?6.5 billion upgrade of the north`south route? There will be
:05:11. > :05:14.more space, they will be longer and they will also be used on new links
:05:15. > :05:17.into Cambridgeshire, Kent and Sussex. There'll be the ability to
:05:18. > :05:22.put a huge extra capacity by having more trains going through central
:05:23. > :05:26.London during peak hours. It will benefit commuters both in and out of
:05:27. > :05:31.London. It is promised these trains will deliver 40% more seats serving
:05:32. > :05:34.the capital. But before you get carried away about this commuting
:05:35. > :05:36.nirvana, there will be some disruption, particularly at London
:05:37. > :05:44.Bridge as they reconfigure that station. Community groups say the
:05:45. > :05:50.frequency of some services will be cut during that work, but operators
:05:51. > :05:53.say it will be worth the wait. We have to rebuild the access to the
:05:54. > :05:56.station to make the Thameslink programme work and allow us to
:05:57. > :06:03.deliver the 24 trains per hour service. Commuters have seen years
:06:04. > :06:08.of carriages getting more crowded and fares going up. The new trains
:06:09. > :06:09.will be rolled out in two years' time. For these passengers, any
:06:10. > :06:25.improvements are long overdue. Now the weather. Is it going to get
:06:26. > :06:29.cold? It is tomorrow. It will feel much colder because of an easterly
:06:30. > :06:35.breeze. At the moment, we still have showers. There is a possibility that
:06:36. > :06:42.some of the rain might produce a few snowflakes instead from some of the
:06:43. > :06:47.cloud. This evening, this has been the radar picture so far. We have
:06:48. > :06:51.seen showers being pushed in by the southerly wind. It is a concern in
:06:52. > :06:55.the Surrey, Sussex and Kent areas that still have some floodwater.
:06:56. > :07:05.Through the night, those showers continue, some of them heavy. The
:07:06. > :07:08.wind continues. Still some showers around tomorrow, merging into longer
:07:09. > :07:15.spells of rain, the wind heading east. Behind that, there could be a
:07:16. > :07:20.few snowflakes. It will feel chilly in the afternoon. It will warm up
:07:21. > :07:22.Friday, but there will more rain again.
:07:23. > :07:26.That's it for tonight. We are back from 6.30 tomorrow morning in
:07:27. > :07:30.Breakfast. From all the late team, have a very good night.