Employment Rights Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend served assiduously on the Committee, raising many good points, including the one that he just made, which I absolutely agree with. The public will be asking serious questions about this.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Greg Smith]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to try to defend that, I will give him the opportunity.

[Gareth Snell]

I am happy to declare my interest as a member of three trade unions, but I got less from them than the shadow Minister got from a small business—I think his declaration is £12,500. Does he feel the need to declare that, given that he is now making a case against legislation that would impact that company?

[Greg Smith]

I am making a point about the trade union movement, which I have never been a part of, and certainly never received any money from. I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to look at all my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

[Gareth Snell]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Is it really a point of order?

[Gareth Snell]

We can find out, Madam Deputy Speaker; I believe it is. Can you advise whether Conservative Members who received money from businesses affected by this legislation should make a declaration in the same way that we trade unionists do?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

This is going to end up in a back and forth on things that are not a matter for the Chair. Declarations are the responsibility of individual Members to make appropriately through the right processes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Becky Gittins]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then I will make some progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr French]

As we have seen already—this is what I was talking about—the fairytale says that if we improve industrial relations and give trade unions all the money they want, suddenly there will not be any strikes. But what has happened in practice since the Labour Government came in? Trade unions have been given all the money, and they are still threatening to go on strike.

This Bill really does read like a militant trade union wish list. Strike mandates have doubled from six to 12 months, allowing trade unions to impose rolling strikes for a whole year without balloting their members. Turnout requirements have been abolished so that a minority can call strikes, and the Government have removed the requirement for 50% of members to vote and 40% to support industrial action. The Bill reduces the notice for strikes by four days and gives employers less information, making strikes even more damaging to businesses and disruptive to people’s lives. It also allows unreasonable paid facility time for trade unions, making the taxpayer and companies pay out even more for trade union representatives at the same time that the Labour Government are raising everyone’s taxes and cutting public services.

[Gareth Snell]

I guess that the hon. Gentleman has never been a member of a trade union or participated in an industrial ballot. Members choose to go on strike once the ballot has finished; no one forces them to go on strike. When members give up a day’s pay to go on strike, they do so because they are fighting for improvements to their terms and conditions. He is making out as though they are somehow compelled to strike. When members turn out for a strike, they do so because of their strength of feeling about the conditions they face—nothing more.

[Mr French]

I would have some sympathy for that argument if the threshold for the percentage of workers voting for a strike was being maintained, but we are now clearly leaving the door open for a minority of militant trade union members to go on strike and cause mass disruption. I will be honest and say that I have never been a member of a trade union, but my experience of trade union bosses is that they live a life that I could never dream of as a working-class man, to be quite frank. As a working-class person from a working-class background, I learnt at a very young age that trade unions and the Labour party stopped representing working-class people many years ago, and this Government are proving it yet again.