Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will make some progress.

We clearly want to resolve these disputes, but we must do it in an affordable way. An inflation-matching pay increase of 11% for all public sector workers would cost £28 billion, which would put just under £1,000 on to the bills of every household in all our constituencies. That is on top of the Opposition’s spending plans, which would add £50 billion of recurrent costs annually on to our economy, where we are already running a £175 billion deficit. As we have seen in recent months, we cannot take the market for granted, so that level of borrowing is absolutely unsustainable.

The disputes are already costing our economy and threatening businesses and livelihoods. The estimated cost to the economy so far is £6 billion, including £2.5 billion to the already challenged hospitality sector. I will conclude my comments there. I am happy to hear contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. I will listen with interest and look forward to responding later.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I continue to be a proud trade unionist and I am proud to represent my constituents in the Chamber when I speak today.

We are in an absurd situation: we are back to debate the Conservatives’ sacking nurses Bill—[Interruption.]— not just nurses, but millions of other key workers. The Bill is controversial and divisive, and as irrational as it is impractical. It is strongly condemned by all Opposition parties.

Some 110 amendments and new clauses have been selected for consideration today, including more than 35 tabled by the Labour Front-Bench team. Given that we have had just a few days to draft and table them, that is quite some feat. We will have only five hours to debate those amendments, however, with no reasonable timetable; there would have been more if we had had that. We have had no line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill and we are unable to hear any evidence. The Government have simply prevented the House from doing its job, so it will be left to the other place to scrutinise the legislation properly, which should be a major concern to us all.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Under this legislation, workers can be sacked for taking strike action that has been agreed in a democratic ballot, which is a gross infringement of working rights and goes against the long-established principles set out in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. It also goes against the pledge in the 2019 Queen’s Speech, which said that sanctions would not be directed at individual workers. In the light of that, does my right hon. Friend agree that we simply have not been given enough time to debate a Bill that goes against everything that we stand for?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that Labour stands against this sacking nurses Bill—the Minister chuntered earlier about that not being the case; if he would like to prove that, then the Government could accept our amendment that would resolve the unfair dismissal situation.

We oppose the Bill in the strongest terms on principle and by virtue of the serious flaws that render it utterly unworkable.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady think it is right that the police are restricted from taking strike action? If she does, why does she oppose similar restrictions on other important public services?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member should know, because of what has happened recently, that members and those who deliver critical public services have voluntary agreements to ensure that “life and limb” services are covered. The Bill, however, would restrict trade unions’ rights—which are already among the most restricted in the evolved democracies anywhere in the world—and further, goes from clapping nurses to sacking them. I hope he will vote with us tonight, at least on our amendments, if he does not want to see that happen.

The Secretary of State says we need this Bill to ensure safety levels on strike days, slandering the brave and hard-working ambulance workers as he goes and ignoring the “life and limb” deals that workers already agree. What about our constituents who cannot get an ambulance on any day, such is the crisis in the NHS? The Prime Minister admitted today the serious challenges facing the health service, and he is right, but it is his Government’s duty to protect the public’s access to essential services. The public are being put at risk every day due to this crisis of his own Government’s making.

Lives and livelihoods are already being lost. What about the commuters stopped from going to work because of the failing rail companies in the north? If the Prime Minister really cared, he would insist on fixing the broken public services we have today because of 13 years of Conservative failure. If they were confident of their case, why not agree to amendment 3 and provide us with reports on safety and service levels on any given day in transport, health, education and so on? Or are they just playing politics to distract from their 13 years of failure?

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my right hon. Friend understand that the Government are authorising employers to do what not even a court in this country can? Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, no court can compel an employee to do any work or attend any place for the doing of any work, but after a notification to a union of the identity of workers to be requisitioned, the Bill requires the union to take reasonable steps to ensure that all members of the union identified in that work notice comply with it. Is that not absolutely turning the whole system on its head?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. These are the fundamental freedoms that underpin our democracy. Conservative Members should be very concerned about what the Government are trying to do; even Henry VIII would be spinning in his grave and absolutely astonished. If, as the Secretary of State and his Prime Minister say, the International Labour Organisation backs their plans, why did the ILO director general slam them? Why did President Biden’s Labour Secretary raise concerns too?

The Secretary of State says that threatening key workers and tearing up their protection against unfair dismissal is necessary. Nurses, teachers, ambulance workers, cleaners, border staff, firefighters, rail workers, bus drivers and nuclear decommissioners—all threatened with the sack in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis. If that is not the purpose of the Bill, Government Members have the chance to join the Opposition in voting for amendment 1 and removing the sacking key workers clause. I am happy for the Minister to intervene to confirm that he is happy to accept that amendment, and then we can move on. No? Okay.

I also want to draw attention to the gaping holes in the Bill. The Secretary of State would have not just the power to set, impose and police minimum service levels, but to amend, repeal and revoke primary legislation—not just existing Acts but future Bills. We might pass a Bill only for a Minister to rewrite it by statutory instrument the next day. Why on earth do the Government need this power? Are they admitting that future legislation will be badly drafted, or are their motives more sinister? If those are the powers they seek, the least we can do is ensure that those regulations are made under the affirmative procedure.

If there is nothing to fear, the Government can show it by accepting amendments 100 to 102 tonight. Riddled with holes, the Bill gives sweeping powers to a power-hungry Secretary of State.

Why should minimum service levels apply to strikes that have already been balloted for? Would the Minister propose retrospective legislation in any other circumstances? Surely this would undermine attempts to find a resolution to the current disputes, prolonging the pain that the Government are hellbent on putting the public through. Or is it that the Government offer no solution because they caused the problem?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and here is the rub. I think it is the reason for the latest poll out today on support for the action that trade unions are taking. It is not because the general public like the inconvenience. Of course we all want strike action to be avoided, but the public can glaringly see through the Government’s defence—that this legislation is needed because we need minimum service levels—because they have seen ambulance workers, nurses, and all other key workers fighting for this country and protecting people when this Government cannot provide the minimum safe service level at any other time, during any other week, when there is no strike action. It is this Government who are failing the British people and not providing the level of care, not our key workers, not our nurses, not our teachers and not our firefighters. They are the ones supporting our key public services, and I applaud them for doing that.

The Bill also allows bosses to target union members with work notices. What is to stop that happening? Will trade unions be liable for the actions of non-members? What about when there is no recognised trade union? What reasonable steps will a trade union need to take? Will it be penalised for picketing, or could the simple existence of an otherwise lawful peaceful picket line be effectively banned? The Secretary of State claims to stand up for the democratic freedom to strike. Where are the protections to ensure that work notices do not prevent legal industrial action, or the requirements on employers to take reasonable steps to make sure that they do not, either intentionally or not? Can he really say that not one worker will be banned from action by simply being named in every work notice? What about workers in control functions on the railways, such as fleet managers, route managers and maintenance managers, who would be forced to work regardless under this law?

