Home Office lobbies for EU-wide safety fines

Home Office minister Lord Filkin is leading a UK move to close an EU legal loophole where fines for site safety offences in one country are not enforceable on firms from other member states.

The minister said: "A significant number of people escape fines amounting to millions of euros for offences committed abroad by returning to their home country elsewhere in the EU."

A Construction Confederation spokesman said: "This is something we have been lobbying for for a number of years."

But the Home Office has refuted one report that claimed that a reciprocal deal had already been struck.