Blacklisting

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I am happy with that intervention, which basically confirms what I have just said. If the law at the moment is not suitable, it needs to be changed. If there is proof of blacklisting from 2010 onwards when the law was introduced, an investigation should be initiated. If we find that the law is still being contravened and is not suitable to resolve the problem, that law needs to be looked at. I think the Secretary of State implied that in his contribution.

I come from the engineering industry, which is equally as dangerous as the construction industry, although I think engineering receives far more visits from the Health and Safety Executive than the construction and mining industries. Perhaps we could get some information from the Health and Safety Executive on why it feels that blacklisting is creating a lot of health and safety issues.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman elaborate ever so slightly on how he believes the Health and Safety Executive could confirm whether blacklisting is taking place in any industry?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

The debate has been well received, apart from the contribution by the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who made some disparaging remarks about a whole number of people which were totally and utterly outrageous. It is good to see that he is completely isolated. Hopefully, that will remain the case. I, for one, will not be rising to the bait. I am very proud to be a member of a number of trade unions, and to represent trade unions both in Parliament and in my constituency.

I welcome the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the shadow Business Secretary. I share his desire to end the obscene scandal of blacklisting. At Prime Minister’s questions, an issue was raised about the secrecy of the secret services and the police being involved in trade unions, blacklisting and other things. I was in a meeting this morning with representatives of the Shrewsbury pickets, who were on strike in 1972. Some were jailed and some died as a consequence, and they are still looking for justice. They have just received a letter from a Minister saying that even though it happened nearly 40 years ago, the papers relating to the case will not be released because it is a matter of national security. The individual concerned was Jim Royle—Mr Tomlinson—whose reaction to that was, “My arse!” That is a quotation from him, not from me—it is the way he is.

I merely highlight the point that there are interventions and happenings by the security services and the police with ordinary working people every day of the year. For the Secretary of State to suggest that we do not have any evidence, or that it might not be happening at this point in time, is pure poppycock. Of course it is happening. The reason why people are not rushing forward with evidence is that the evidence is not at hand. There might be people here who have been, and still are, on a blacklist, but they are not sure, so how can they come forward? The difference now is that recently, in the Scottish Affairs inquiry, a whole number of people have given evidence agreeing that not only have they been involved in blacklisting, but they have been operating blacklisting for a cost, to the detriment of thousands and thousands of people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) said that blacklisting goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. A little bit of research showed that, according to the “Henry Holt Encyclopaedia of Word and Phrase Origins”, the word “blacklist” originated with a list that England’s King Charles II made of 58 judges and court officers who sentenced his father to death. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, some 13 of those executioners were put to death and 25 sentenced to life imprisonment. The others escaped. Times have changed, of course, which is not to say that some Government Members, perhaps the hon. Member for Keighley, agree that people on blacklists might be beheaded in the future. I am not suggesting that that is the case, however, and I will move on.

Some 400 years have passed since we had the 17th-century monarch taking away individuals lives; now we have 21st-century employers destroying people’s lives by denying them the opportunity to earn a living.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts about what the punishment should be for individual directors who, through their companies, fund the organisation of blacklists? Would he suggest that they be struck off as directors and barred from holding such office?

[Ian Lavery]

That is a very important question indeed, which I will come on to, if I get that far in my speech.

The blacklisting of trade unionists is an unfair and insidious practice that involves the systematic compilation of information about individual trade unionists by their employers and recruiters in order to discriminate against them, although not just because they are members of trade unions. There are people on blacklists who are not members of trade unions, but who have merely been to their employer and exercised their rights under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said. If there is something wrong in the workplace, there is a duty under that Act to report it. As far as we are aware, people have suffered the consequences of doing that.

We are all very much aware of the information being discussed by the Scottish Affairs Committee. To be honest, I think it has been invaluable, because it has brought the issue to the forefront. For many years it has been hidden, but for the first time we now have real evidence. I believe that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham said, information will come forward after this debate for the Secretary of State to make some decisions on an inquiry. Some 3,600 files were seized by the Information Commissioner’s Office—files on politicians, academics, journalists, trade unionists and people who might just say, “Boo!” to their employers, who might not like it. There are many, many files. The Consulting Association’s blacklist, however, contained around 3,213 individuals and was used by more than 40 contractors, including most major UK construction firms, which vet individuals for employment.

