Builder Robert McAlpine denies keeping blacklist

Guardian News and Media/London

Construction company Sir Robert McAlpine has admitted to a high court judge - before a hearing this week -  that a database of names and information held on workers over decades helped it “keep an eye” on individuals, but it denies that the data amounted to an employment blacklist.

The firm, which along with others allegedly used the store of information to keep 3,300 workers out of the industry, says that where negative information was held, it was merely used to help the company keep an eye out for future dangerous or unlawful activity.

Defence papers filed by the company before the start on Friday of a high court case between it and the alleged victims, admit that the records on file at the Consulting Association - the organisation which held the list on behalf of construction firms  - breached the Data Protection Act.

The firm also admits that, on the exposure of the Consulting Association, whose activities they admit had been kept confidential, they made a redundancy payment to the wife of its chief executive, Ian Kerr, and to his daughters, but added: “Insofar as it is intended to be implicitly alleged that payments were made by (the defendants) in return for Kerr not mentioning the role of (the defendants) in the foundation and operation of the Consulting Association during the legal proceedings, the same is denied.”

The papers add of Kerr, who died this year: “The payments were made to Kerr’s daughters expressly at the request of Kerr.”

Workers allege that the Consulting Association, funded by at least 20 major names in the construction industry, ran a clandestine database of names for the industry for decades; and that the database was used to keep trade union activists, and those who warned of health and safety issues, unemployed.

The paper database was seized more than three years ago, but the nature of the information held only fully emerged following an employment tribunal against a different construction firm last year on behalf of one of the victims: Dave Smith, 46, an engineer who had a 36-page file against his name and was victimised for highlighting safety hazards on sites.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said at Smith’s tribunal that it believed some of the information accessible to companies that subscribed to the service “could only have been supplied by the police or the security services”.

On Friday, solicitors for groups of alleged victims variously represented by the solicitors Guney, Clark Ryan and the unions Unite, GMB and Ucatt, will attend court to hear how the case will be dealt with by the judge over the coming months.

The Observer understands that lawyers representing the supposed victims intend to raise as yet unpublicised evidence which they say links Kerr to Sir Robert McAlpine, including a claim that Kerr’s Mercedes was registered to a company PO box, although it denies having a central role in the Consulting Association’s establishment and maintenance.