Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey).

I rise to speak in favour of amendments 80, 84, 97, 20, 83, 93, 85, 95, 92, new clause 1 and all amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench. I am absolutely delighted to declare that I am a member of Unite and the GMB.

I start by congratulating members of the Fire Brigades Union on their resounding strike ballot today, which really was democracy in action, and expressing solidarity with all the workers in dispute this week. This is a pernicious Bill designed to target the very same workers who, as a nation, we clapped from our doorsteps not so long ago in gratitude for their heroics during the pandemic—the same key workers who, let us not forget, are being forced to use food banks in vast numbers because their work does not pay.

The old chestnut that work pays is becoming a bigger fallacy than some hon. Members’ tax returns. Nurses, firefighters, teachers and other public sector workers are all targeted in this Bill, prohibited from striking and risking dismissal if they resist. Let us be clear: these public sector workers are being forced into industrial action in the first place by a Government who have overseen 12 years of real-terms pay cuts, the erosion of job security and pensions and the destruction of our public services. I note that the Prime Minister said today, after finally sacking his party chairman, that he

“will take whatever steps are necessary to restore the integrity back into politics”.

Well, I cannot help but find that pledge laughable as I stand here speaking out against this Government’s Bill, which will see key workers lose their protection from unfair dismissal and trade unions sued for upholding workers’ rights.

It is clear that the Government are trying to fast-track the legislation through Parliament without proper scrutiny. The Bill lacks detail, and I note that the TUC has submitted a freedom of information request to ascertain why it has been published without an impact assessment. It is a further insult to our key public sector workers that this bonfire of workers’ rights is unfolding just as the Government are laying the groundwork for another bonfire—one of financial regulations, through the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

The Prime Minister speaks about restoring integrity, yet here he is presiding over the empowerment of speculators and lifting the bankers’ bonus cap as our key workers lose their right to strike. It is beyond shameful. I have sponsored 25 amendments aimed at protecting the right of workers to take industrial action, and at neutralising this appalling Bill, which attacks our fundamental right to strike. I support Labour’s amendments to safeguard protections against unfair dismissal, and further amendments that would require the Government to submit the legislation to greater parliamentary scrutiny, including by forcing the publication of assessments of how the Bill would impact on individual workers, equalities, employers and unions.

I am deeply opposed to the Bill, which further curtails the right to strike and other trade union activities. I fully support the rights of workers to take industrial action. I voted against this dreadful Bill on Second Reading, and I will continue to oppose it in this place and out on the streets with the public, who also oppose it. We can and must do better than this dreadful, divisive and potentially unlawful Bill.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

I rise to speak in support of the amendments that protect democracy, our devolved Parliaments, our human rights, our workers’ rights, our compliance with international law and, fundamentally, our freedom. Those aspects are laid out in new clause 1 and amendments 92, 93, 80, 27, 83, 84, 20, 8, 40, 94, 4 and 1, among others. I declare my proud membership of Unite the Union, the GMB and Unison.

It is clear that the public do not need protecting from public sector unions. The workers and the public—ordinary people—need protecting from this Government. The only fit end for this appallingly vague, skeletal and frighteningly broad Bill is the scrapheap. It should be withdrawn or, if not, voted against in its entirety. At the very least, the amendments and new clauses are needed to minimise the immediate and potential harm that this “sack the workers” and anti-trade union Bill will cause.

The Conservative party has already demonstrated its readiness to trample on legal principles and the democratic and human rights of people in the UK. Through the Bill, as it stands, the Government are seeking to bypass democracy in this House, which is why amendments 80, 27 and 40, among others, are needed. The Government are also seeking to circumvent the established autonomy of the UK’s devolved Governments without even assessing the impact of those actions. That is why amendment 28 and others are vital.

It is essential that the amendments and new clauses force the Secretary of State of to seek the approval of Parliament to amend or add to the legislation. In fact, the Bill’s provisions are so wide and vague that it would set a precedent in allowing the Government to amend or revoke, in private, any legislation that they do not like, against any set of people they disagree with, or simply on a whim to make a political point. The Bill is also a mass assault on the rights of millions of working-class people, no matter where they live, and on the unions that enable them to organise and act together to improve their working conditions and living standards.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

Many have commented on the almost ludicrous nature of how we are legislating today. We are about to legislate to penalise a union for not taking reasonable steps to ensure it instructs its members to break a strike, yet we do not know those sanctions, or what “reasonable steps” are. We do not know what the implications are for the union itself, yet we are legislating tonight to give a free hand to the Minister. That cannot be right in any democratic forum.