If the Secretary of State does not care about workers, what about the burden on the employers? Does he seriously think that overstretched public services have the resources to assess new minimum service laws—to work out who needs to be in work, how many people and where, before every single strike day? Should we not promote good-faith negotiations instead? If only the Government put their time and their effort into doing the one thing that will resolve this crisis: negotiating with the employers and the workers in good faith. There are reports that some Ministers are seeing the light and are ready to negotiate. The Transport Secretary admits that these measures will not work; the Education Secretary sees the damage they will do to schools.

As is normally the case in Committee upstairs, we have tabled probing amendments—for example, why these six sectors? Will the Secretary of State add more, and how are they defined? Do health services include veterinary services, dentists or pharmacists? What about parcel delivery, ferry and waterway services, or steam railways? Does he mean to include private schools? Will he regulate minimum service levels for Eton?

The Government are running away from scrutiny precisely because they know that this Bill will not stand up to it. Does the Secretary of State not accept that first we need to see the assessment by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and inquiries by the relevant Select Committees, and that all promised consultations must be completed and published before the Act comes to pass? I know the Minister understands the challenges with legislation and the need to ensure that those affected are consulted properly, so I do not understand why he stands at the Dispatch Box today and does not want, as a minimum, these things to have happened before legislation is passed.

Who is the Secretary of State planning to consult? Will he consult the trade unions and employers affected? Why has he failed to publish the impact assessment that he promised? The Bill has nearly passed through the lower House and we have still not had any sight of it. This is near unprecedented and deeply anti-democratic. Even the Regulatory Policy Committee has not seen it. Is the Secretary of State scared that the impact assessment will speak the truth—that it will conclude that this legislation is unneeded and will actually make things worse?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The Minister should go on a field trip to really understand what happens with these agreements. The paramedics on the ambulance service picket line carry bleeps, as do those in the NHS, so that they can provide surge staffing when that is required. That is an ongoing dialogue throughout the day and the minimum standards in the Bill will not address that. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the standards are therefore superfluous because they will not address the day-to-day, minute-by-minute needs of the health service?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Her point links to what I was trying to express earlier: the Government fail to recognise that every time they suggest in some way that our paramedics, nurses and other key workers do not provide a minimum service and do not take seriously the impact of challenging in the way they have been forced to. They protect the very people they are there to support. The Government have misjudged how people feel about that, because not only have they caused offence to those workers who protect us day in, day out, but they have failed to recognise that every single one of our key workers who does that has friends and family who know that they do that. This is why the public get very upset with the Government when they suggest that somehow our paramedics, nurses and other key workers do not provide those standards. I agree with my hon. Friend: if the Government were able to get out more and see what happens on the ground, they would have a clearer understanding of why this legislation will not work and fix the problems. The public understand that and the Minister should take note.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

If we walk through this legislation and its eventual implementation, we see that it will result in either a worker being sacked or a worker being sacked and a trade union being fined. Can my right hon. Friend think of anything that could greater exacerbate the current industrial-relations climate than those sorts of threats?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. That is exactly what this Government are walking into and I think it will exacerbate the situation. The Government have been exacerbating the situation not just by bringing forward this legislation—most of the public can see what they are trying to do—but through the tone with which they have carried out, or failed to carry out, negotiations to avert the industrial action we have seen. Nurses are taking industrial action for the first time ever. Rather than get round the table and sort the mess out that they have created after 13 years in government, the Government try to demonise those very workers. The public do not thank them for that.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this legislation is a diversion from this Government’s incompetence? Last year, they practically cost the taxpayer £55 billion because of the economic mismanagement of their Government under the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). Instead of negotiating to protect people, the Government are blaming them for their own incompetence.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We cannot be divorced from the fact that members of the public have seen how this Government have conducted themselves—the sleaze and scandals, the outrageous waste of money, and crashing the economy, of course—while at the same telling the key workers who got us through the pandemic that they have to like it or lump it and suffer the consequences of the Government’s incompetent governance. It does gripe with the general public and they do not accept it.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a really powerful speech. I remind Members that this afternoon the fire and rescue service members in the FBU voted—on a 72% turnout—88% yes to industrial action. They have a huge mandate but, like other trade unions, they are suggesting that there should be 10 days in which the employer can discuss with the unions some sort of resolution to the strike action, by discussing pay and so on. Is that not a far better way to deal with this unrest than trying to implement the most anti-democratic, anti-worker and anti-trade union legislation? I declare an interest and refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I think we all have an interest in ensuring that we have good, valuable public services. Like our other key workers, firefighters put in place local agreements to ensure that services continue if life is at risk or there are major incidents. There is not a single firefighter who would not attend a major incident. These are our brave heroes who run towards danger when the rest of us run away. There are also already legal obligations on fire services to provide contingency plans for strike days, dating back to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. Yet again, we have a Government fixated on creating a problem and trying to fix a problem that does not actually exist, instead of dealing with the problem that they have created—penalising and causing great hardship for our key workers, such as the firemen and women who protect our lives every single day.

Can the Minister promise that we will get separate assessments of the impacts of this legislation on all six of the sectors named? Can he guarantee that there will not be any impact on workforce numbers? Can he guarantee that work notices will not put undue burdens on overworked, under-resourced employers? Can he guarantee that equalities law will be upheld and that these new measures will not be used to discriminate against workers with protected characteristics? I fear we already know the answer to that question.

That brings me to our biggest concern with this Bill: the “sacking key workers” clause—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Nonsense.

[Angela Rayner]

I gave the Minister the opportunity to back our amendment. I give him the opportunity to intervene now and say that he will back the amendment and that he does not want to sack those nurses or key workers, as is set out in the current Government proposal. I will happily stop again and allow the Minister to confirm that.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

indicated dissent.

[Angela Rayner]

No. Thought not. The “sacking key workers” clause will give the Secretary of State the power to threaten every nurse, firefighter, health worker, rail worker or paramedic with the sack—on his whim. These are the workers who got us through the pandemic; the workers who run towards the danger as the rest of us run away; the workers who have been pushed to exhaustion by austerity. And how does the Secretary of State pay them back—by ripping up their protections against unfair dismissal, with no regard for our NHS, schools, or transport lines that cannot cope with mass sackings. How can he seriously think that sacking thousands of key workers will not just plunge our public services further into crisis?

One hundred and thirty-three thousand and four hundred—that is the latest vacancy number in our NHS. One thousand six hundred—that is the latest number of teaching vacancies. One hundred and twenty thousand—that is the number of new vacancies that City & Guilds estimates the rail sector will see in the next five years. We all know that we have a national staffing recruitment and retention crisis and that business groups from the Confederation of British Industry to the British Chambers of Commerce are crying out for vacancies to be filled. How is this a rational and proportionate response? Labour Members are not the only ones asking that question. Has the Secretary of State listened to the right hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) who said earlier this month:

“I will vote against this shameful Bill…It does nothing to stop strikes—but individual NHS Staff, teachers & workers can be targeted & sacked if they don’t betray their mates.”

