Business & Enterprise report: UCATT sees 'some positives'

Construction union Ucatt has offered a lukewarm reponse to the Business & Enterprise Committee's report into the construction industry, describing it as 'patchy' with 'some positives'.

The union welcomed comments in the Construction Matters report, which follows a 15-month inquiry into the construction sector, that goverment should be playing a greater role in regulating construction, as its biggest client.

It also agreed with a call for the Health and Safety Executive to "devote more resources to inspection" to combat fatalities in the workplace.

But it said it was disappointed that the report did not go further than simply recognising that 'bogus self-employment' and 'unlicensed gangmasters'  were issues in the industry.

Ucatt general secretary Alan Ritchie said: "Bogus self-employment and gangmasters are making many construction worker’s lives a misery. Workers are stripped of their rights and exploited on a daily basis. The Construction Industry Scheme [the unique self-employment tax scheme in the construction industry] is an abject failure; it cannot be reformed and must be scrapped.

"Equally the Government at the earliest opportunity must extend the Gangmaster’s Act to the construction industry, to stop the abuses levelled at predominantly migrant workers."