[Claudia Webbe]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, to which I hope the Government are listening. The Bill is manifestly unjust and must not become law. That is why amendments 93 and 92 are needed. The Government are not just showing their contempt for the UK’s legal and democratic principles with this Bill. As it stands, the Secretary of State can ignore the UK’s international legal and treaty obligations on the treatment of workers and allow the sacking of workers simply for exercising their internationally recognised right to withdraw their labour, with nothing to protect certain workers and union officials from being targeted by bad bosses. Time and again, this Government bring forward legislation without an impact assessment. Where is the impact assessment? Where is the equality impact assessment? That is why new clause 1 and amendments 4, 83 and 84 are needed.

The harm this Bill does to the rights of our people is obvious, but it also does huge harm to the UK’s international standing, making this country yet again an outlier among so-called developed nations in its readiness to disregard international law and agreements. The Bill is clearly unfit and is designed to break the will of the unions and demoralise workers. These amendments and new clauses will not actually make the Bill fit, but the proposed changes will at least mitigate some of the dangers it evidently poses. I urge the Committee to support them.

As workers rise in opposition to this Bill, to defend their rights and to say enough is enough, and as industrial action increases as a direct result of this Bill, I urge all hon. and right hon. Members to do the decent thing and to stand with them not only here in Parliament, but on the picket line. On 1 February, I will be standing with workers in Leicester who are rightly exercising their democratic right to strike for fair pay, terms and conditions. I ask Members to support the amendments and to scrap this Bill for good.

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a proud member of the Communication Workers Union and Unite the union.

I am appalled by the introduction of the Bill, but I cannot say that I am surprised by it. Historically, the Conservatives have taken every opportunity afforded to them in government to attack and curtail the rights of trade unions to represent hard-working people at their places of employment. Whether in the Industrial Relations Act 1971 under Heath or the raft of draconian anti-trade union laws introduced under Thatcher, the Conservatives have demonstrated again and again that they are fundamentally opposed to any notion of workers having a voice or a right to negotiate pay and conditions at their workplace. To attack the fundamental rights of workers to withdraw their labour is an act not of strength or leadership from the Government, but of downright cowardice.

Key workers across the UK, who are struggling to make ends meet after years of hard work and sacrifice, are now exercising their democratic right to demand better pay and conditions after 13 years of miserable Conservative Governments. Any sensible, sincere and serious Government would be doing everything in their power to ensure that agreement could be reached, so that workers could receive what they are owed and the public did not have to endure disruption any longer than necessary. It is the Government who are failing to provide the most minimum of service levels, not our public sector workers.

As a lifelong trade unionist, I know first hand the vital work done by trade unions throughout our society. I stood in solidarity with all the university workers who went out to protect their pensions. I stood in solidarity with BT workers, rail workers, Royal Mail workers and all the strike workers who have stood up for their rights to better pay and conditions under 13 years of miserable Tory Governments.

Again, on 1 February, I will stand by the public sector workers from Jobcentre Plus who are defending not only their jobs but their right to feed their children and to have living standards that have been eroded by Conservative Governments. Given the mortgage payment increases that resulted from the scenario made in Downing Street by the previous Chancellor and the previous Prime Minister, it is their right to go on strike to defend their right to have better pay that meets the increase in the cost of living. That cost of living crisis—made in Downing Street after 13 years of Conservative rule—means that every worker deserves to go out on strike.

The Minister muttered earlier that the Government were passing the Bill to save lives, but if they want to save lives, they should fill the 47,000 nursing vacancies, as the nurses are crying out for them to do; they should fill the vacancies for the doctors who are needed in the NHS; they should fill the vacancies in the police, where cuts have cost lives, and are costing lives, because policing cannot happen in the way that it should; and they should back the firefighters, who are delivering an excellent service despite the cuts that Conservative Governments have forced on them. If I want a better life for myself, it is equally the right of every single working-class person in the country to stand up for their rights and to make sure that their children do not go hungry. Children should be fed in school and at home—free meals should be provided for everyone at primary school level.

