Skip to main content
Alexander taken to task over work scam response
Treasury Secretary angered MP with ‘complacent answer’

Labour's John Spellar vowed to call "complacent" Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander's bluff yesterday over a construction industry tax dodge now being used to steal cash from teachers and carers.

The Warley MP told the Star how a constituent working as a temp in schools had raised the alarm after being stung by his employer.

The entirely legal scam sees agencies pass people onto another firm's books - dubbed "umbrella" firms by construction union Ucatt - before "costs" and "expenses" are docked from their pay to cover employers' national insurance.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Members of the House of Lords seated ahead of the State Open
Britain / 28 October 2025
28 October 2025
WORKERS ON THE MARCH: Calling for a new deal for working people in 2022
TUC Congress 2025 / 8 September 2025
8 September 2025

Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP

A general view of Royal Mail vans at Swadlincote Post Office
Royal Mail / 27 June 2025
27 June 2025
A bus under construction at the Alexander Dennis bus manufacturers in Falkirk
Voices of Scotland / 17 June 2025
17 June 2025

As bus builder Alexander Dennis threatens Falkirk closure and Grangemouth faces ruthless shutdown by tax exile Jim Ratcliffe, RICHARD LEONARD MSP warns that global corporations must be resisted by a bold industrial strategy based on public ownership