Following an alarming rise in building site deaths, the Government is hosting high-level talks in London with unions, employers and safety officials in an attempt to take action.

Peter Hain, the tanned Work and Pensions Secretary, arranged the meeting in response to an unacceptable 28 per cent increase in the number of such deaths over the past year – according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the number of deaths increased from 60 to 77.

In an interview with the BBC, Hain insisted that health and safety regulations must apply to all construction sites. He is expected to call for building workers to have better skills as well as an understanding of health and safety issues, and will also urge that union health and safety representatives are appointed at every building site.

‘Seventy-seven people were killed last year and it was a big jump by over a quarter on the deaths the previous year,’ he lamented. ‘This is not acceptable and I am bringing together the industry, the HSE and the Government, together with the trade unions to agree on a new plan to make sure that health and safety on all building sites is paramount.’ Hain believes there is already a consensus on the need to drive the ‘informal’ economy out of the house-building sector.

Meanwhile, construction workers union UCATT argues that safety could be improved if workers were employed by the company rather than being self-employed because many self-employed workers (including migrants) are denied employment rights and don’t receive potentially life-saving safety training.