Blacklisting

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Gloria De Piero

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered blacklisting.

I should say at the outset that I am pleased that the Minister for corporate responsibility will respond to the debate, because, as she responded to the debate that I held in the previous Parliament earlier this year, she will be familiar with the issues.

For the benefit of the record in this Parliament, I want to recap what we are talking about. Imagine a person who has spent years acquiring the skills to work on construction sites around the country. No one ever complained about the quality of their work or their work ethic. They happen to be an active member of their trade union, keen to ensure that they and their colleagues have a safe and pleasant working environment—nothing out of the ordinary. Then, on one occasion, they raise a serious health and safety concern—no small matter, given that an average of 39 construction workers are killed at work every year in the UK—and ever since they have not been able to get work. That is what happened to thousands of construction workers for decades. They were blacklisted, and no one has ever been brought properly to book for it.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, far from being barred from employment, those people in construction who raised health and safety issues and have been blacklisted should be commended and saluted?

[Chuka Umunna]

Absolutely—I could not agree more. I will outline some of the things people have done and matters on which they have campaigned for justice. Blacklisting is the shady, underhand practice of sharing information on workers without their knowledge and then systematically denying them employment on the basis of that information. The practice first hit the headlines in 2009, when the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the premises of a disreputable organisation called the Consulting Association. When it raided that association, it found a blacklist of more than 3,000 construction workers. The association was funded and used for years by more than 40 of the country’s biggest construction firms to vet employees.

The association, set up in 1993, was the successor to another disreputable organisation called the Economic League, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) will mention later. The construction companies fed the association detailed information about workers without their knowledge. Whenever the companies made hiring decisions, they checked applicants’ names against the association’s list. If they were on it, they were usually refused work—they were denied the abilityto do their job and provide for their family.

Essentially, the system facilitated systematic victimisation and denial of work simply because workers had raised legitimate health and safety concerns in the past or because they were a member of a trade union or a political party. It was, and still is, an outrage. The nature of some of the information held about people on the list—their religion, national insurance number, car registrations and so on—strongly suggests that the data were collected with the collusion of the police and/or security services. That is why it is entirely fitting that the Blacklist Support Group members, many of whom are here, have been granted core participant status in the Pitchford inquiry into undercover policing.

Those who suffered and are victims now have three principle routes of redress. The Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 now outlaw blacklisting, but they came into force too late for those who suffered at the hands of the Consulting Association. The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 stops people being discriminated against on the basis of being a member of a union, and the Data Protection Act 1998 can be used against those who abuse and misuse people’s personal data. The late Ian Kerr, who was chief officer of the Consulting Association, was fined a paltry £5,000 after the ICO’s raid because only later were fines levied under that Act substantially increased.

Construction Industry: Blacklisting

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Gloria De Piero

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Umunna]

The hon. Gentleman must be telepathic because he pre-empts what I will come on to. I will address that issue later.

First, it is important to state that although the issue has brought shame on the construction sector, there is still much to be proud of in the sector—look at the Olympic Park venues, Heathrow Terminal 5 and the new buildings that we see springing up around us on time and on budget in so many different communities. Let us also never forget why the sector is the success it is: primarily because of its construction workers. They build the offices and factories we work in. They build the homes in which we live. As a nation, we owe them a huge debt of gratitude, particularly when we consider those who have lost their lives working on construction sites in this country.

There is also a dark side to the sector—anyone who has worked in it knows this only too well—that leads to good people being subject to the most terrible injustices. As a result, lives have been ruined, families have been torn apart and many have been forced out of the industry.

What am I talking about? What is blacklisting? For the record, it involves systematically compiling information on workers, which is then used by employers or recruiters to discriminate against them, not because of their ability to do the job, but because they have raised health and safety issues or been active trade union members. It has meant that people cannot find work and therefore cannot support their families—they cannot put food on their children’s plates—and the result is all the stress and upheaval that come with that.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about many lives being ruined by the blacklisting of workers. Does he agree that it is time we put on record the work that the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, Unite and the GMB have done in securing settlements for the workers who were treated so badly?

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She, too, must be telepathic. Not only am I a member of Unite and the GMB, and proud to be so, but UCATT, which is now part of Unite, is headquartered in the centre of the universe: my constituency. The work that the unions have done is so important. I practised for almost a decade as an employment law solicitor before being elected by my constituents and I have seen injustice in the workplace, but I have never seen injustice on this scale.

The extent of the blacklisting activity in the construction sector was exposed for all to see following the raid in 2009 by the Information Commissioner’s Office on the shadowy and secretive organisation called the Consulting Association. Further details emerged in the last Parliament, during an excellent and extensive inquiry into blacklisting carried out by the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) mentioned the work of the unions, and a lot of the evidence provided to that Select Committee was provided by those trade unions, which also worked with the ICO, as well as by the blacklisting support group.

The Consulting Association was born out of a right-wing organisation called the Economic League, which was set up in 1919 to promote free enterprise and to fight left-wing thinking, to which it objected. That included Members of this House. The former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had information collected on him. The league, which blacklisted more than 10,000 people, was wound up in 1993, but its construction sector member companies wanted to continue this unforgivable practice and its activities, so the Consulting Association was born.

According to the Information Commissioner, 44 construction companies made up the hall of shame that was the membership of the Consulting Association at the time of the 2009 raid, including five companies in the Amec group, Amey Construction Ltd, six Balfour Beatty companies, BAM Construction Ltd, Carillion plc, Kier Ltd, Laing O’Rourke Services Ltd, Morgan Est and Morgan Ashurst, which are now known as Morgan Sindall, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, Skanska UK plc, Taylor Woodrow Construction, and VINCI plc —to name just a few of the companies listed. In 2009, half of the 20 biggest construction companies were all named as being involved in the association.