Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Amy Callaghan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

Just one more time, for the record, will my hon. Friend confirm which party prevented employment law from being devolved to Scotland?

[Alan Brown]

Again, just for the record—I thought I was speaking quite loudly, but just in case Members did not hear what I said—it was indeed the Labour party that blocked employment law from being devolved to Scotland. Hopefully the Labour party will reconsider, now that that is on the record.

Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill

Amy Callaghan Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 20th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend—indeed, my very good friend and constituency neighbour—the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on bringing this Bill forward, having won the parliamentary lottery. That is something about this place that ought to be reformed, but I pick my battles, for now.

To be honest, this has been a really difficult week to be an elected Member of this place, but the Bill my hon. Friend has presented has been a light at the end of the tunnel and sets a refreshing change of tone, especially as it has support across the House. It provides a glaring example, however, of the priorities on different sides of the House: the Government set the topic far more often than we do but have opted to spend their time on eroding workers’ rights, whereas the SNP have brought forward a Bill that gives workers more rights.

The Bill seeks to address the inadequacy of existing parental leave and pay when a baby is born premature and sick. It will support and assist families across the UK to make ends meet during an incredibly challenging time and present parents with an opportunity to have more time at home to care for their baby when they eventually make it home to their family. The Bill is of particular importance during this cost of living crisis, where working families are crying out for additional support, particularly where a home may need to be heated all day long to provide an adequate temperature for a premature and sick baby.

[Ms Qaisar]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that this Bill is vital because, at its heart, it goes a long way to relieving the additional financial cost for parents at what is already an expensive time, and removes the worry for parents about the need to pay for the costs incurred when a baby is born prematurely?

[Amy Callaghan]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. The Bill will introduce two new rights: neonatal care leave and statutory neonatal care pay. Neonatal leave will be a day 1 right, available to all employees.

In preparation for this debate, I spoke with a friend and former colleague, Kirsty Pringle, who is now an NHS registered nurse and also the mum of a premature baby, her daughter Eilish. Kirsty emphasised in her remarks to me just how important both the rights under this Bill will be to families. She explained that too much time was spent worrying that, if her baby daughter survived and she eventually got to take her home, she would not have much maternity leave left to spend with her. Fortunately, Eilish is thriving—but those worries, which were only too real at the time, still play on Kirsty’s mind.

Taking sick leave from work to care for a premature baby should never have become the norm. I am sure many families and organisations will be delighted at the change being implemented with this Bill today. I place on record my thanks to the brilliant organisation Bliss. It would also be remiss of me not to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who has campaigned on this issue for longer than I have been elected to this place, and is watching this debate from his constituency home today between constituency engagements.

We should all be proud and enthusiastic about this Bill, which will make a huge difference to families with premature and sick babies where there previously has been a significant gap in support. I close by again thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for bringing the Bill forward.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Amy Callaghan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

rose—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester is absolutely right about the reason for requiring minimum standards.

[Amy Callaghan]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Grant Shapps]

I will in a moment, if I can make a little progress.

Using the powers proposed in the Bill, regulations will set out the specific services within each sector in which a minimum level of service will be applied; they will also set out the levels themselves. Those regulations will be tailored to each relevant service, taking account of the different risks to public safety or the impacts on daily life and on the economy. The Bill is clear, however, that such regulations may be made only after appropriate consultation and the approval of both Houses. Of course, the Government may choose not to use the regulation-making powers in the Bill if adequate voluntary agreements, where necessary, are already in place between employers, the relevant sectors and the relevant unions.

[Amy Callaghan]

I thank the Secretary of State for acknowledging my presence in the Chamber after so many attempts to intervene. Will he now pass comment on the fact that life-and-limb cover already exists in legislation and that the true purpose of this shameful Bill is simply to erode workers’ rights?

[Grant Shapps]

I simply do not accept that point. Although it is true that life-and-limb measures exist, we have seen through the many months of rail closures and the strikes that took place last week and in December that unfortunately minimum service levels in one case, and actually minimum safety levels in another, have simply not been available. I know that Opposition Members do not want to accept this fundamental point, but their constituents’ lives are being put at risk by the NHS’s inability to put the correct cover in place with sufficient notice. They seem to imagine that the Army will just be there at no notice and with no ability to organise which areas of the country it needs to be in. That, I am afraid, is not a practical way to run the—[Interruption.]

Shale Gas Extraction

Amy Callaghan Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend; that is an important and fundamental question. The answer is that we need to do the test drilling first to see whether the reserves can be achieved in the way that the 2012 report hoped, but I cannot give a firm commitment on that, because we have not done enough test drilling yet.

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

To come back to the 2019 Tory party manifesto, which each Government Member stood on, it states on page 55 that a moratorium on fracking would be lifted only if

“the science shows…it can be done safely.”

