Employment Rights: Government Plans

Debate between Andy McDonald and Stephen Doughty

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald]

There is a clear and active discussion about working time and the quality of life for working people. Since time immemorial, that discussion has taken place. I have no doubt that it will be a subject for debate and consideration between now and the next election, and way beyond. It is a perfectly proper area of debate.

The Secretary of State has spent a career calling for employment protections to be weakened, so he has a lot of ground to cover if he is to persuade the country’s 30 million-plus workers that he is on their side.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hard workers my hon. Friend is talking about includes the many British Gas workers in my constituency, GMB members I met last week. I was very surprised to be told by them that the chief executive of British Gas had called personally to put pressure on them to accept new, worse terms. Bizarrely, he suggested that senior Labour figures had endorsed that. Will my hon. Friend confirm that that is absolute nonsense, that we stand in solidarity with them and that British Gas should get back around the table for serious negotiations? Of course, I draw attention to my membership of the GMB and the support that it has provided me.

[Andy McDonald]

I am more than happy and delighted to confirm that that is utter and complete nonsense. Is it likely? I just ask people: is that really likely? Of course it is not.

If the Secretary of State now wants to say that the 48-hour cap, holiday pay entitlements and rest breaks will be protected, and that he will scrap the planned consultation, perhaps he can say so in unequivocal terms here today and vote for our motion.

Today’s motion also calls on the Government to set a timetable to introduce legislation to end “fire and rehire” tactics. It is not a new phenomenon, but it has gained prominence because of the conduct of major employers such as British Airways, Heathrow and British Gas—some in circumstances that they claim to be justified by the covid pandemic. It is about sacking workers and hiring them back on lower wages and worse terms and conditions, including 20,000 British Gas employees who kept working through the pandemic to keep customers’ homes warm and worked with the Trussell Trust to deliver food parcels. I think of the engineer who explained that he was often the only face that people living in isolation were seeing. This is how they are repaid.

Income tax (charge)

Debate between Andy McDonald and Stephen Doughty

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Clearly these are extraordinary times, and everything that we say and do is said and done through the prism of the response to the coronavirus emergency. I thank the Secretary of State for his kind remarks, and also for his courtesy and candour in keeping me briefed as these events unfold. I hope that that conversation continues, and I recommit myself and my party to working with the Government to counter this national and international emergency. I send my sincere sympathies to those who have lost loved ones, and my sincerest thanks to our NHS and public service workers for their incredible work to date and what they will do in the future in response to what is the greatest peacetime challenge to face our country for more than 100 years.

While these are indeed abnormal times, I will endeavour to turn my attention and that of the House to a time when our focus will hopefully return to other matters which we would normally address. Before I do so, however, may I raise with the Secretary of State some points that have arisen overnight and in recent times? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) rightly said yesterday, it is no fault of the Chancellor, but his Budget is clearly out of date, and, sadly, a major reappraisal is already necessary. Accordingly, I very much welcome the news that he is to make a statement to the House later today about the additional measures that he intends to take.

Yesterday, at a press conference, the Prime Minister advised people to avoid pubs, restaurants and theatres, but despite that advice, which will result in many businesses being unable to operate and will cause job losses or loss of income, there was no sufficient accompanying support. Will the Secretary of State implore the Prime Minister, and others, to ensure that the right support is made available? I trust that, in addition, the Government will ensure that insurers do not plead force majeure and avoid their liabilities.

The Government are also asking people to self-isolate, but are not providing the financial assistance that those people need. It is not only unfair to ask people to enact social distancing and to self-isolate if necessary without giving them adequate support; it is dangerous and counterproductive, because it risks discouraging people from taking necessary action. In France, after the announcement of similar but more stringent measures, the French Government announced that electricity, gas and rental bills would be suspended. Why has the United Kingdom not announced similar measures?