Equally, we must realise that the cost of living crisis created by the Government is forcing people to go out on strike. The poll carried out by YouGov—a name we have heard a few times this week—for Sky News today shows that despite the increase in the number of strikes, there is huge public support for workers, because they are ordinary working people who are suffering. Children and working people are suffering, and the cost of living crisis is crippling families’ take home pay. That is their fundamental right. This Government are failing to provide the minimum service levels that our public sector needs and deserves.

The work of trade unions is much more fundamental than that. It is about ensuring that people have a voice and can act and hold their employers to account, whether that be on working conditions, health and safety matters or pay and conditions. It is about fairness, justice and democracy at work. The Bill represents an outright attack on these values, and it should be rejected by every person in this Chamber and everyone who will be voting later today. Who would believe that workers would be treated with the utmost disrespect after this 13 years of Tory rule?

It is evident that at every step of the way this Government have tried to denigrate the unions and the rights of the unions. There were remarks made from the Government Benches about trade unions bankrolling Labour Members, but let me remind the Minister: it is up to every union member whether they opt in or out of the political fund, and it is incumbent on unions to ballot their members on it. I say with great satisfaction that the vast majority have opted in so that political work and campaigning can happen.

I am proud to stand here as a trade unionist. If we are to do justice by people, we need an increase in nurses and doctors, and we need funding for schools so that teachers can properly provide the services they went into their careers to provide. There is an alternative to these minimum service levels. It is called a general election. If the Government really believe what they are doing is in the interests of the people of this country, they should call a general election and find out.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

I rise to speak as a proud trade unionist, which I have been since I was 16 and will be until the very end.

The Government do not care about patients, passengers, parents or the public. That is not what their minimum service levels Bill is about. It is a shameful attack on the democratic right to strike. At just six pages long, the Bill does not even set out the boundaries of what is permissible. They say that that will be decided later by the Secretary of State—not by Parliament—through regulation. Shockingly, it also gives the Government the power, without scrutiny, to override legislation made in the devolved legislatures of the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd. That is not democracy; it is government by diktat and authoritarianism writ large.

The Bill gives the Government the power to deny workers their fundamental basic human right to strike, allowing employers to bring injunctions to prevent strikes, sue unions and sack employees across the public sector—including in the NHS, transport, fire and rescue, and education—and undermining workers’ rights to a fair wage and improved terms and conditions. Strikes are a symptom, not the cause. Workers are being dragged into poverty and having to resort to strike action to make their voices heard, and this Government are trying to break them. From voter suppression and the attack on our right to protest to this anti-strike Bill, the Government intend to crush workers’ basic freedoms. Yet we live in a democratic society. Strike action is the tool of last resort and the best negotiating power workers have against unscrupulous and callous employers. The Bill seeks to erode the rights of trade unions to organise, and to drive fear through the very soul of workers who could lose their protection from dismissal.

Our trade union and employment rights legislation is already weak. For evidence of that, we have only to look to some of Leicester’s garment industry, where workers are still being paid less than the minimum wage, on zero-hours contracts, in Victorian workhouse conditions. No enforcement agency is able to break the scandalous mistreatment of workers who are fearful and whose powers have been weakened to near silence. In today’s Britain, not a single garment factory in Leicester will recognise a trade union.

In the same way, the Bill seeks obedience at the will of the state. It allows for the punishment of unions and workers who do not comply with a so-called work notice. The Bill is not about providing a basic level of service to the public; it is about breaking the growth of the trade union movement. The right to strike will be controlled by the state and permissible only on Government terms. To resist will mean to be liable to huge penalties.

The Bill is a threat to our basic rights. It is draconian, dehumanising and bullying. It is class war. For the sake of our hard-won freedoms, we must stand firm.

Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) on securing this important debate.

As we have heard, the Taylor review of working practices was published in 2017 but the Government have not implemented its many valuable recommendations. I will focus on the recommendation that workers on zero-hours contracts who have been in post for 12 months or more should have the right to request a contract that better reflects the hours they work. Despite the Government’s commitment in the December 2019 Queen’s Speech to use the then forthcoming employment Bill to introduce a right to request a more stable contract, they have taken no action to protect people on zero-hours contracts.

The most recent data from the Office for National Statistics confirms that 1 million UK workers are on zero-hours contracts, which is higher than pre-pandemic levels. Workers on zero-hours contracts are regularly underemployed, often have to work more than one job and are likely to be constantly searching for new work. That is bad for people’s financial security and general wellbeing, as too many are forced to live from pay cheque to pay cheque.