A change in Tory party leadership is not a change in scientific evidence. Will the Secretary of State enlighten the House as to why the Government think they are above both logic and science?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Because all the evidence says that it can be done safely, as it is in the United States, and as the 2012 report that I have referred to many times indicated.

Employment Law: Devolution to Scotland

Amy Callaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing the debate. There are endless merits to devolving employment law to Scotland, but do not fret—I have only chosen a few to discuss today. We could look at unpaid trial shifts, fire and rehire—the list is endless—but what underpins this debate for Scottish workers is that we cannot trust the Government of the day in this place to be progressive and look out for the rights of workers, so we need to devolve employment law to ensure that Scotland can bring forward an employment Bill to look out for Scottish workers.

If employment law were devolved, Scottish workers would have the right to protection against vile tactics such as fire and rehire and unpaid trial shifts—tactics that we have seen deployed on our workforce by profit-making companies just to increase their profits that bit more. They are despicable and unnecessary. This Government and previous Governments could have done something about them, but they have deliberately chosen not to.

We can look at both the rights and the opportunities that are being denied. For example, this Government are denying people the opportunity to recover fully from ill health because the level of sick pay is so woeful that people are going back to work before they should. We are ending up with a workforce who are working while still in ill health. If we devolved employment law, I do not believe that would happen. I state on the record that we should also devolve all social security benefits to Scotland, to ensure that statutory sick pay is adequate, and that people with significant disabilities and ill health are fully supported in their return to work.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

It strikes me as really concerning that part of the new Prime Minister’s reforms seems to be to undermine the one tool that workers have at their disposal, which is striking and industrial action. All the rights that people enjoy, including holidays and sick pay, were brought about not by kindly asking but by striking—by industrial action. Any attempt to undermine that by bringing in agency workers—more colloquially known as scab labour—is appalling and should not be allowed to pass.

[Amy Callaghan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that welcome intervention. The new Prime Minister certainly will have disastrous consequences for the workforce across the United Kingdom. Employment law should be devolved to Scotland, and we should stand up against those vile tactics—especially those against the right to strike—and ensure that our workers are protected from them.

It says a lot about a Government when they are unwilling to protect workers’ rights and, instead, their new leader has pledged to cripple them within her first 30 days as Prime Minister. That is why we need employment law devolved to Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mhairi Black]

Fortunately, they are spared that horror but, here in the UK, that is where we are at: “This Morning” paying bills. Instead of learning from everything that has happened in the pandemic, and trying to integrate fairer work practices, we have a Government running around leaving passive-aggressive notes on desks, telling people to hurry up and get back, when the Prime Minister—sorry, the last Prime Minister—was nowhere to be seen for weeks. They have shown time and again that they cannot be trusted with workers’ rights. All the way from 1830 right through to now, they have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) mentioned, we had the Taylor review of modern working practices. That was five years ago, and we have heard nothing, because this Government are all about show not substance. The UK has reneged on its promise to protect EU-derived workers’ protections. During the Tory leadership race, the now Prime Minister promised to scrap all remaining EU regulations by the end of 2023. That means that hundreds of laws covering employment and environmental protections will disappear.

Despite the Government’s commitment to an employment Bill on at least 20 occasions, as we have heard from numerous people, it is still nowhere to be seen. I am not talking about little add-ons because we are nice to our workers. I am talking about fundamental rights: how long we need to work, holiday entitlement and sick pay. Those are all fundamental. The UK is being mismanaged into the ground, and has been for a long time.

We heard earlier from the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), who is no longer in her place. She asked whether these arguments meant that changes to rights should apply across the whole of the UK. That is rubbish, because Northern Ireland has devolution of employment law, so why can Scotland not have that? Secondly, there is the idea that we have to wait for reform across the whole of UK. We have been trying. In just the seven years that I have been in this place, my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who was here earlier, had the fire and rehire Bill talked out by the Government. Colleagues have tried to get rid of unpaid work trials, yet nothing has come from that.

It goes even bigger than that. Scotland has always played its part. We have not voted Tory since 1955. Yet all we get is Tory Prime Minister after Tory Prime Minister making empty promises, delivering nothing. Scotland has played its part and, frankly, I am tired of trying to tell people in Scotland who are being pushed into poverty, “Sorry, you just need to wait for the rest of the UK to get its act together.” No, not any more. If there is one thing we can see, it is that countries of a similar size to Scotland are successful and fairer. The only difference is that they are not governed by Westminster.

[Amy Callaghan]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. To address the earlier intervention by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), my predecessor, as part of the Lib Dem-Tory coalition Government, slashed redundancy notice from 90 days to 45 days. Does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot rely on this place to look after our workers? Reform is not the answer; that is simply not enough. We need employment legislation devolved to Scotland.

[Mhairi Black]

I could not agree more. My hon. Friend put her point succinctly. To sum up, if you are an average person in the UK right now the chances are that you cannot afford to eat or to heat yourself. You certainly cannot afford to be sick. The one thing that you cannot afford is another Tory Government.