Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Beth Winter Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a proud former employee of the University and College Union. I am also a proud member of Unite.

This Bill exposes this Tory Government’s contempt and disregard for working people, whose difficulties have been caused by them. Its purpose is to dismantle the trade union movement and workers’ rights, and it entrusts yet greater powers to the Government. It is authoritarian and an affront to democracy. The Bill does not establish minimum service levels for strikes. Those will follow in regulations, deprived of the proper scrutiny afforded to primary legislation. It does not ensure the safety of the public in times of industrial action—unions in relevant sectors already do that. So what is it for? As Mick Lynch of the RMT has said, this law is “a form of conscription” that would allow employers to choose how many striking employees they wanted to force to work.

The Conservatives have spent 12 years creating a low-pay Britain. Now that trade unions are effectively organising to lift people’s pay, the Tory party is concerned that it has lost control, and wishes to restore it. The Bill allows employers to sack individuals for participating in legitimate industrial action. It enables employers to sue trade unions for not forcing workers to cross the picket line, placing unions at risk of incurring significant costs that could cause the demise of trade unions. It will give enormous powers to the Secretary of State and to employers.

The Bill is also drafted without necessary detail or substance. There has been no consultation and no impact assessment. It is an imposition to weaken and even dismantle the trade union movement.

The UK Government are introducing a Bill that will overrule the powers and policies of the devolved Governments as the Welsh Government introduces a social partnership Bill. As Welsh Government’s Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, said:

“It is a fundamental attack on freedoms, and as Welsh Government we will give it no credence or support”.

Having sat in the Chamber and listened to all contributions intently, I must take issue with the myths propagated about, and vilification of, our key workers and trade unionists. All people want is fair, decent pay, terms and conditions and to protect our vital public services. Surely all of us in the Chamber should support that. I will oppose the Bill this evening.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I ask those who took part in the debate please to come to the Chamber for the wind-ups, which will begin no later than 9.40 pm.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Beth Winter Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth]

I wish to finish my speech.

The Bill will ensure that when people call 999, they can get an ambulance. It will ensure that a fire engine will come if there is a fire. It will ensure that my constituents can send their children to school and travel to work on public transport. This is pragmatic legislation that will bring the UK in line with other countries, such as France and Spain, which already have such legislation in place. I will be supporting the Government’s very sensible Bill, which will protect all my constituents. I urge Opposition Members to do the same, even if that means that their union paymasters do not cough up ahead of the next election.

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I speak for millions of trade unionists, public sector workers, key workers and people up and down the country when I say that this Bill is disgraceful, draconian, unconstitutional, undemocratic and a clear attack on workers’ rights.

This afternoon, I will limit my main comments to an amendment of mine that seeks to exclude Wales from the application of the Bill. I also wish to associate myself with a number of other amendments, including those tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and my hon. Friends the Members for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) and for Ilford South (Sam Tarry).

When I opposed the Bill on Second Reading two weeks ago, I said that it is clear that it will

“overrule the powers and policies of the devolved Governments”.—[Official Report, 16 January 2023; Vol. 726, c. 123.]

This legislation before the Commons has been introduced without any discussion with the Welsh Government. It has been introduced despite it conflicting with the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill before the Senedd. A different approach is being taken in Wales, and I urge Government Members to take note of how things have been done differently—and successfully—in Wales. It is an approach that fosters collaboration and co-operation between Government, employers and workers, and it is encapsulated in the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, which places partnership working on a statutory footing. It really does work. It is this partnership approach that meant that the Welsh Government and Transport for Wales were able to negotiate a pay settlement recently that was accepted by the RMT.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The hon. Member is giving a powerful speech. What we are seeing in Wales is co-operation and co-working in action, and service is being improved because of it, which, of course, is what good Government and good relations with unions is all about.

[Beth Winter]

I agree with the right hon. Member.

A joint statement by Wales TUC and the Welsh Government called on the UK Government to cease their controversial approach and learn lessons from the collaborative, social partnership approach adopted in Wales. It said that the UK Government should allow the rail companies and RMT to negotiate a deal that is fair and acceptable to Network Rail employees and employees of the UK train operating companies. That is the approach guiding the Welsh Government and the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill before us today is in complete conflict with that legislation. Clearly, there has been no opportunity for the Welsh Government to timetable a legislative consent motion in the Senedd. If they had done so, they would have recorded that the Senedd would withhold consent for this piece of legislation.

The Welsh Government’s view is clear. First Minister Mark Drakeford has stated:

“The Welsh Labour Government does not believe that the response to strikes should be to bring forward such restrictive and backward-looking laws, that trample over the devolution settlement.”

Counsel General Mick Antoniw has said in the Senedd:

“The way to resolve industrial disputes is by negotiation and agreement.”

The Wales TUC has also been very clear. Its general secretary, Shavanah Taj, has said that

“this Bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations”,

and has urged all Welsh MPs to reject the Bill.

That is why I have tabled four amendments, each of which seeks to prevent the application of this legislation from taking effect in Wales. I have sought to amend clause 3 by asserting that Senedd Cymru can still pass legislation counter to this Bill. In amendment 77, I have sought to remove the application of the Bill to Wales. In amendments 88 and 97 I seek to remove the powers in the Bill to repeal primary legislation passed in the Senedd, as the Government are seeking to do on agency workers involved in strikes. In amendment 98, I seek to ensure that Welsh workers employed in Wales by English firms are not impacted by this legislation.

I also support a raft of other amendments, as I said earlier, including Opposition amendment 1, which would mitigate some of the most authoritarian elements of the Bill and preserve existing protections against unfair dismissal, including for an employee who participates in a strike contrary to a work notice under the Bill. I also associate myself with amendments setting out the importance of meeting conditions set by the ILO, as already discussed. There must be negotiation between the social partners rather than the imposing of minimum service levels, as this Bill will do.