Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Lord Collins of Highbury and Lord Haskel

Committee stage
Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The TransPennine Express uses that clause, and that is why the public can see through this legislation. This is not about maintaining minimum service levels; this comes back to the basic, fundamental idea that this is an attack on organised labour and its ability to protect its workers. It is the thin end of the wedge, as it were: we started off with transport minimum service levels and then the Government thought, “It is very difficult to define how that will work, so let’s not do that, because we will be forced to define what a minimum service level is in the rail industry and we will have to account to Parliament for that. So let’s go the whole hog: let’s get a skeleton Bill which simply gives us the powers to set minimum service levels across a whole range of services and occupations.” They say that they are focused on public services, but of course most transport services are well outside the public sector and have been for a long time, including aviation.

How do the Government envisage minimum service levels in aviation? Do we have half a pilot? Do we have half the safety staff in a plane? Do we have half the number of planes? I suppose that most unions would go for that last option in terms of a dispute in the airline industry. It is a nonsense, and it highlights that there is a target in the Bill: it is not necessarily the taxi driver, the aviation industry or any of the other things which could be brought into its scope; it is rail passenger transport. We do not even get a mention of freight transport and other things such as that.

I suspect that, as we lead up to the election, the Bill will form part of the Government’s narrative that they are on the side of the public and passengers and that, according to them, Labour supports strikes and unions. No, the Bill is not about that; that is a false narrative. The narrative is: who defends public services and who supports the commitment of the people who serve us? It is Labour who will support the people and public services. This Government have undermined them, and that is why we have these strikes. I beg to move.

[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.