The right hon. Gentleman understands the Bill, but the Minister clearly does not understand his own Bill. I know that many Conservative Members will share the feelings of the right hon. Member for Stevenage, and that they will be uncomfortable with this awful attack on individuals and with taking away workers’ basic freedoms and removing hard-won basic rights and protections.

--- Later in debate ---

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Interventions, by their nature, should be short, not lengthy.

[Angela Rayner]

The Bill is an attack on our basic British freedoms, and Conservative Members should be concerned about that. It is from a Prime Minister who is desperately out of his depth, and desperately blaming the working people of Britain for his own failures. There has been no opportunity for real scrutiny, no impact assessment, and there is no justification for it. The Government’s pretence that it is about safety is offensive to every key worker. For the sake of every nurse, teacher and firefighter across the UK, I urge every member of the Committee to vote for our amendments. For the sake of freedom, fairness and feasibility, I also urge all Members to join us in voting down the Bill tonight.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I thank all the Members who spoke so passionately for the Opposition Front-Bench amendments tonight. The Secretary of State has turned up for Third Reading and tries to provoke, but once again, as I said in the previous debate in Committee, the way in which he wants to portray our key workers, who make those concessions and who ensure life and limb cover, is disgusting and disgraceful, and he should be ashamed of himself.

We have heard time and time again that this Bill is impractical and insulting. It is a vindictive assault on the basic freedoms of British working people. It is full of holes and it has been rushed through on the hoof with no real time for scrutiny. I rarely find myself agreeing with the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), but this Bill is incompetent. It is badly written, it uses bad parliamentary and constitutional practice, and it is wrong that the Government are trying to bypass scrutiny. The Opposition have been clear throughout that we will oppose this sacking nurses Bill. If it passes, the next Labour Government will repeal it. It threatens key workers with the sack during a workers’ shortage and crisis, and it mounts an outright assault on the fundamental freedom of working people while doing nothing to resolve the crisis at hand.

Let us look at what the Bill is really about: a Government who are playing politics with key workers’ lives because they cannot stomach negotiations; a Government who are lashing out at working people instead of dealing with 13 years of failure; and a Government and Prime Minister who are dangerously out of their depth and running scared of scrutiny. We on these Benches will vote against this shoddy, unworkable Bill. I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to stand up for our key workers, stand up for the British freedom to withdraw labour, and stand up for good faith negotiation by joining us tonight and voting down the Bill.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Angela Rayner Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

First, let me declare an interest as a proud lifelong trade unionist. I regret the tone of the Secretary of State’s speech today. If he is implying in any way that Members of the House do not care about their constituents or put their constituents first, or that members of our vital public services who got us through the pandemic do not take the safety of the people they look after seriously and would walk away, I think he should reflect on his comments.

I have been a Member of this House for some seven years now, and I cannot recall a measure that is at once so irrational and so insulting. Not only is this legislation a vindictive assault on the basic freedoms of British working people, but it is as empty of detail as it is full of holes. We will oppose the sacking of nurses Bill, and it is not just about nurses but about the many key workers who we clapped and who kept our services going in the face of the pandemic. We will vote against this legislation tonight, and the next Labour Government will repeal it.

We are in the middle of an economic crisis of the Government’s making. Working people are facing the largest fall in living standards in a generation. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State keeps shouting “Putin”, but what about Liz Truss?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Angela Rayner]

What about the Conservatives crashing the economy? The Secretary of State forgets the fact that inflation has gone through the roof under their watch. Thirteen years of Conservative failure. Members watching this debate and constituents up and down the country know the truth, and they will tell this Government what they think, come the next general election.

Working people are facing the largest fall in living standards in a generation. In-work poverty, insecure work and financial insecurity are rampant. Inflation is in double digits. It is in this context that we have seen the greatest levels of strike disruption in 33 years, with ambulance workers taking their first major strike action in decades and the first ever strike in the history of the Royal College of Nursing. Our posties, train drivers, Border Force, health workers, train cleaners and even Ministers’ own officials have taken action too. The Prime Minister will not admit it, but this is a crisis and it is a crisis of the Government’s making. This legislation does nothing to resolve the problems that they have caused. There is no common sense in it at all.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a proud trade union member. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this legislation does nothing to address the underlying reasons NHS staff and others have taken the incredibly difficult decision to strike? We are going to spend a number of hours in here this evening, but surely that time would be much better spent by the Government getting round the table with members of the NHS, listening to their concerns and coming to a resolution that would help to move things forward, rather than wasting our time here this evening on this horrible piece of legislation.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and I absolutely agree. I was reflecting while the Secretary of State was making his opening speech, and I was thinking that, if I still worked in social care or one of the key public services—if I was paramedic, a nurse or one of those key workers he mentioned—and I was listening to this debate, I would be really upset and offended by the way he represented them here today. That is not what the Labour party thinks of those key workers.

The Secretary of State has claimed that this legislation is about public safety, so why does the Bill not mention safety once? He knows full well that working people already take steps to protect the public during strikes through derogations and voluntary agreements, yet he brazenly claims that this punitive legislation is needed because of ambulance workers. That is insulting and shameful, and I think he should apologise for the way in which he has awfully smeared ambulance workers.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I thank my Unison comrade for giving way. I am not a member of the parliamentary Labour party, but I am a proud trade unionist. Will my good friend remind the House that section 240 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 guarantees that trade unions will agree to provide life-and-limb cover during an industrial dispute, because failure to do so could result in a custodial sentence? This Bill is therefore completely unnecessary.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my friend. We may not be in the same party, but we are in the same trade union.

These brave, hard-working men and women struck local life-and-limb deals on a trust-by-trust basis ahead of all the strikes. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says it is trust by trust, but it is the best way to ensure that the right care is provided, and those employers know that. When I was a home help, we always put patient care first. We negotiated to ensure minimum safety levels, which is more than I can say for the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, under whose watch we have seen excess deaths and an increasing crisis in the NHS.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I, too, declare an interest. As a proud trade unionist and trade union lawyer for many years before entering Parliament, I represented striking workers day in, day out. I know that no worker takes the decision to strike lightly. These strikes have been caused by the cost of living crisis caused by this Conservative Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Bill is just a further attack on workers’ rights, like the anti-trade union legislation passed by this Government in 2016? It is just another attack on working people who keep us safe, day in and day out.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree. People watching this debate can see from the Secretary of State’s opening remarks, and from his previous remarks, what this is: a smokescreen about allegedly needing minimum service levels. We know that because, last autumn, his own Government assessed that minimum service levels were not needed for the emergency services due to existing regulations and voluntary arrangements. We all want minimum standards of safety, service and staffing levels, and we want them every day, but it is the Minister who is failing to provide them. Instead of holding them to account, they Government are seeking through this Bill to grab sweeping new powers to impose burdens on employers and to remove basic rights from workers across our public service. This is an attack on every nurse, health worker and firefighter in the country. They have gone from clapping nurses to sacking them.

[Charlotte Nichols]

My mam is a member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, as I have previously noted in the House. It is interesting to hear what the Secretary of State says about the need for this Bill and legislation more widely because he was previously Secretary of State for Transport, and the only negotiations that have not been settled with the RMT are the ones in which the Department for Transport is involved. Every other dispute with the RMT has been resolved. So is this Bill not just covering up his failure to negotiate basic trade union agreements?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes some important points. We can all see from the reports on the negotiations that there was genuine hope we could get to a settlement, and then the Government decided to bring in new conditions at the last minute to make sure that the dispute continued. It is the Government, not the trade unions, who are acting militantly and who do not want to resolve these disputes.

The Government should also reflect on the key workers and other workers who will be affected by this strike action, and who the Secretary of State says are putting lives at risk. Even if they are not a key worker, I am pretty certain that most people, like my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), have a friend, relative or someone they know who is. We all think they are heroes, and we all know they have their patients, the people they look after and the services they provide at the forefront of their mind.

No one wants to take strike action, least of all the workers who lose a day’s pay. I have long urged Ministers to do their job and resolve the underlying problems, but instead they have presented a Bill that tries to remove hundreds of thousands of workers’ historic right to withdraw their labour.

If the Secretary of State for Transport mandates that 50% of trains need to run on strike days, he knows that Network Rail will mandate that all signal operators need to work, because signals are needed even if just two trains are running. How can the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy say this Bill does not remove their right to strike? I know many Conservative Members will say that they respect, even champion, civil liberties, and I am sure they mean it, but with this Bill they are burning the freedoms for which we fought for centuries and are handing to Ministers unprecedented power over the individuals who are targeted. It is not just wrong in principle; it is unworkable in practice.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I declare my interest as a proud trade unionist. I meet striking workers on an almost weekly basis at the moment, and I know that working people are often targeted by employers during a dispute. This Bill hands employers the right to decide which worker goes to work and which worker can go on strike. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that this could allow bad bosses to victimise and target workers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

This legislation

“is not a solution to dealing with the industrial action we see at the moment.”

Those are not my words but the words of the Transport Secretary in December. This Bill could increase the frequency of strikes and the

“numbers of staff taking action short of striking”

and lead to employers finding that they are “low on staff.” Again, those are not my words but the words of the Department for Transport’s impact assessment. Minimum service levels are “not a game-changer” and could

“promote more industrial action than they mitigate.”

That is not me speaking but the senior Conservative adviser who developed the policy. The jury is in. These measures will not work, cannot work and will only make things worse.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I remind the House that we have a number of sectors in the UK in which employees are not allowed to strike, namely the armed forces and the police. These people always turn up, often at times of crisis, and work without complaint to provide minimum service levels, and they do it on pay and conditions that are often inferior to what the unions are currently demanding. May I ask the right hon. Lady to present an argument for why this provision should not be extended elsewhere?

[Angela Rayner]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman got the crib sheet from the Whips. There is a complete and utter lack of clarity about what these measures will mean for the six sectors to which they will apply. In nuclear decommissioning, for example, staff already have voluntary arrangements. How will Ministers define minimum service in this sector? Will they require just a teeny bit of decommissioning? What about health? Will Ministers seriously sack doctors, nurses, paramedics and vital support staff at a time of critical NHS staff shortages? Apparently not, if the Government sources reported this week can be believed. Does the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy deny that the Health Secretary has told others to lobby the Prime Minister for improved pay offers? And can he really say that the Health Secretary believes this Bill will help the NHS?

The Bill states that all transport services will be covered, but the industry is largely in the private sector. Does the Secretary of State expect, for example, self-employed cabbies to serve work notices to themselves? There seem to be a split here, too; I hear that the Transport Secretary has given rail companies permission for new pay offers, and we already know his views on minimum service levels.

Let us move on to education. Will our overstretched headteachers be forced to write and serve work notices in their own staffrooms? Does the Business Secretary agree with the Education Secretary that imposing these regulations on schools would be a hostile act?

Let us turn to fire and rescue services. Has austerity not already made it impossible for some services to meet existing contingency regulations as it is? Will the Business Secretary of State leave it there, or will he just go for broke and ban all key workers from joining a union at all? That is something we know his desperate Prime Minister has been considering.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady mentions the issue of pay and speaking to unions to resolve this dispute. Can she tell us what level of pay she thinks, and the Labour Front-Bench team believe, is appropriate? Would it be in line with inflation? Would it be more than inflation? How exactly would Labour solve this dispute?

[Angela Rayner]

I will just educate the hon. Gentleman: although I used to be a trade union official and I am a member of a trade union, I do not negotiate on behalf of a trade union. But what I would do is sit around the table and resolve this dispute with the trade unions. That would be better than what the Conservatives have done.

I come to the liability this Bill places upon trade unions. It says that trade unions must take “reasonable steps” to ensure workers comply with work notices, but what would they be? Will trade unions be liable for non-union staff? As for the burden put on employers, have they welcomed the bureaucratic nightmare that they will face? How will our already overstretched public services spare the resources to work out how many workers are needed to meet the minimum service levels the Secretary of State arbitrarily imposes on them, and to identify which workers should come into work and which should not? What will these bodies have to do? Will they have to do this before each and every strike day?

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

I would like to try again on this, because the right hon. Lady aspires to be Deputy Prime Minister and wants to negotiate with the unions in future. Will she outline for the House, because the Labour party has been very quiet on this, whether she backs a 19% pay increase for nurses? What costing has her party put forward as to how much she would award in pay rises to those public sector workers?

[Angela Rayner]

What I can say is that the Labour party would not have crashed the economy like the Conservatives did. We would not have inflation at the record levels we have at the moment. We would not have the disputes we have at the moment because we would negotiate with the trade unions and find a settlement.

What protections are in place to prevent unscrupulous employers from targeting trade union members with work notices? Or is this legislation a licence for blacklisting? The Secretary of State is hiding behind warped misunderstandings of the International Labour Organisation’s statute book and misleading comparisons with Europe. The ILO says that minimum service levels can happen only when the

“safety of individuals or their health is at stake”.

Can he explain how that relates to the list of sectors in the Bill? This Bill also makes no provision for the compensatory measures the ILO requires alongside such regulations. Countries such as France and Spain may have minimum service levels, but they have not averted strikes there; both lose far more days to strike action than the UK.

This Bill is a mess. It makes no sense. It has more holes in it than the last Chancellor’s Budget, yet we are being given next to no time to scrutinise it. This legislation hands far-reaching powers to the Secretary of State to not just impose minimum service levels, but decide what those levels would be. The legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg has called clause 3

“a supercharged Henry VIII clause.”

Where is the consultation the Secretary of State promised? Where is the impact assessment? The Regulatory Policy Committee says, in a scornful statement today, that it has not even received it yet. So why have the Government given only five hours for debate on the Floor of the House?

