In the few moments that I have, I want to point out that self-employment is being used by far too many employers to engage workers in the construction industry, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) pointed out. According to the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and
Technicians report “The Evasion Economy”, 400,000 workers are being engaged in that way. Those workers miss out on the rights that normal workers get. According to another UCATT report, “The Great Payroll Scandal”, this practice is costing the Exchequer up to £1.9 billion per annum.
When I talked to construction workers on Friday night, they spoke of the scandal of payroll companies making millions of pounds. This is a legitimised dodgy practice. The companies get workers to sign a contract to say that they are self-employed, but they work for a single employer. In any legal sense, their status would be defined as a direct employee, yet they lose all the rights that we have spoken about. It should no longer be possible for companies to instruct such construction workers to turn up on site when they want them. Construction workers need the security of employment rights and full national insurance contributions should be paid.