A Labour MP has secured a parliamentary debate in order to urge ministers to ban contractors embroiled in the construction blacklisting scandal from public works

Michael Clapham, MP for Barnsley West and Penistone, recommended that the most enthusiastic contributors to the Consulting Association鈥檚 blacklist, which collected data on employees including union activity, should not be selected for public contracts.

In Parliament last month, Harriet Harman, leader of the Commons, said: 鈥淣o trade union health and safety representative should find that, as a result of speaking up on behalf of colleagues, they are on a blacklist and are never able to work again.

鈥淭he government is totally opposed to that, and wants to make sure that there is most effective enforcement when that happens.鈥�

In an adjournment debate, Clapham urged ministers from the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) to go further.

Clapham, a member of the trade and industry select committee, referred to blacklisting as 鈥渄espicable鈥�.

鈥淚 will be urging the ministers involved to think about the companies who they could be employing. Work in the future should be given to someone else.鈥�

The government had intended to make blacklisting illegal as part of the 1999 Employment Relations Act, but the regulations were never introduced because the government believed that blacklisting no longer existed.

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor