Brown targets 'bogus self-employed' in Treasury crackdown

Chancellor Gordon Brown has said the Treasury will mount a crackdown on what he has called 'the bogus self-employed.'

News of the move came at a recent Labour Party economic meeting where Mr Brown said he was keen to re-examine self-employment, starting with the construction industry.

John Spellar, a Transport Minister, confirmed the Government would be looking into the general issue of self-employment.

He said: "This is of considerable interest to Government and rightly so, because it can distort competition between companies and can also cause a significant loss of revenue. It is an area that we need to be examining with the unions."

Construction unions’ concerns over bogus self-employment are based on the loss of workers’ employment rights. If a worker is deemed to be self-employed, they will lose benefits granted to employees such as redundancy and holiday pay. In addition, contractors do not have to pay the employer's National Insurance contribution of 12 per cent of salary, which the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) says could be used to develop the industry.

George Brumwell, General Secretary of UCATT, said the union's ultimate goal was to "persuade the Government to insist on directly employed workers on all public sector projects."

He said the Government procured nearly half of all work and should set an example.

He added: "Take the Channel Tunnel Rail Link for example. It is a largely public funded project, but in our view 25 per cent of all the workers are bogus self-employed."

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Richard Powell, UKTECH