Blacklisting

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is quite right. There has been a culture of denial; people are sticking their head in the sand, but the public and people working in the industry deserve some honesty.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I think that all of us would agree that blacklisting is entirely unacceptable. The previous Labour Government consulted on the issue back in 2003, but no action was taken until 2010. Why? Why was the practice not stopped?

[Mr Umunna]

I say this to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have enjoyed debating since we both joined the House two and a half years ago: I have already stated that different Governments perhaps should have done more about the issue. I cannot say fairer than that. If people want to make political points about what the last Labour Government did, fine, but I am not sure where that will get us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

That is right. Certainly, the anecdotal evidence that I have received absolutely confirms what my hon. Friend says. One of the problems is that there is what happens on the site and what happens in the boardroom. I have not come across a board director of any of the construction companies who would publicly or privately condone these practices, but these practices have been going on. One either acknowledges that and seeks to deal with them, or puts one’s head in the sand. It is the head-in-the-sand attitude that has been so unhelpful thus far.

[Charlie Elphicke]

As I said, I think we all agree that blacklisting is unacceptable, and was wrong. He mentions that the Information Commissioner took action in 2009. The regulations came into effect in 2010. The question, to my mind, is what can we as lawmakers do further, practically, in terms of the legal structure, sanctions and penalties?

[Mr Umunna]

I will come to that exact point in a bit. I shall explain how the association worked, for the record.

Mr Kerr maintained a list and files on at least 3,200 construction workers. Association members would feed him the names of workers, and information relating to them, to keep on file. It would be remiss of me not to mention that, regrettably—my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) may just have alluded to this—there are allegations that there were some cases of trade union officials assisting in this process. The material included personal information, including on workers’ private relationships, whether they had raised health and safety issues, and their trade union activities. The copies of the files that I have seen give details of people’s specific movements on particular times and dates.

Before they recruited workers, association members would check with Mr Kerr whether the said worker was on the list, and if they were, they would be taken against, and were, more often than not, denied employment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern) said at the Select Committee’s cross examination of Mr Kerr, for £2.20, the association could dictate whether a worker got a job and so whether they could

“put a meal on the table that week.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

Let me just try to draw a line under this part of the argument. I am trying to be helpful; I do not see any particular value in having a party political barney over this. If there is evidence forthcoming about current practice, of course we want to have it investigated, and I will investigate it. For that reason, I am not going to recommend to my colleagues that they vote against the motion. It might well be true that there are issues here, and I do not want to close the door on the matter if there is evidence out there that needs investigating.

That is one set of issues, but there is a completely different perspective as far as the past is concerned. I will go over what happened in the past in a moment, but that is a different question. My responsibilities lie, as part of this Government, in dealing with things that might have happened over the past two and a half years. If things are happening, of course we must get to the bottom of it.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The question that forms in my mind is: have there been further cases of blacklisting since the regulations came into force? We have parliamentary privilege that we can use in the Chamber, and it is important that we should hear examples of blacklisting that have occurred since the regulations came into force, rather than simply holding an inquiry for the sake of holding an inquiry.

[Vince Cable]

That is, in a sense, what I was trying to say.