Let us look at what this Bill is really all about: a Government who are out of ideas, out of time and fast running out of sticking plasters; a Government who are playing politics with nurses’ lives because they cannot stomach negotiation; a Government desperately doing all they can to distract from the economic emergency they have caused. We have had 13 years of failure, and working people of this country cannot take any more. What this whole sorry episode makes clear is that this country needs a Labour Government. The Conservative party has proven itself incapable of cleaning up its own mess, and the disruption of the past few months simply would not be happening under Labour.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

It is difficult to listen to the Secretary of State accuse workers who have devoted their lives to life saving, whether they are fire workers, doctors or nurses, of putting others at risk. As for the arguments that this is too expensive or too difficult, today Oxfam announced that $21 trillion went into the pockets of 1% internationally during the global pandemic. Does the right hon. Lady agree that there is enough money but it is just in the wrong pockets?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman makes some important and valid points. In the past 12 months to two and a half years, we have seen the unravelling of the VIP fast-track lane for people linked to the Conservative party—that was a waste of billions of pounds that could have gone into investment in our public services. The public have seen 13 years of Conservative failure. Most of the public who are watching this debate today can ask themselves one question: do they feel better off after 13 years of the Conservatives? The answer to that question is no, unless of course they are in that 1%, with a WhatsApp number of a Government Minister.

Labour would have resolved these disputes a long time ago, by getting back around the negotiating table in good faith and doing a deal.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Labour Government in Wales were given more than £1 billion for personal protective equipment and test, track and trace, and spent only £500 million? If we had had that level of savings, instead of having Tory crony donors putting their hand in the till, it would have aggregated up to a saving of £11 billion, as against a total pay cost to the NHS of £56 billion? In other words, we are talking about 20% of the annual pay for all nurses and all health workers. So does she not agree that if we had a Labour Government, we would have more money to provide decent wages for those in our health service?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend; not only would we have grown the economy—and we have a plan to grow the economy, unlike the Conservatives —but we would not have wasted billions of pounds and we would not have crashed the economy like the Conservatives did.

This Government are not working and this Bill is unworkable. The sacking nurses Bill is one of the most indefensible and foolish pieces of legislation to come before this House in modern times. It threatens teachers and nurses with the sack during a recruitment and retention crisis, and mounts an outright assault on the fundamental freedom of working people, while doing absolutely nothing to resolve the crisis at hand. We on these Benches will vote against this shoddy, unworkable Bill, and I urge every Member across this House who cares for fundamental British freedoms, and who knows that the only way to resolve disputes is by negotiating in good faith, to join us in standing against it this evening.

Industrial Action

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare that I am a proud member of a trade union.

I will start by tackling the Secretary of State’s comments. The first thing that comes to my mind in this debate and in what the Secretary of State said is what happened to my constituent Bina, who waited more than an hour for an ambulance—who died waiting for an ambulance. That was not on a strike day; it was because of the disastrous chaos we have in the system under this Conservative Government. In the past few months, we have seen ambulance workers go on their first major strike in 30 years, and the first ever strike in the history of the Royal College of Nursing. Teachers, pharmacists and civil servants—among others—are balloting as we speak. His Government offer no solution because they have caused the problem.

The economic crisis made in Downing Street has left working people facing an economic emergency of sky-high inflation and recession. I notice that in his opening statement, the Secretary of State did not even mention—let alone apologise for—the fact that the Government crashed the economy. Nobody wants to see these strikes happen, least of all the workers who lose a day’s pay. How are the Government responding to a crisis of their own making? Not with any attempt to reach a serious long-term solution in the public interest, but by playing politics and promising yet another sticking plaster.

The Secretary of State claims that he made progress yesterday, but the read-out from trade union representatives was dismal. Is there any chance of a deal this year? Where is the consultation he mentioned for a meaningful way forward, or was that all for show? That is the implication of his other proposal—his sacking nurses Bill. It is an outright attack on the fundamental freedom of British working people. How can he say with a straight face that this Government will always defend the ability to strike? Can he tell us whether he stands by his article in The Telegraph last summer, in which he listed yet more plans to attack that basic right? Does he deny that he considered banning some key workers from joining unions at all? So much for levelling up workers’ rights. Where is the Government’s promised code of conduct on fire and rehire, and the long-abandoned Employment Bill that they promised would tackle insecure work?

The Secretary of State goes in one breath from thanking nurses to sacking them. That is not just insulting but utterly stupid. There is no common sense about this at all. He says that he recognises the pressures faced by key workers, but he knows that the NHS cannot find the nurses it needs to work on the wards, and that the trains do not run even on non-strike days such is the shortage of staff, so how can he seriously think that sacking thousands of key workers will not just plunge our public services further into crisis? The Transport Secretary admits it will not work, the Education Secretary does not want it, and the Government’s own impact assessment finds that it will lead to more strikes and staff shortages.

The Secretary of State says that he is looking into six key areas. What do other Ministers think about that? Will they have to disagree on that, too? He is scraping the barrel with comparisons to France and Spain, but those countries, which he claims have these laws on striking, lose vastly more strike days than Britain. Has he taken any time at all to speak to their Governments or trade unions to learn any real lessons from them?

The Secretary of State quotes the International Labour Organisation—I am surprised that he even knows what it is—but he will know that the ILO requires compensatory measures and an independent arbitrator. Are those in his Bill? The ILO also says that minimum service levels can happen in services only when the safety of individuals or their health is at stake. That does not include transport, Border Force or teachers, as he proposes.

Excess deaths are at their highest levels since the pandemic peak. The public are being put at risk every day because of the Government’s NHS crisis and staffing shortages. The Secretary of State is right that his Government’s duty is to protect the public’s access to essential services, but livelihoods and lives are already being lost. We all want minimum standards of safety, service and staffing; it is Ministers who are failing to provide that. Does he not accept that trade unions and workers already take steps to protect the public during action? He singles out ambulance workers. Paramedics agreed to operate life and limb deals on a trust-by-trust basis, as he knows, to ensure that the right care continues to be delivered. He should know that service levels were at 82%, with ambulance workers consistently leaving the picket lines to make sure that emergency calls were responded to. He is threatening to rip up that protection, and for what?

Let us look into what this is really all about: a Government who are out of ideas, out of time and fast running out of sticking plasters; a Government who are playing politics with nurses’ and teachers’ lives because they cannot stomach the co-operation and negotiation that are needed; and, a Government desperately doing all they can to distract from their economic emergency. We need negotiation not legislation, so when is the Minister going to do his job?

[Grant Shapps]

It is almost as if covid and the pressures on the NHS never occurred, according to the Opposition. I am pretty sure I heard this straight. It is almost as if Putin did not invade Ukraine, force up energy prices and force up inflation, and it is almost as if the right hon. Lady does not think that the rest of Europe is going through exactly the same thing. I was just reading an article in The Guardian saying exactly that—that other health services are experiencing exactly the same problems.

If we are going to have a sensible debate and start working from the facts and then have a discussion, we ought to acknowledge that covid and the war in Ukraine have had a huge impact on health services here and around the world. Then we can go on to have a sensible conversation about balancing the right to strike. As I said at the top of my speech, it is a right that we fully respect and fully endorse. We believe it is part of the International Labour Organisation’s correct diagnosis of a working economy that people should be able to withdraw their labour, but that should not mean withdrawing their labour at the expense of our constituents’ lives. The right hon. Lady talks about how the ambulance service, in her words, has been reasonable and offered back-up on a trust-by-trust basis if people have heart attacks and strokes, but heart attacks and strokes do not accept or work to the boundaries of trust borders. They work nationally, and so to manage the ambulance system, we need to know that each and every one of our constituents is protected. To deny and to vote against legislation that brings in minimum safety levels to help our constituents is to attack their security and their welfare.

Employment Agencies and Trade Unions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to say from the outset that I was an agency worker and I continue to be a very proud trade unionist.

I also want to start by welcoming the Minister to her new position. And what a fitting debate for her to start with. Over the last week, dozens of Government Members found themselves forced to work in intolerable conditions, answering to a boss who only cared for himself and not their interests, so they withdrew their labour—and they achieved some change as a result. So, they do understand the right to strike; they just seek to deny that right to others. The Minister now finds herself, much like agency workers under the regulations she proposes, filling in at short notice as a desperate last resort, with no time to prepare, in an organisation reduced to chaos.

It just does not work. The shambles of this Government disproves their own theory. The regulations are not just utterly wrong in principle, but totally impractical. They promised no new policy while the Prime Minister clings to his desk by his fingernails, but it appears that they have made an exception in this case, ripping up decades of national consensus. The proposals are anti-business and anti-worker. They will risk public safety, rip up workers’ rights, and encourage the very worst practices. Above all, they will not prevent strikes; they will provoke them. It is hard not to believe that this is what the Government were after and their whole intention all along.

The proposals are simply “unworkable”—not my conclusion, but the conclusion of the body that represents agency worker businesses, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. It is not hard to see why. We already face severe labour shortages, in part caused by the decisions of this Conservative Government. There simply are not the agency staff to cover industrial action. The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) asked the Minister about the impact. The Government have their own impact assessment, which they rushed out this afternoon. It estimates that only 2% of working hours lost to strikes would be covered. I met the REC last week, and it was very concerned that the Minister’s predecessor was simply not listening. I believe that to be the case. This proposal is anti-business. It threatens good agency worker businesses’ reputations, their relations with their staff, and, as the Government’s own impact assessment found, will cost employers thousands of pounds in familiarisation costs.

But there is also a far more insidious side to the proposals. There is a risk to safety, both to workers themselves and the public. The proposals could see agency workers recruited on the hoof and squeezed in to cover highly skilled roles. Take the recent rail strikes, which the Minister mentioned in her opening speech. They saw skilled workers such as signallers, guards and maintenance staff walk out. In case the Minister did not know, it takes a year to train a signaller. Where are the temps who can operate 25,000 volts at control centres or signal 140 mph high-speed trains? How could the travelling public have any confidence in their safety? The public should absolutely not be put in a position where that could happen.

No one in this House can pretend that they are ignorant on this issue. We saw the consequences when P&O Ferries replaced its experienced workforce with agency crew earlier this year. That decision led to 31 separate safety failings. Vessels were suspended and a ship literally lost power in the middle of the Irish sea due to an inexperienced crew. At the time, the Secretary of State for Transport told the House:

“No British worker should be treated in this way… we will not allow this to happen again”.—[Official Report, 30 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 840.]

The Prime Minister told us that

“we are taking legal action…against the company concerned”.—[Official Report, 23 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 326.]

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is this not an exploiters’ charter that is deeply anti-British? This is from an anti-British party that has abandoned British workers, reducing their rights in work and allowing either agency workers from abroad to be brought in to undercut staff, as happened with P&O, or agency workers to be exploited when they are forced to cross picket lines. This is anti-British worker, is it not?

[Angela Rayner]

On the P&O workers, it seems to me like the company broke the law and the Government implied that they were going to do something about it. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how that legal action is getting on. Will the Prime Minister keep the promise that he made before he loses office? Can we assume not, judged by today, because the very practice they condemned, they now want to legalise and encourage? This is an absolute disgrace.

[Grahame Morris]

My right hon. Friend is making a terrific speech and I agree with what she is saying. She mentions P&O, and I certainly recall the Secretary of State making a statement to the House and being enraged by the actions of P&O. Why are the Government putting through the House a statutory instrument to change the terms and conditions and bring in agency workers? Why are we not having the employment Bill that was promised by the Secretary of State? Why is this being done in an underhanded fashion if it commands the support of the House and the country?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely crucial point. The Government have been promising jam tomorrow for far too long, saying “employment Bill”, “employment Bill,” but guess what? No employment Bill. That is what it is like with this Government: it is all jam tomorrow and broken promises all the way.

There is another point to make. Under section 12 of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the Government must consult before they change any regulation. However, with all the chaos of the past couple of weeks and days, they are trying to pass a consultation from 2015 that they never even completed. They also thought that it would be acceptable to sneak out an updated impact assessment on the day of the debate. This is government on the back of a fag packet, with no time and no opportunity for scrutiny. It is typical of what we have come to expect from this Government.

[Hywel Williams]

I pointed out to the Minister that the Government are determined to repeal the Trade Union (Wales) Act. She said she would refer to her position on that later in her speech but, unsurprisingly, she failed to do so. Will the shadow Minister commit a future Labour Westminster Government to reinstate our Senedd’s ability to implement a ban on agency staff in devolved services?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his point. I promise him that the Labour party will always support Welsh devolution and support the Wales Government in what they have been trying to achieve. Actually, as we have seen with the industrial action on the railway, we have avoided that in Wales, where we have a Welsh Labour Government, because Labour Members respect devolution. This Government want to break up the Union with their petty squabbles, sleaze and scandal.

Let me move on to the second motion. I congratulate the Minister’s new team on finding one of the lesser-known industrial regulations. It is funny that the Government are proposing to increase fourfold the damages that could be claimed under a measure that has not even been used. The Conservative party is wasting precious parliamentary time in a week when piles of legislation have had to be postponed due to there being no Minister to deal with them. This is an empty gesture or a threat. Whether the Minister and her party like it or not, everybody has the right to join a trade union in this country and to take strike action. This measure is either pointless or yet another attempt to undermine that right by the back door.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is not open for trade unionists to entertain illegal strike action in this country?

[Angela Rayner]

We have some of the strictest trade union legislation in Europe. Members have to go through strict balloting. This is the myth that Government Members do not get about trade unionists and industrial action: it is a last resort and it is often when all else has failed. It would be good if the Government got round the table and tried to deal with the disputes rather than stoke them up.

Let us take a step back to examine what this is really about: the Government are set on breaking the strikes that they are causing themselves. We saw it with the RMT strikes last month, when the Government did everything they could to avoid the negotiating table and find the resolution to bring the strikes to an end. Instead, this is a flagrant attempt to do something by a zombie Government that are out of answers, out of options and out of time. They are about a race to the bottom on standards. They are about further eroding British workers’ rights. They are about dividing the country they claim to lead. Undermining strike action will make it harder to find a resolution, resulting in more and longer strikes to the detriment of the public, businesses and workers. This will also empower bad bosses and we will see more cases like P&O Ferries.

We have not just determined that this is bad policy. It is also clear that it is deliberately harmful to workers and their employers, and it is an absolute fault of this Government. I should not be surprised by it. The Conservative party may be trying to get rid of their leader and may want to try and press the refresh button and get a better image, but this Government and that party have shown us time and time again who they are. This is a Government that have no answers to the cost of living crisis. This is a Government that have no answers to backlog Britain and the chaos that it is causing for ordinary working families. This is a Government that have no answers to the spiralling inflation that is on our backs. And this is a Government that have not only failed to prevent the chaos, but have indeed caused the chaos. The party opposite is in disarray and this is no longer good enough. It is the Labour party that is pro-worker and pro-business, and I urge the whole House to be the same.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Fairness at Work and Power in Communities

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to face the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for the first time, but from what he has said today, I have to ask: where is the employment Bill that was promised? Where is it? The Labour party has a long and proud history as the party of working people and for working people. It is simple: we believe that people deserve a high-quality, secure job and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Everyone deserves a job that they can build their life on and the security to be able to start a family, no matter who they are or what job they do.

More than that, I believe that working people should earn enough so that they can have cash spare at the end of the week to enjoy the fruits of their labour and balance work and life. Going out for dinner or taking their kids to the cinema should not be a luxury item for people who are working. What a miserable vision of our country it is when older people who ride buses to keep warm are told that they should be grateful for that privilege, when 2 million people in our country cannot afford to eat every day and when a further 250,000 UK households face destitution in 2023. That is the Conservative Government in action, and it shows how we on this side of the House differ. We are not all the same.

The Minister opened the debate today by talking about the importance of growth, yet today’s GDP figures show no growth in February and a fall in GDP in March. Working people across the country have been betrayed by the Conservative Government. The employment Bill that was promised to follow the withdrawal agreement has never happened. They did not get it done.

In yet another Queen’s Speech the Government offer jam tomorrow while millions of people in our country cannot afford either to eat or to heat. This week, families needed to see a proper proposal from the Government to put money back in their pockets. Parents getting a late-night text to tell them their working hours and tearing their hair out organising last-minute childcare to cover their shift, and social care workers working two jobs who cannot afford to take a break or get sick, needed to see fair pay agreements or a basic minimum wage that is enough to live on. The bus driver who worked all through the pandemic but was fired and rehired on less money and longer hours needs to see the outlawing of this obscene practice. They need real help, right now. Instead, they get warm words and wishful thinking.

Time and again—in fact 20 times—Ministers promised an employment Bill that would protect workers and put an end to warehouses run like Victorian workhouses. They then promised they would make it illegal for bosses to sack long-standing staff members and then rehire them on worse pay and hours, to avoid a repeat of the P&O scandal. They promised that enhanced rights and protections were just around the corner. Well—mañana, mañana, mañana. Twenty times, Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and said that we should await the employment Bill, and await it we did. Where is it? Three years now and we are still waiting.

Now we can see that the Government were never going to come good on that pledge. The promise to introduce a single enforcement body and take action on tips and sick pay—gone. The promise to consult on making flexible working the default without good reason not to—ditched. The promise to introduce extended leave for neonatal care—dropped. The promise to make it easier for fathers to take paternity leave—disappeared.

The promise to extend the entitlement to leave for unpaid carers to a week—abandoned. The promise to create a preventive duty against sexual harassment—missing. The promise to extend redundancy protection for pregnant women—nowhere to be seen. And the promise to end the cruel practice of fire and rehire—up in smoke. The truth is that this Government are presiding over a bonfire of workers’ rights and breaking their promises left, right and centre. They pledged to enhance rights and protections at work, but yet again they have failed to deliver.

If the Conservatives were serious about spreading opportunity, prosperity and power across the country, they would start by introducing plans to pay people a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but this Government have yet again failed to make the choices required to stand up for working people, because they are not on working people’s side. While prices continue to skyrocket, we see no plans—no plans—to tackle the cost of living crisis. The Prime Minister said that more help is on its way, and then his own spokespeople and his absent neighbour at No. 11 furiously denied it, while Ministers took to the airwaves to put on silly voices and mock those who are struggling. This is not a serious Government.

The Government continue to try to pull the wool over our eyes, telling us that skyrocketing prices are just a global problem, that offering people help is somehow silly, that nothing can be done. But here is the problem: as bills soar across Britain, the Prime Minister is enforcing a tax-hiking Budget. He is the only G7 leader to do so. The Prime Minister and his Chancellor chose—they chose—to hike taxes on working people at the worst possible time, and they chose not to introduce a windfall tax on energy companies to help people with their energy bills. We need an emergency Budget now to sort out this mess and to tackle the cost of living crisis.

I constantly get mail from constituents who are struggling to make a pay cheque last until the end of the month. They all deserve better, a decent wage that is enough to raise a family on and to afford bread and, yes, some roses, too. Better pay would end the self-defeating low wage, low investment and low productivity cycle in which the country has been trapped for the past decade. Boosting people’s income is not just the right thing to do for them; it is the right thing to do for our economy.

The fact is that, right now, people do not have the money to spend in our shops, businesses and local economies, so high streets are suffering. Places that were once a source of great pride are now a source of great sadness, as independent businesses are replaced with plywood shutters.

Britain’s insecure work epidemic is not just punishing workers and communities; it is starving the public finances, too. New research from the TUC this week shows that insecure, low-paid work costs the Treasury £10 billion a year in lost tax revenue and increased social security payments, which means less funding for our cash-strapped hospitals, care homes and schools. That is a choice—it is the Government’s choice—and, under this Government, the people who worked to rebuild this country have been forgotten. In towns up and down the country, people are working harder and paying more but getting less every year.

In places like Stockport, where I grew up, families are suffering. While travelling across the country during the local election campaign, I saw at first hand how the Conservatives have frozen wages, overseen widespread inequality and increased poverty. From Bury to Bletchley, and from Barnet to Burnley, the people and places that once proudly powered Britain, that contributed to our economy, are being rewarded with low wages and insecure work. They are underpaid, underappreciated and undervalued. It is high time that the key workers who got us through this pandemic, and all other working people, were given the dignity and security at work that they deserve, but under the Conservatives, work does not mean security any more, and it does not mean fairness, either. That is why we have proposed a new deal for working people. Within the first 100 days of a Labour Government, we would legislate to introduce fair pay agreements, which would bring together workers and employers to agree terms in each sector, starting in social care.

We are ambitious for our country, and our ambitions do not stop there. Labour will strengthen the protections afforded to all workers by ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which leave working people waiting up to two years for their basic protections. Labour will end this arbitrary system, and will scrap qualifying time for basic rights such as those on unfair dismissal, sick pay and paternity pay. With a Labour Government, working people will have rights at work from day one, but this not just about workers; so many businesses play by the rules and try to do the right thing but are undercut by the offshore and the unscrupulous. Many of them are the small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of our local and regional economies, and they deserve better, too. We would scrap business rates to help our high streets flourish. Just today, Deliveroo and GMB union have reached a groundbreaking agreement, which shows how innovation and a voice at work can go hand in hand. It is good that there are successful businesses that understand the value of trade unions in a modern economy.

This Government could also learn a lesson or two about the role of women in our economy. Having been a single parent, I know only too well the challenges of trying to balance work with being a good mum—of running from work to the school gates, and of missing out on parents evening. Rather than stacking the odds against working parents, Labour would deliver stronger family-friendly rights. Labour will ensure that all workers have the right to flexible working as a default from day one. During the pandemic, so many workers have shown how flexible they can be, and we should build on that flexibility. We are committed to extending statutory maternity and paternity leave, introducing the right to bereavement leave, and strengthening protections for pregnant women by making it, as a default, unlawful to dismiss them within six months of their return to work. Labour will set stronger family-friendly rights in stone.

We will also put mental health on a par with physical health in our workplaces. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and Ministers would do well to remember it. Labour will also act to close gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps. This Government’s programme is completely lacking in any plans to tackle the inequalities facing black, Asian and minority ethnic people, which were so visibly exposed by the covid-19 pandemic. Yet again, the Government have reneged on their promise to introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting, ignoring calls from both the CBI and the TUC.

[Andy McDonald]

My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does she share my admiration for Baroness McGregor-Smith, and the work that she did to persuade many companies to embrace pay gap reporting, though that was thwarted by those on the Government Benches? Is it not a sad indictment of the Government that business, the TUC and everybody else are way ahead of them on this issue?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend, not only for his work on Labour’s plan for employment, but for the crucial point he makes. This Government’s pattern of behaviour is to not work with or listen to anybody at the moment. It is all about rhetoric, rather than working collaboratively to make things better for the people of this country. It seems that nobody is immune to that these days, whereas once it was just a select few who the Government felt were partisan in their views. The ideas of quite a lot of people are now frozen out, and it seems the Government are not willing to listen.

Our country is riven with inequalities, which we on the Opposition Benches are focused on fixing in order to ensure that the working people who create our nation’s wealth get their fair share of it. Meanwhile, the Government propose a Procurement Bill that looks increasingly unworthy of the name. We need a Bill that allows us to use Government contracts to support British businesses, so that we can make, buy and sell more in Britain. As we recover from the pandemic, we have a chance to seize new opportunities to shape a new future for Britain—opportunities to give people new skills and jobs here in the UK, to invest in local businesses, and to help our high streets to thrive again.

A Labour Government would ask every public body to give more contracts to British businesses, using social, environmental and labour clauses in contract design. We would work with colleges and universities to make sure that we hone the skills and apprenticeships that we need for the jobs of the future. The Tories have cynically abused procurement rules and handed out millions of pounds of public money to their mates; Labour will use public procurement to support good work and good British businesses. From good green jobs in tidal power and offshore wind, to fintech, media and film, we must grow modern industries to build a long-term economy that provides good jobs and is fit for the future.

[Mr Sheerman]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that closing down Channel 4 in Leeds by selling it off will be a mortal blow to the creative industries in the north of England?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree. The frustration is that people in the north and in the midlands—areas like the one I represent—have been told that there will be “Levelling up, levelling up, levelling up,” yet at the first sign of any sort of sprig of help for our economy, they trash it by taking away the support that is there and doing something that really does not add up to levelling up and supporting our great industries in the north and in the midlands.

[Chris Stephens]

My Unison comrade makes an excellent point. Does it not also apply to the Government’s ludicrous decision to close Department for Work and Pensions offices, and now to close Insolvency Service offices throughout the UK?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my Unison colleague and friend, who I have known for many years, and who has fought for working people and great public services for many years. Yes, I absolutely agree with him: it does not make sense. The theme I have highlighted throughout my speech is that the Government say one thing, but it is always jam tomorrow, and their actions are completely divorced from what is happening on the ground.

The Conservatives have had 12 long years to make the changes that our country desperately needs to secure our future, but they have failed. All the while, we have seen the watering down of workers’ rights, and rogue bosses such as those at P&O taking advantage of our lax rules while Ministers stand idly by. Instead of an employment model that delivers for working people, the Conservatives have ushered in a race to the bottom on the backs of working people. Outsourcing, zero-hours contracts and agency work have driven down pay, standards and conditions for everyone across our whole economy.

Labour’s approach is to offer people real help right now, and a vision for the future of work in which working people enjoy dignity and are treated with respect. This is what is missing from the Government’s programme: real help right now, when people need it—a vision for a better Britain, with a more secure future. Work should provide not just a proper wage that people can raise a family on but dignity, fairness and flexibility. Labour will make Britain work for working people. This Conservative Government have not got a plan—they have not got a clue. Ministers claim they are getting on with the job, but they are failing Britain’s workers and their communities today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would be grateful for advice from the Chair following the publication of the Humble Address regarding the appointment of Lord Lebedev. As you will know, on 29 March, the House approved the Humble Address compelling the Government to release to us critical information concerning the Prime Minister’s involvement in the appointment of Lord Lebedev to the other place. The evidence provided has been so heavily redacted that it is utterly pointless.

In the written ministerial statement accompanying the publication of the Humble Address, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General suggested that it would be

“for the government to consider what documents are suitable for release.”

I am sure that the Chair would agree that this sets an extremely dangerous precedent. Can you confirm that what the Government say in the accompanying statement—that it is up to the Government whether they are transparent about information requested by the democratic will of Parliament—is incorrect?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order, which is a point of order for the Chair and which she makes very well. I recall the matters to which she refers, but I cannot give her an answer to her question now from the Chair, because if she is asserting—as I think she is—that the Government response as published today to the address of 29 March does not satisfy the terms of that address, she will wish to consider whether that actually amounts to a complaint of privilege. It is the practice of the House that a complaint of privilege must first be raised in writing with Mr Speaker, as is set out in “Erskine May” in paragraph 15.32.

I cannot deal with the matter now, but the right hon. Lady raises it quite properly. If, as I think she probably is asserting, it is a complaint of privilege, she ought to make such a complaint after careful consideration of the written ministerial statement and the return to the address of 29 March, which has just been published, and she should then write formally to Mr Speaker setting out her concerns. I am sure that she will do so, and it will be for Mr Speaker to determine whether or not the matter should be given precedence for debate in the House, being a matter of privilege.