It is being reported that private train companies are already requesting bail-outs or renegotiations of their contracts. Social distancing will hit fares revenue hard, making franchises unprofitable for some train operating companies, and with demand for travel down, there may be a temptation to run services at a different frequency from what is specified in the franchise agreements. However, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I ask the Secretary of State to consider the possibility that contagion will be reduced by the presence of fewer passengers with the same level of service. No doubt the medical officers and others will advise.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making some important and constructive points. I do not know whether he is aware that the First Minister of Wales has just sent a letter to the Chancellor, in which he makes clear that we will have to intervene in an unprecedented way. Does my hon. Friend approve of the measures that he has suggested, such as tax holidays, loan guarantees to help productive capacity, underwriting the wages of employees who are affected, and, if necessary, the temporary nationalisation of key transport infrastructure?

[Andy McDonald]

Those are indeed the sorts of responses that we hope to see emerge from the Government Dispatch Box later today. I entirely agree with the approach taken by the Welsh Government.

As I was saying—and my hon. Friend has echoed my view—the state should not bail out the private train companies. Indeed, the fact that those companies are already wanting to be bailed out demonstrates why it is irresponsible for public services to be run in the private sector. Rather than offering a bailout, the Government should offer to take back the keys and return the services to public ownership.

The aviation sector has been hit incredibly hard by the outbreak of coronavirus. We have already seen the collapse of Flybe with 2,000 job losses, not to mention the impact that that will have on jobs at regional airports and across the supply chain. Of course, many thousands of UK citizens are still overseas and will want to return, so the Secretary of State has my full support for his efforts to sustain services to facilitate such repatriation.

Indeed, it is not only a question of passengers: many vital goods and medicines are transported in the belly holds of aircraft. Can the Secretary of State tell us what specific measures are being taken to ensure that those supplies are maintained?

Clearly many people are going to extraordinary lengths to assist their neighbours and their communities, and I know that businesses will bend over backwards to help their loyal workforces at this time. That being so, will the Secretary of State send a message to major employers asking them to do what they can to sustain their employees’ incomes, and will he give an assurance that workers will also be supported by the underwriting of the majority of their wages by the Government should temporary cessations of trading be necessary?

Transport

Debate between Andy McDonald and Stephen Doughty

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House acknowledges that the UK’s transport emissions have not substantially fallen since 1990 and have increased since 2010; and calls on the Government to develop and implement a plan to eliminate the substantial majority of transport emissions by 2030, to decarbonise the UK’s entire bus network, to invest in an electric vehicle charging network that can support the majority of vehicles on the UK’s roads by 2030, to cut bus and rail fares, to increase public transport patronage, to provide funding for cycling and walking, including investment in cycleways and grants for ebikes, to introduce a network of clean air zones to tackle illegal levels of air pollution, and to bring aviation emissions within the UK’s climate targets.

The fires blazing in Australia are a catastrophe for that nation and its people, but it is not the only country at risk from such ravages. The burning infernos are a reminder of the new landscape that the climate crisis is creating across the world. The challenge is no longer abstract but a very real and devastating reality. I am proud, therefore, of the Labour party’s pledge to put tackling the climate crisis at the heart of our transport and wider economic policy. It is both right and necessary, not least because since 2010 the transport policies of Tory Governments have done so much to undermine sustainable transport.

The Government have failed to provide leadership on climate change. Those are not my words, but those of the former Conservative rail and environment Minister Claire O’Neill. She also said that the Government were “miles off track” in the setting of a positive agenda for the COP26 United Nations summit in Glasgow, and that “promises” of action were

“not close to being met.”

The Prime Minister’s pledge yesterday to make the UK a world leader in the tackling of climate change is beyond risible. This is not year zero. The Tories have been in power for a decade, and some of us have not forgotten the last 10 years of broken promises and empty pledges on transport. Here are a few.

The “Road to Zero” transport decarbonisation strategy had no money or political will behind it, so is barely worth the paper it was written on. There have been vast cuts in bus funding and services; huge cuts in rail electrification programmes; support for airport expansion; and major road expansion programmes. Those actions are a matter of fact and public record. They are not the actions of a Government who are serious about tackling the climate crisis; they are the actions of a Government without a relevant transport policy.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend contrast that with the approach being taken by the Welsh Labour Government? In my constituency, for example, they are supporting the building of a new station east of Cardiff, St Mellons Parkway, with funds working to ensure that more people can have access to public transport—green public transport —in the east of the city.