It is no coincidence that the rise in employers exploiting the status of workers has occurred alongside the assault on trade unions. Forty years ago, eight out of 10 workers enjoyed terms and conditions negotiated by a trade union. Today, fewer than one in four workers has that benefit.

According to a joint report from the Trades Union Congress and the equality organisation Race on the Agenda, women of colour are almost twice as likely to be on zero-hours contracts as white men, and almost one and a half times as likely to be on them as white women. Far from providing greater flexibility, zero-hours contracts are trapping women from African, African-Caribbean, Asian and other racialised groups in low pay and insecure work, leaving them struggling to pay bills and plan their lives. That is what institutional racism in the workplace looks like. Indeed, the only flexibility that zero-hours contracts provide is for the employer, who is granted total arbitrary control over their workers’ hours. That instability means that many people’s incomes are subject to the whims of managers, which makes it hard for workers to plan their lives.

Recent polling data showed that 40% of African, African-Caribbean, Asian and other racialised groups on insecure contracts said they face the threat of losing their shifts if they turn down work, compared with 25% of insecure white workers. The data also showed that racialised groups in insecure work have been allocated a shift at less than a day’s notice, and almost half have had shifts cancelled with less than a day’s notice.

That mistreatment is especially evident in sections of Leicester’s garment industry, in which wage exploitation has been endemic for more than a decade. One of the most frequently recurring issues in my city’s garment industry is the routine under-reporting of hours by the unscrupulous bosses of sweatshops. Some companies also defraud their workers of holiday leave through a bogus probationary period that prevents them from being paid any leave for a year or longer. Many appalling garment industry contracts prohibit workers from unionising; require eight weeks’ notice while giving workers only two days’ notice for termination of employment; offer insulting overtime pay of 10p, poor sick pay and no recourse against inadequate and dangerous working conditions; and mandate that workers opt out of the Working Time Regulations 1998, which limit weeks to 40 hours.

Too many workers in Leicester’s garment industry, regardless of their length of service, are on zero-hours contracts, and get paid only when they work, even if the reason they are not able to work is outside their control. For instance, if the factory is not able to open because of an electric fault, the worker is often told at short notice that they are not needed that day and thus does not get paid. No matter how zero-hours contracts are dressed up, they are simply a return to Victorian employment practices, where unneeded workers would trudge home from the factory gates empty-handed after not even being selected for a shift.

The Government must implement the recommendations of the Taylor review and go further by banning the use of zero-hours contracts, as many countries in Europe already do. They must crack down on toxic casualisation through a single legal status of “worker” for everyone who works, except of course for those who are genuinely self-employed. Zero-hours contracts must be eradicated, and hours should be regulated so that each worker gets guaranteed pay for a working week.

Beyond that, the full recommendations of the Taylor review must be implemented. Trade union rights must be reinstated and extended. We must ensure that every job is a good job, providing security, dignity and a fair wage.

UK Hydrogen Economy

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) on securing this important debate. Climate breakdown is not a distant threat; it is happening here and now. The World Meteorological Organisation found that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years. Human-caused climate change has already been proven to increase the risk of floods and extreme rainfall, heatwaves and wildfires, with dire implications for humans, animals and the environment. It is true to say that without immediate Government intervention, the urgent action required to preserve a habitable planet will be too slow. This will cause unimaginable disruption and could cost millions of lives, most immediately and sharply in global south countries, which have contributed the least to climate change.

The coronavirus crisis has demonstrated that we are only as secure as the most vulnerable among us, and that rapid social and economic change really is possible. At this unprecedented moment, the Government must consider all possible interventions and regulations in order to phase out the extraction of fossil fuels and to transition to renewables as soon as scientifically possible. Hydrogen has a crucial role to play in this endeavour, as well as in providing much-needed jobs as we rebuild from the coronavirus crisis. A report released earlier this month by the Offshore Wind Industry Council suggested that the UK’s green hydrogen industry could generate £320 billion for the economy and sustain 120,000 jobs by 2050.

