Rail Strikes

Claire Coutinho Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

I represent a commuter-belt area and many of my workers need the trains to go to work. On the strike days they will get no service at all and on the days in between they are going to get a Sunday service. If the trains are not running, at best those people will work from home. They might be forced to use a car, but we all know the price of fuel at the moment. At worst, they cannot work at all. Worst of all—as has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Robert Largan) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), both of whom have trade union backgrounds—the unions have jumped the gun. This is way too soon to cause this kind of damage to the economy and to the lives of individual people, and it will be millions of low-paid workers, and exam students, who will pay the price.

I believe in the power of unions. I think it is right that workers should be able to organise, have a collective voice and increase their bargaining power, but where unions are disrupting services that are already losing money hand over fist, demanding pay rises that are undeliverable and resisting modernisation, they are only doing their own workers harm. Any one of my constituents who uses the train will tell you that the railways are struggling to keep pace with demand and the needs of passengers, post-pandemic. Passenger numbers are down a fifth and train revenues are at about 60%. That is causing havoc with train services.

The taxpayer has stepped in. To give some sense of perspective, the Office of Rail and Road put the total industry income at £20.7 billion in 2020-21, of which £16 billion came from the taxpayer and just £2.5 billion came from passenger income. That is clearly not sustainable. The RMT argues that wages should go up by an inflation-proof 11%, but what private sector industry could withstand that logic when revenues are down 60%? Which member of the public—the public are not getting an 11% pay rise, by the way—should pay higher taxes for this increase?

I understand that workers are worried about inflation, but our cost of living package, which independent organisations such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert have said is very generous, will apply to rail workers, too. People on means-tested benefits will receive £1,200 of support this year to help with the cost of living.

I also understand that workers are worried about job losses. If people stop using ticket offices, however, how is it possible to keep increasing pay over time for a service that is being used less and less? Surely it is best to match workers with jobs and services that are in demand so they have a sustainable path to higher wages.

[Chris Loder]

Five members of Network Rail staff died on the tracks last year, with three of them being directly hit by trains. Does my hon. Friend agree it is right that the Government and Network Rail look to find ways to reduce that risk, including through industry reform? That would also help with some of the issues she has articulated.

[Claire Coutinho]

I wholeheartedly believe that workers and unions have the right to try to ensure safety. The RMT has been around for a long time and, particularly when the railways were very dangerous during its early decades, it did a huge amount of work to push for safety, which is a good thing. The problem is that the RMT is now leading its members down the garden path. It is driving down the use of trains, which will reduce train revenues and therefore mean less money in the industry for the wages it is trying to achieve.

Opposition Members have not been very clear about their position, but I hope they will clarify in their speeches whether they agree that the unions should delay these strikes and allow time for negotiations, that these strikes are not fair on ordinary commuters in low-paid jobs who will not be paid for work they cannot get to, that an 11% pay rise, funded by taxpayers, is not fair when those taxpayers will not get an 11% pay rise, and that the system needs to be modernised if the RMT wants ongoing pay increases, as these vast Government subsidies are not sustainable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but the true fact of the matter is that the Secretary of State has not even tried. He has been missing in action. The unions, including the RMT, have been asking for negotiations. Indeed, there have been discussions over the past couple of years, but the unions have been highlighting that many of their members have not received a pay increase for the past couple of years. As I said, they have not met since March. The Secretary of State needs to show leadership and hold an urgent meeting between Ministers, employers and the union. Sadly this behaviour is indicative of wider incompetence when it comes to managing our transport network.

[Claire Coutinho]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the unions called a strike before they saw the finalised deals of a pay plan?

[Mr Dhesi]

As I highlighted, they have been in negotiations for the past couple of years. I am talking about wider incompetence, so let us take Transport for London and the Government’s failures in securing a long-term funding deal. That has left Transport for London in limbo, leaving it no choice but to make cuts to services in the face of a lack of Government support. Ministers are playing political games, where the only losers are the hard-working British people.

Why are the Government choosing to cut when they should be choosing to invest? Instead of delivering on a rolling programme of electrification, they are scrapping huge parts of HS2. I see the Rail Minister, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), laughing from a sedentary position, but the Government scrapped the eastern leg of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail to boot. Why are they choosing managed decline, when they should be choosing growth? Why are they cutting services, when they should be cutting fares, as many of our European neighbours are doing?

We could have a rail network with affordable, reliable services where more people want to travel by rail, helping us to address the climate emergency. Instead, the Government are focused on punishing rail passengers, punishing key workers on our railways, and presiding over the managed decline of our railways with £1 billion-worth of cuts imposed from the top. A decade-plus of Tory government has driven our transport systems into the ground, and the pandemic has catalysed that process to crisis point.

The Labour party will always stand to defend the rights of working people, the British people, who currently face a blistering cost of living crisis in the wake of a global pandemic. Workers are looking to the Government for answers, but the Government simply do not have a plan: no employment Bill, which has been promised for the last three years; and no progress on fire and rehire.

I have just been in a debate in Westminster Hall, which I managed to secure, on fire and rehire. Not one single Conservative Back Bencher managed to attend that debate. They simply do not—[Interruption.] They say they were here. Many other Members from the Labour party, the SNP and the Democratic Unionist party attended, but not a single Conservative Member from the Government Benches was there to support their Minister, because they do not believe in workers’ rights. They do not believe in supporting the British people who are going through this cost of living crisis.

Now, the Transport Secretary seems intent on jeopardising the right to strike at all. If his Department wants to move forward, I suggest that what it should be doing is negotiating, ending the strikes next week, and giving our transport system the attention it rightly deserves.

--- Later in debate ---

That this House recognises the vital role of the railways in supporting people and businesses across the UK every day; condemns the decision of the rail unions to hold three days of strikes; believes those strikes will adversely affect students taking examinations, have an unacceptable effect on working people and a negative effect on the economy; and calls on the rail unions to reconsider their strike action and continue discussions with the industry.

[Claire Coutinho]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think the whole House would agree about the importance of declaring our financial interests. Will you guide the House on whether Members should have declared that the RMT had funded them individually, their constituency party or their general election campaign in 2019 before speaking in the debate?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. It is not up to the Chair to determine whether Members should or should not declare any registrable interest. It is up to each individual Member to do so. Members should therefore reflect on what their circumstances are. Should anybody believe that another Member has not followed the guidelines, of course they always have open recourse to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to make complaints.