A mass of information was left behind because it was not covered by any warrant. The information seized revealed that 40 of the biggest construction companies in Britain were drawn to paying money to find out who they should not employ. They included household names such as Taylor Woodrow, McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Skandia and Carillion. To pick up the point my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) made, on its own admission, Carillion has had £2.5 billion per annum from public contracts, at the same time as placing ordinary citizens on blacklists and stopping them working. It cannot be allowed and it must be stopped as soon as practicably possible. From July to September 2008, McAlpine spent £12,839 making 5,836 blacklist checks—a total of 63 a day. That corresponded with McAlpine’s building of the Olympic stadium. How disgraceful can you get? A major company such as McAlpine penalising people for whatever, at the same time as having multi-million-pound Government contracts, is, as many people have said, absolutely insidious.

I believe we should perhaps go a little further than we have discussed today. I am obviously willing for more debate and discussion; indeed, if the Secretary of State is furnished with enough information, we should have a public inquiry into blacklisting on a par with Leveson. We need to call for those guilty of blacklisting not to be given any more public contracts until they apologise and compensate people and their families for blacklisting them. We definitely need a change in the law to make blacklisting a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and unlimited fines. That would be a deterrent for blacklisting—that is something that we should be looking at and it should be in legislation. Carillion has been named. It is important that other organisations come clean, come to the fore, step up to the plate, erase the past, look to the future and stop blacklisting people, causing mayhem and financial distress to many, many people.

My heart gans out to them people who might be listening to this debate and thinking, “I’ve not had a job for many years; I wonder if I’m on the list,” and they cannot find out whether they are. Let us deliver a real result from this debate for those people, hopefully, as has been suggested—the Secretary of State says he has an open door—with the information we can bring forward. Let us hope that this is the first of many important debates to ensure that justice is seen to be done for those on blacklists and to prevent blacklisting in the future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

We have had a good debate today on an absolutely appalling practice. There have been light-hearted moments when hon. Members have mused on their own blacklisting history, but there is no way in which we can make light of the impact of the practice on individuals and their families. Many hon. Members have powerfully and eloquently expressed, through stories from their constituents, how it has wrecked careers, families and lives, made it impossible for people to get a job, and created huge financial problems, health problems and emotional stress.

We have talked about the past, and I enjoyed the history lessons from the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who talked about etymology, going back to the 1600s, and from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who talked about his grandfather’s experience. He also told the House the horrendous story of the rather dodgy guy posing as an employee on behalf of the Economic League. That showed the extent to which some people were prepared to go to get information.

More recently, persistent suspicions and concerns were raised in the 1990s, which resulted in, among other things, the Employment Relations Act 1999. Regulations were drafted in 2003 and implemented in 2010, after the scandal of the 2009 Information Commissioner’s Office investigation. I want to dwell briefly on that investigation. It was launched after information was passed to the Information Commissioner suggesting that there had been serious breaches of data protection legislation. That demonstrates that the ICO is willing to investigate and to take action when it is provided with information and evidence, including anecdotal evidence.

I absolutely understand the feelings that have been expressed in the House today, however. The £5,000 fine imposed on the gentleman who had been running the Consulting Association was described by the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) as “paltry”. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) said that he wanted to see criminal sanctions imposed on those involved in the activities. Frustration was expressed by hon. Members that no one had been brought to book for what had been happening.

I absolutely share that frustration and that sense of injustice, but that was the regime that was being operated at the time. The £5,000 fine seems paltry, given the impact of the activities on so many thousands of people, but it was the maximum that could be imposed at the time. Calls have been made for criminal action to be taken, but those practices did not constitute a criminal offence at the time and we cannot make them a crime retrospectively. That is a convention that the House follows, with good reason, and we must abide by that principle.

[Ian Lavery]

The problem was not so much that the £5,000 fine was paltry; it was the fact that it was paid by a company that was carrying out blacklisting: Sir Robert McAlpine.

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is fair to say that Members have also expressed concern about the level of the fine, however, and it is right that the legislation now in place allows for a fine of up to £500,000. That is far more appropriate for such a serious offence.

I appreciate that there has been a generally good tone to the debate today, and that it has not been overly partisan, but it is simply factual to point out that if the 2003 regulations had been implemented in 2003, the victims uncovered by the investigation in 2009 could have received compensation of £5,000 or more each, and a fine of up to £500,000 could have been levied—£5,000 might not seem very much to a big construction company, but £500,000 certainly does.

It is also worth looking at the list of 3,213 people who the Information Commission uncovered were on the Consulting Association’s blacklist. One point that has not been made today—I want to put it clearly on the record because there are people who are interested in this issue and will be following proceedings—is that anyone concerned that they might have been on the blacklist can either go to the ICO’s website, at ico.gov.uk, or call the fast-track helpline on 0303 123 1113, to find out whether they were on it.