Peers questioned minister Lord Martin Callanan over the government’s lack of progress on retentions reform.
Lord Callanan, a junior minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy whose remit includes corporate responsibility, said the government is still working with the Construction Leadership Council and others to try to reach a consensus on retentions.
His comments maintained the government’s neutral stance on the controversial topic, set out in February last year as it published the results of a public consultation on retentions reform. The consultation concluded three years ago, in January 2018.
In the House of Lords debate, crossbench hereditary peer Lord Aberdare, Alastair Bruce, noted that it is also three years since the collapse of Carillion, which resulted in “many small construction firms losing hundreds of millions of pounds in retentions”. He asked: “What are the government doing now to prevent small construction firms, already un
A standard COVID-19 test
Laing O’Rourke has called for industry coordination of rapid coronavirus testing, after the health secretary talked up the prospect of widespread checks on those who have to attend workplaces.
On Sunday, Matt Hancock called on local authorities to target extra testing at people who cannot work from home during the current lockdown. The majority of those efforts, however, are focused on people defined as “critical workers” – excluding a large part of the industry, despite the government’s ongoing encouragement for construction work to continue.
After liaising with the Department of Health and Social Care, Network Rail has started a rapid-testing pilot at five of its sites in the South of England, where it has seen a high number of workers told to self-isolate through the NHS COVID-19 app. Participation is voluntary.