Unite has called on the UK's construction industry to "spell out" its training plans for British workers "to avoid a calamitous Brexit".

Industry leaders such as the Federation of Master Builders, Build UK and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association have published a 'Construction Industry Brexit Manifesto' which warned house builders faced a 'cliff edge' in terms of its access to migrant workers once the UK leaves the EU in March 2019.

Two key messages in the document include:

• The Government should agree a transition period of at least two years as soon as possible, during which time EU workers arriving in the UK should continue to have a path to settled status; and

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• The post-transitional migration system should be based on key occupations that are in short supply, rather than on arbitrary thresholds based on skill levels or income.

However, Unite said it is time the industry demonstrated it was committed to training home grown British talent through the provision of high quality apprenticeships, rather than relying on EU labour.

Unite Assistant General Secretary Gail Cartmail said: "The ongoing uncertainty over the rights of EU citizens to remain in the UK is resulting in workers leaving the UK and is exacerbating the deepening construction skills crisis and threatening to seriously damage the industry.

"But those trade bodies need to set out what they intend to do to kick their addiction to cheap, foreign labour and horrific employment practices, not just ask how they can go on relying on EU labour after March 2019.

"Tens of thousands of young people are being placed in 'dead end' classroom-based construction courses and these courses totally dwarf the number of construction apprentices beginning their training.

"This is at the same time that the CITB plans to cease providing training directly and instead divest courses to other training providers. It is clear that the industry needs to get its house in order."

(LM/JP)