Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

In answer to the point from the hon. Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), negotiations need to continue, and they need to be fair to workers, but also to the taxpayer, which I will touch on in a second.

I reject the characterisation of this Bill by the Opposition, who clearly put their relationship with their unions over the interests of this country. This is not a radical Bill. What we are doing is not even new. We are taking reasonable, proportionate and balanced steps and aligning ourselves with many of our European partners, such as France and Spain.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister accept that health and safety legislation in this country—to ensure guards on machinery, for example, to stop people’s hands being chopped off—was won because workers withdrew their labour? Does he understand that the ambulance workers and the nurses say that the very reason they are going on strike is to make sure that the service is safe? What he is saying at the Dispatch Box is complete rubbish.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. On nurses, we already have voluntary agreements, yet still they go on strike. The two things are consistent and are not mutually exclusive, but I recognise his point on the right to withdraw labour and bring attention to certain things, whether pay or other matters at work. It is absolutely right that people should be able to do that, but it should not prevent others going about their daily business and, indeed, feeling safe in terms of such things as healthcare.

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[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 ---

[Barry Gardiner]

My right hon. Friend is being extremely generous in giving way. Does she accept that the only way a union can avoid the situation she has just talked about, where unfair dismissal protection is taken away from workers, is by ensuring that they become an instrument of coercion, of the state and of the employer? For 35 years in this country, legislation has provided that a trade union is prohibited by law from disciplining or expelling a member who refuses to take part in a strike. Under the Bill, the same trade union may be required to discipline or expel a member who does what their workmates and they themselves may have voted for—namely, to withdraw their labour. Jonathan Swift could not have made this up. Nothing in all Lilliput or Brobdingnag could come up with a more ludicrous situation.

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

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