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Debate between Lord Goddard of Stockport and Lord Jordan(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
It is the turn of this side; noble Lords from other parties have had three questions on the trot.
Can the Minister be brought back to the here and now? There should have been a national strike tomorrow; it has been transferred to next week, which is the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. On Monday, there is rail strike and a Tube strike; on Tuesday, there are no tickets for sale for the north on Avanti trains; and on Wednesday, there is a national strike. I spoke to the manager of the Union Jack Club this morning, who told me that this is going to have devasting effects on bookings by people trying to come down for Remembrance Sunday. So what can the Government do to stop this indiscriminate guerrilla strike action that is bringing misery to hundreds of thousands of people at the very time of remembrance? This is a time when people want to remember the freedoms we got from people who died in the First and Second World Wars and other conflicts throughout the world: freedom to move, freedom to associate with each other and freedom to come to remembrances. These union barons must be held to account for at a whim changing these strikes to make it more difficult for people to travel at times when they need to travel—it has to stop.