Industrial Action on the Railway

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is a distinguished former Rail Minister and knows a great deal about the service. He is absolutely right about Passenger Assist. We are expanding that service by, for example, speeding up response times and introducing things like apps and standards to make sure that people can use our trains. We will shortly complete the work that we have promised on putting in tactile pavements around station platforms to remove another potential risk of using our railways. I am fully on board with everything that he said—we just need our railways running, though.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

My mum is one of the RMT members who will be taking industrial action this week, along with many of my constituents, the majority of whom are cleaning workers, catering and gateline staff, and other ancillary roles who are not even on a real living wage and at the sharp end of this Government’s cost of living crisis. My mum and the other key workers in transport are not striking because they want to; it is a last resort because they feel they have been left no choice. A real-terms cut to their pay or the threat of losing their job altogether is far more than the wages they will lose in striking to defend themselves. Will the Transport Secretary therefore tell the House what steps he has taken to enable train operating companies to make an offer on a deal so that this crisis can be fairly resolved and the strikes averted?

[Grant Shapps]

They have actually already made an offer—the hon. Lady may not be aware—that the RMT has talked about this afternoon and clearly rejected as well. She talks about the cost of living crisis but fails to mention that it is a global inflationary problem caused not only by coronavirus but now a war in Ukraine on which this country has helped to lead the response. She talks about the salaries of people on the railway. As I have said several times, I want the salaries to be higher. There will be a pay increase this year for her mum and for everyone else. It is important to recognise that a responsible Government have to make the judgment between railway workers, nurses, teachers, care workers and many others. In that regard, she should know that in the past 10 years there has been a 39% increase in railway workers’ salaries compared with just 16% for nurses. We do need to make sure that the fair settlement is fair for everybody.