Railway Ticket Offices

Debate between Andy McDonald and Chris Stephens

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on securing this debate. The fact that so many Members are present, representing a lot of political parties across the House, shows how much interest there is in the debate.

I am afraid that I do not share the trade union-bashing rhetoric of the hon. Member’s speech. I am a proud trade unionist. The trade union movement plays a vital role as a social partner in helping so many workers to improve their pay and working conditions. It is fascinating that while the hon. Member was speaking, I was reading the RMT briefing, and all the points made were similar—in fact, there was unique agreement between the RMT and the hon. Member. In seriousness, he is correct, and the points he makes are widely accepted not just by the trade union movement and by hon. Members, but by the wider public. They are important points that I want to address.

As the hon. Member and others have said, there is real concern about whether or not this is an actual consultation. Will it make changes, or is it a fait accompli? It is concerning to hear and read that as soon as the consultation happened, a section 188 redundancy notice was issued to the trade unions, putting 2,300 station staff jobs at risk. I commend the hon. Member for saying that he is supporting his former colleagues in the workplace, because these are people’s jobs and livelihoods. It is also concerning to read that at least one train company, Avanti West Coast, is already proceeding to make arrangements for letting agents to put out their ticket office spaces for rent. I hope that the Minister can tell us whether the consultation is a real consultation or a fait accompli.

The hon. Member and others mentioned the role of ticket office workers. We should listen to what ticket office workers are saying, which is that 97% of them believe that closing ticket offices will make it harder for passengers to get the best-value fare for their journey. The hon. Member made an excellent contribution on that point: he mentioned the Trainline app and others, and the fact that when there is a ticket office, people get the cheapest fare. That was a very important part of his speech, which I hope the Minister will answer.

Some 98% of ticket office workers say that closing ticket offices would worsen accessibility for disabled, deaf and older people, a point that was made very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows); 98% say that closing ticket offices would worsen the quality of service provided to passengers; 94% say that closing ticket offices would worsen passenger safety and security. That is a very real issue that a lot of Members have mentioned—people feel safe when tickets offices are staffed.

[Andy McDonald]

A few moments ago the hon. Member talked about ticket pricing, and staff do assist passengers through that minefield. Does he agree that when there are 55 million different products on the market in the rail industry, it is imperative to have people in ticket offices able to navigate the complexities of the system?

[Chris Stephens]

That is absolutely correct. The staff have the experience and knowledge to do that. It goes back to the points made about human interaction, but it is also about knowledge. Ticket office staff have that knowledge to be able to say, “If you buy a ticket to this place and then this place, that works out much better value for money.”

We have to take into consideration that ticket offices help people who are unbanked—there is still an issue in society around cash. We are having a debate in my constituency about bank closures, for example, and there was a bank closure debate in the Chamber last week. The points raised in that debate could easily be raised here. Ticket offices allow people to make part cash/part card payments because not everybody has online access to make those purchases.

There are real perceptions around how passengers feel safe at stations. Some train stations, sadly, have antisocial behaviour, often requiring police attendance. If there are no staff at the stations, that makes people feel unsafe and they believe it is inevitable that the situation would worsen.

Why, Mr Davies, is the Scottish National party intervening on ticket office closures in England? I know you are asking yourself that question, as many others are. It is because there are threatened ticket office closures in Scotland. Avanti West Coast wants to close the office in Glasgow, and London North Eastern Railway is proposing to close the ticket office in Edinburgh. It is ridiculous, as I heard someone say. The move to close almost all rail ticket offices in England would be disastrous and should be rolled back immediately. The Scottish Government’s advisers on accessible transport have described the move as “entirely unacceptable”. It appears that some Tory Ministers knew how bad the move would be for their constituents because it is reported that the Chancellor tried to protect his own constituency from closures before they were even announced.

Transport for All, a disabled people’s rights group, has called on people to reject the plans in the consultation as they will harm the rights and access of disabled people to transport. I do not believe in the private sector model in rail provision. I think the privatisation of rail has been a backward step for many people. I hope the Government will consider following Scotland’s lead and bring rail back into public ownership, because it is time we had a rail service for all that was for people, not for profit.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Andy McDonald and Chris Stephens

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

I will take that argument on, because I am coming on to amendment 39. Listening to our Conservative friends on the Government side of the Chamber, anyone would think that this Bill was about setting a minimum service level across the public sector. If only that was the case. That is not what it does. It sets a minimum service level only in the event of industrial action—on strike days, not non-strike days. The Minister has not yet told us what amendments he will accept—maybe that is the theatre he will provide at the end—but amendment 39 makes clear the concerns that many of us in this House have that minimum service levels should not be higher on a strike day than on a normal working day.

