Britain's unregulated car washes face a government clampdown over links to modern slavery.
Up to 20,000 businesses offering cleaning for as little as £6 have opened in the past decade, mainly in empty garage forecourts and car parks.
Often they employ up to a dozen workers and open up to 12 hours a day.
Critics fear many employ foreign workers on less than the minimum wage, break health and safety and labour exploitation laws, and evade tax.
Former Downing Street advisor Matthew Taylor, interim head of the Government’s Office for Labour Market Enforcement, has called for tighter regulations of hand car washes with a new national licensing scheme.
MPs on the Commons Environment Audit Select Committee probed claims that gangs were trafficking people to work at car washes in a form of “modern slavery”.
Brian Madderson, of the Petrol Retailers and Car Wash Associations, backed the move saying: “It’s a national disgrace that the UK has become the ‘go to’ country in Europe for non-compliant hand car washes that openly flout tax, labour abuse and environmental regulations.
“They are a serious social blight caused by ineffective enforcement.”
He added: “The sooner the Government tackles this issue, the sooner our rivers and countryside will be freed from toxic chemical waste and labour abuse will be eliminated.”
Home Office immigration inspectors have raided suspected illegal car washes across the UK.