I was proud to be elected on a manifesto that pledged to trial and expand tidal energy and invest to reduce the cost of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen production. Significant amounts of energy are lost in using electricity to produce hydrogen and then in burning hydrogen to produce electricity. The cheapest and therefore most widely used hydrogen is made from reforming fossil fuels, which involves using energy to convert fossil fuels into hydrogen and CO₂. To make the process carbon neutral, that CO₂ must then be removed by carbon capture and storage.

The production of green hydrogen through electrolysis is currently much more expensive. I challenge the Minister and the Government to commit to and focus their investment on making this cleaner form of hydrogen cheaper and more widely accessible. Otherwise, we risk the same fossil fuel companies that have profited from the climate crisis continuing to dominate and possibly even hampering our move towards renewable.

It is particularly vital that we introduce a zero-carbon homes standard for all new homes as part of heat decarbonisation. We must urgently roll out technologies such as heat pumps, solar, hot water and hydrogen and invest in district heat networks, using waste heat—

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. I am terribly sorry that I have to ask the hon. Lady to bring her remarks to a close. I apologise for that.

[Claudia Webbe]

Okay. The green industrial revolution on which I was elected would have upgraded almost all of the UK’s 27 million homes to the highest energy efficiency standards, reducing the average bills by £417 per household per year by 2030 and eliminating fuel poverty. That speaks to the fact that, in any green industrial revolution, it is vital that the protection of all workers and communities is guaranteed during the transition to renewable energies and a socially just economy. The climate crisis is clearly a class crisis and it must be the big polluters and corporate giants who bear the cost, not ordinary people.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I do apologise. I call the spokesperson for the SNP.

Climate Change Assembly UK: The Path to Net Zero

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on securing this important debate. I also congratulate the members of the climate assembly who took part in producing this important report. As the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) indicated, the involvement of people from across the country in our democratic processes and in discussing important issues should be celebrated, and there is no issue that requires urgent focus and consideration more than the climate crisis.

The report sets out clear, holistic principles that will be central to achieving a liveable future. From how we travel, what we eat and how we use the land to what we buy, how we use heat and energy in the home, how we generate our electricity and how we will remove greenhouse gas, this report provides a mandate for decarbonisation that we in this House cannot ignore.

Climate breakdown is not a distant threat but is happening here and now. The World Meteorological Organisation found that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years. Human-caused climate change has already been proven to increase the risk of floods, extreme rainfall, heatwaves and wildfires, with dire implications for humans, animals and the environment. Yet the Government’s recently announced green industrial revolution does not go nearly far enough towards addressing this existential crisis. Only £4 billion of the £12 billion scheme is newly announced funding, and that is four times less than the recently announced £16 billion increase in military spending. As Sir David King, founder and chair of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge, said,

“it is nowhere near enough to manage the British Government commitment to net zero… by 2050 or to provide a safe future.”

Not only is the 2050 target perilously unambitious, but, according to the Committee on Climate Change, the Government are not even on track to meet it.

The Tory Government continued to give oil companies further tax breaks until as recently as December 2018. The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that, to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5° above pre-industrial levels—seen by scientists as a tipping point past which climate disasters will be locked in—oil and gas production must fall by 20% by 2030. I am gravely concerned that if fossil fuel companies are left to their own devices, such crucial targets will be missed. For example, ExxonMobil is projected to extract 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017. Oil companies such as Exxon and Shell knew that their extractive industries were causing climate change as far back as the 1980s, but instead of informing the public, they funded climate change denial and those lobbying against environmental policy.

A 2017 study in the scientific publication World Development found that worldwide fossil fuel subsidies amounted to $4.9 trillion in a single year. It is estimated that eliminating those subsidies would have cut global carbon emissions by 21% and air pollution deaths by over half. It is therefore vital that these subsidies are ended and that Government bail-outs are subject to stringent commitments to workers’ rights, tax justice and rapid decarbonisation.

Without immediate Government intervention, the urgent action required to preserve a habitable planet will be too slow. That will cause unimaginable disruption and could cost millions of lives, most immediately and sharply in the global south, whose countries have contributed least to climate change. The current crisis has demonstrated that we are only as secure as the most precarious among us and that rapid social and economic change really is possible. At this unprecedented moment, the Government must consider all possible interventions and regulation to phase out the extraction of fossil fuels and to transition to renewables as soon as scientifically possible. The climate crisis is a class crisis. It must be the big polluters and corporate giants, who bear the costs, not ordinary people.