The reason for that, as anyone who has a trade union background can tell us, is that when employers come to trade unions to discuss the “life and limb” cover and ensure that all those arrangements are made, some employers then ask for more people on a strike day than they do on a non-strike day. That is just a fact—that is what employers try to do. Amendment 39 would address the point that a minimum level of service on a strike day should not be higher than it is on any other normal day.

Of course, that raises the question of the Government trying to get away with marking their own homework on the ILO conventions. They have determined the Bill complies with the ILO conventions—never mind what anybody else says—because they say so. The Government have marked their own homework, and they say we should be very grateful that they have done so; they are ILO-compliant, so we should just be quiet and accept it. Well, I am sorry, but I like to speak truth to power and to check things—always checking what is in the paperwork and in writing was part of my trade union training. Amendment 39 would ensure that there is a very real sense of the Government’s homework being marked, and that the Bill is compliant with ILO conventions and with the EHCR, which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) mentioned.

I will conclude my remarks on the issue of devolution, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is not just about Wales and Scotland, or indeed the Greater London Assembly. Every local authority in England that has a service of the sort mentioned in the Bill could have a minimum service level imposed on it by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. I do not know about you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it worries me to see the Secretary of State tweeting and referring to the weekend as unofficial strike days, as he did a few months ago. They were rest days, not unofficial strike days. I am concerned that we have a Secretary of State who does not seem to know what happens in a trade union working environment but is trying to set minimum levels of service on a strike day, not just in England, but in Wales and Scotland, affecting their devolved competencies.

If there was a strike in Glasgow by McGill’s Buses, it would be the Secretary of State who determined what the minimum bus level was for that weekend. That is really quite incredible—[Interruption.] The Minister can chunter all he likes, but that is what the Bill says. Agreeing to new clause 4 would sort out that issue, so perhaps the Minister could tell us which amendments he will accept.

[Andy McDonald]

I hear the Minister chuntering from a sedentary position about the Bill not covering buses, but that is not what it says. It covers “transport services” and its jurisdiction is UK-wide.

[Chris Stephens]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. That is the problem, is it not? The Bill says “transport services”, and that could be anything. It could be buses, taxis or the horse and cart for all we know, because the Bill is so open-ended.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that the Government will look at the amendments that my hon. Friends and I have tabled, which are an attempt to improve the Bill. Our main reason for opposing the Bill is that the Government will be impinging on devolution and on human rights, and they do not know what happens in a trade union-organised environment. That is why the Bill should not get a Third Reading.

Fairness at Work and Power in Communities

Debate between Andy McDonald and Chris Stephens

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark). I will concentrate much of my speech on employment, which is ironic, given the collective industrial action that appears to be taking place on the Conservative Benches. I just hope that the ballot was conducted in a legal way.

I may be alone in this, but I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) is no longer in his place. The anti-immigration rhetoric that he was using is in stark contrast to the reality of the situation. I do not believe that any human being is illegal. When we use words like “illegal” about fellow human beings, we are on very dangerous ground indeed.

In stark contrast, though, I have been in tears of joy over the past few days, but I can assure Members that it is not over the Queen’s Speech. I am delighted to say that it is over the great news of the council elections. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, the good people of Glasgow South West are among the most sophisticated electorate in these islands. In the Greater Pollok ward, they hit it out of the park. They have elected the great Roza Salih, who becomes the first refugee elected as a councillor in Scotland. What a wonderful achievement that is for this “brilliant young woman”, as the First Minister of Scotland said. This is someone who has served with distinction in the Glasgow South West constituency office. She was so good that she has been promoted twice: she is currently the office manager, and has helped to serve constituents diligently. She will make a fantastic councillor. Is that not something, when we hear the rhetoric from some on the Government Benches about “immigrants”? They use this anti-immigrant language, when we have a brilliant young woman who is now engaging in public service. That is why I want asylum seekers to be given the right to work.

The Blair Government made a mistake when they stopped asylum seekers having the right to work. It is absolutely scandalous that we allow asylum seekers to live on the equivalent of what I was earning as a youth trainee with Strathclyde Regional Council 30 years ago. It is not right. After a period of time—say, six months—asylum seekers should have the right to work and make their contribution to this economy.

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on this issue. The Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme has a lot to recommend it, if only it worked properly for everybody. It is absolutely right that people should have recourse to public funds and to work, but surely that should apply to every refugee; it should not simply be restricted to one group. I am delighted that this group has that, but should it not go across the board universally?

[Chris Stephens]

I agree with the hon. Member. People who seek sanctuary in this country want to make a positive contribution across these islands. There should be a right to work.