Blacklisting

Debate between John Grogan and Chuka Umunna

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[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.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

My constituent Sandy Macpherson of Ilkley was one of the plaintiffs in the recent case. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is now a strong case for making blacklisting a criminal offence with strong sanctions, including big fines and possible imprisonment in the worst cases?

[Chuka Umunna]

I wholeheartedly agree. My hon. Friend talks about litigation, and in July 2014 Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and VINCI plc, which were all involved in blacklisting and in funding the Consulting Association, established a compensation scheme for individual workers affected by blacklisting and made an apology of sorts for what happened. However, their scheme was established unilaterally without agreement on the terms with the trade unions representing workers. Other firms that were part of the hall of shame involved with the association such as the Amec Group, Amey, BAM Construction, Morgan Sindall and Taylor Woodrow did not sign up to the scheme.