Twenty three cockle pickers drowned off Hest Bank
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More powers are needed to stop rogue gangmasters exploiting workers, a new watchdog has warned.
The Gangmasters Licensing Authority, set up after 23 cockle pickers died at Morecambe Bay, starts work next week.
Designed to curb the exploitation of agricultural workers and labourers, it will be merged with the Health and Safety Executive in three years.
But its chairman said it should join forces with other agencies instead, to stop exploitation in other industries.
Paul Whitehead, the former chief of Sussex Police, said new powers were needed to extend its scope into construction, catering and other areas outside agriculture.
"If we work efficiently then it is likely that the illegal gangmasters will move out of agriculture and into these other sources," he said.
'Vulnerable workers'
The merger of the GLA with the HSE comes under plans outlined by Chancellor Gordon Brown.
But speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Whitehead said: "The Gangmasters Licensing Authority is about much more than health and safety.
"It is about limiting all forms of exploitation of some of the most vulnerable workers in society."
He said it should be merged with the Department of Trade and Industry's Employment Agencies Inspectorate instead.
The GLA will provide the first regulation of those who supply workers to agricultural and shellfish businesses.
It will set licensing conditions and keep a register of labour providers.
Jack Dromey, who campaigned for the new body as deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, also said it was "simply not appropriate" to merge it with the HSE.
However, Geraldine Smith, Labour MP for Morecambe, who pressed for action following the cockle picker's deaths in February 2004, said it was the licensing system, not the body overseeing it, that was important.
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It (the GLA) is about limiting all forms of exploitation of some of the most vulnerable workers in society
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