Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Haskel

Committee stage
Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committee (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, if this amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 9 or 10, because of pre-emption.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, you could make almost the same speech on every amendment in this group, because, frankly, the Bill is ill thought-out.

I remind noble Lords of my position as the honorary president of BALPA, the pilot union, so I thought it appropriate to speak on aviation. Most of aviation is governed by safety laws which are completely irrelevant to the Bill, but which must be followed—including those established by the International Air Transport Association—and we still have some EU laws that I hope will not disappear when the retained EU law Bill is passed. The fact of the matter is that you cannot have minimum levels of service in aviation. What do you do? Do you say, “The plane to JFK must take off because it has some businessmen on it”? Do you say that of an EasyJet plane to Spain? You cannot distinguish between them.

The other fact of the matter is that airline companies do not have strikes. The whole aim of BALPA and the industry is not to have strikes; they want to solve things. The strapline of BALPA is, “Every flight a safe flight”. It sees itself to an extent like the BMA, which is also a trade union, though we often forget; it is also a professional body that comes together to provide the safest level of service possible. If you think about it, a pilot who takes a jumbo jet up into the sky has £300 million-worth of equipment and probably 300 lives sitting behind him, so the need for safety is the most paramount need of all, and it is always followed—there is never any compromise.

As far as I can gather from the Bill, the Minister would be able to prescribe a week ahead that a flight had to take off. Under the current regulations, a pilot can pull a flight right up to starting the engine on the tarmac. He can say, “I’m sorry, I just don’t feel very well—you’d better get another pilot”, and it is accepted that he can self-certify, because the last thing we want is a pilot endangering the lives of the passengers. That is also the last thing the pilot wants. The pilot and the plane are subject to a raft of safety regulations far in advance of this legislation.

If a Minister a week ahead is going to say that a flight has to take off and that they will designate a pilot, are they going to become experts in rostering? Are they going to know which pilot to put in which plane? As I am sure noble Lords will readily grasp, every plane is slightly different, and every pilot has to be trained to be the pilot of that particular make and style of plane. So you cannot just go and say, “Right, we’re going to have Pilot Jones or Pilot Smith”. You have to get the right pilot, which is what the airline industry and airline unions are very good at, because they both have the same aim.

The Bill as drafted is a total nonsense; it does not make any sense whatever. Why is this provision in the Bill? I am baffled by this, as I can see the need for some laws, but I cannot see a single shred of evidence that this law is going to do anything whatever to improve industrial relations, the productivity and wealth of the country, or any other single objective that we all have.

I am not going to speak again in the course of these amendments, because we are effectively making the same speech. You go to an industry and look at how it works and you work out that the Bill has absolutely nothing to offer. Please could the Minister bring this Government down from where they are and realise that the wealth of this country is created by the workers of this country? Those workers need a decent standard of living, which is why they go to work every day—they go to work to look after their families. Most of them are very proud of the companies for which they work, such as BA and easyJet and all the other airline companies, and this applies across the line.

Personal Protective Equipment: Procurement

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Haskel

Thursday 19th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, the report does not make for happy reading, to put it mildly. There is a perception that the reality is some way away from where the Minister thinks it is. That may be fanned by the press, but the image of a tawdry chumocracy is to the fore in many newspaper reports. There were five recommendations in this report, all of which would benefit from the disinfectant of sunlight. My question to the Minister is quite simple: will the Government accept, implement and investigate the five recommendations?

Covid-19: Response

Debate between Lord Balfe and Lord Haskel

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I want to go back to the testing centres question. I also had a test, but I had to drive to Stansted from Cambridge. Many people in our community do not have cars and do not drive. What is the Minister doing to make it possible for all major towns to have testing facilities that can be reached either by public transport or on foot?

My second point is more doubtful. Many people do not seem to realise when they should be tested, or, for that matter, how often. If you are tested at the beginning of June, when do you need to be tested again, if at all? What does the test prove, apart from the fact that you do not have the virus? It does not prove that you have had it or will not get it. Will the Minister step up the publicity campaign he just mentioned, so that people can be better informed?