MP sets out 5-point plan to reduce construction deaths

Michael Clapham MP, chair of UCATT's parliamentary group, has urged the government to pass legislation to ensure construction deaths are reduced, following news earlier this year that preliminary HSE figures for 2006/07 that fatalities have risen to 79.

Clapham was speaking as part of a Commons debate in response to the publication of a UCATT report undertaken by the Centre for Corporate Accountability which claimed that convictions following deaths in the construction industry had falled 75% between 1998 and 2004.

He set out a five-point plan which included:

• A fresh safety summit similar to that held in 2001 when all areas of the construction industry are brought together to discuss safety.

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  The urgent need for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to increase the number of prosecutions following health and safety breaches.

• A reversal in plans to cut staffing at the HSE.

• An Amendment introduced to the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) to include Director Duties (allowing for the imprisonment of individual directors).

• The Gangmasters Act to be extended to the construction industry to protect vulnerable migrant workers.

In the same debate, Harry Cohen MP argued criticised the low levels of fines imposed on companies prosecuted for the death fo a worker. He highlighted the situation by comparing the £5.5m fine that West Ham football club received over the transfer of two players, with the fine of a few thousand pounds that companies have been fined for errors of negligence which caused a worker's death.

MPs also expressed concerns over the possible employment models being considered for the 2012 Olympics. Cohen noted that the 2000 Games in Sydney had used direct employment, and there had been just one deat. Meanwhile, he said, a fragmented subcontractor model may have contributed to the deaths of 15 workers.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of UCATT said: "The parliamentary debate underlines the appalling loss of life, which routinely occurs in the construction industry. Lives are lost on an almost daily basis and the issue is never discussed or mentioned in the media. My union, working with our friends in Parliament, will not relax until the necess