Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Stephens and Laura Farris

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I join others in welcoming the Minister to her place. A victims Bill has been promised by the Conservatives since 2016, but while the UK Government have dithered, the Scottish Government have introduced the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, which seeks to put victims and witnesses at the heart of the justice system. It ensures that a range of trauma-informed support is available to child victims of violent and sexual abuse crimes, allowing them to give pre-recorded evidence without needing to go to a police station or a court. Have the Minister and the Government considered adopting that approach?

[Laura Farris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. As he will know, our Victims and Prisoners Bill is making its way through Parliament as we speak. He has talked about victim-focused support; I draw his attention to things like Operation Soteria, which is directed at rape victims and has now been rolled out on a national basis. That places victims’ rights at the heart of the inquiry and focuses all the effort on the suspects and their behaviour, so to be honest, what he has described is consistent with our current models of policing and investigating crime. I hope the Victims and Prisoners Bill will conclude its passage through Parliament and receive Royal Assent soon.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Chris Stephens and Laura Farris

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her point, and I will assist her, because I was coming on to that point. The article 11 right may be restricted for two reasons—if the restriction is necessary, yes, and proportionate. The International Labour Organisation, of which the United Kingdom is a founding member, recognises that maintaining a minimum level of service provision can be both when it comes to essential services. Its committee on freedom of association has expressly set out the two circumstances in which it may be appropriate: where strike action would pose a risk to life, safety or health; or where the service is not essential in the strict sense of the word, but where repeated strikes would bring a very important sector to a standstill.

[Chris Stephens]

The ILO also says, does it not, that the minimum service level has to be agreed by an independent arbiter if there is a dispute, which is not in the Bill, and that there should not be a dismissal, which is in the Bill?

[Laura Farris]

I am grateful to both SNP Members for their interventions. I am coming on to those points, so I will make a tiny bit of progress, if I may.

On the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), we already know that transport and education meet the ILO’s test, because the ILO told the United Kingdom that in its response to the challenge to the Trade Union Act 2016 submitted by the TUC in 2015. In its response, the ILO committee of experts—Members can look it up; it is on the website—said that in relation to transport and education

“recourse might be had to negotiated minimum standards for these sectors as appropriate”.

We also know that many comparable countries take a much tougher line than the Government are proposing. In the United States, to give one example, 38 out of 50 states ban public sector strikes altogether.