Industrial Action: Minimum Service Levels

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

Earlier this year Parliament passed the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. The Act seeks to balance the ability of workers to strike with the rights and freedoms of the public to go about their daily lives, including getting to work and accessing key services.

Most major European countries, such as France, Italy and Spain, have had some form of minimum service level regime for many years, and organisations such as the International Labour Organisation have recognised that such approaches can be an appropriate way of balancing the ability to strike with the rights of the wider public.



Where minimum service level regulations are in place, the Act requires trade unions to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that their members who are identified in a work notice do not take strike action during the periods in which they are required by the work notice to work and comply with the work notice.

During the passage of the Act, the Government committed to bring forward a statutory code of practice setting out more detail on the “reasonable steps” that trade unions should take.



I am pleased to inform the House that yesterday we laid a statutory code of practice on reasonable steps to be taken by a trade union (minimum service levels) in Parliament for approval. This follows a public consultation on the draft code and careful consideration of the feedback received. A Government response to that consultation was also published yesterday.



The code of practice is issued under section 203 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and sets out four steps that trade unions should take to meet the legal requirement under the Act:



Step 1: Identification of members—Trade unions should identify those of their members who are identified in a work notice;

Step 2: Encouraging individual members to comply with a work notice—Trade unions should send an individual communication or notice to each member identified in a work notice to advise them not to strike during the periods in which they are required by the work notice to work, as well as to encourage them to comply with the work notice.

Step 3: Picketing—Picket supervisors will be instructed by the trade union to use reasonable endeavours to ensure that picketers avoid, so far as reasonably practicable, trying to persuade members who are identified in a work notice not to cross the picket line at times when they are required by the work notice to work;

Step 4: Assurance—Once a work notice is received by the union, trade unions should ensure that they do not do other things that undermine the steps they take to meet the reasonable steps requirement.

Subject to parliamentary approval, the code will be issued and brought into effect by the Secretary of State in accordance with the procedure set out in section 204 of the 1992 Act.



We will also shortly publish separate, non-statutory guidance on the issuing of work notices in relation to minimum service levels.

[HCWS32]