Rail Strikes

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think the rather febrile atmosphere on the Conservative Benches rather gives the lie to the Conservative approach to workers’ rights in this place.

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his motion, because after his part-nationalisation of railways during the pandemic and his—on the face of it, at least—very un-Conservative response to the actions of P&O, his ideological re-education has been a roaring success in the form of this utterly regressive motion before us today. Let us face it, no Tory Cabinet Minister has ever seen their stock drop through a bit of good old-fashioned union bashing, and that is exactly what this motion is. [Interruption.] I am happy to give way to the Secretary of State if he wants. His motion talks about the “effect on the economy” that next week’s proposed action will have. I find that incredible when his Government have set the British economy ablaze in the name of “taking back control”. Is that control only to be taken back when it has a wee Union Jack on it as opposed to a union banner?

Some Conservative Members and their comrades in Holyrood moved at lightning speed recently in their attempt to blame the Scottish Government for the issues experienced with the newly nationalised ScotRail regarding rest day working, but they have gone a little more quiet after ScotRail management and ASLEF worked through the issues and came to a negotiated outcome that the union leadership have today recommended to their members.

[Chris Loder]

rose—

[Gavin Newlands]

I had a feeling that my colleague on the Transport Committee would intervene at this point.

[Chris Loder]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, though, that the SNP Scottish Government have absolutely failed in managing the situation in Scotland? Only a week ago, the SNP said that it would not buckle to the unions, but it has done. It has given a 5% pay rise, plus profit share, with no improvements at all, and the strike coming from the RMT will still affect Scotland in the coming days. So does he agree that perhaps the SNP Scottish Government are not quite as brilliant as he makes out?

[Gavin Newlands]

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I completely disagree. We are unlikely to have strikes in Scotland, other than the Network Rail issues, which are entirely reserved to this place. I am not entirely sure why the hon. Gentleman does not want people to get a fair wage in this day and age when inflation, partly caused by his own Government, might run at near 10% by the end of this year. I think that 5% is a good deal for the workers and a good deal for ScotRail.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

What I am discerning from this debate is that where you have Tories you get strikes. That is the lesson from Scotland and Wales. It is always instructive to find out from the Tories about market forces. Market forces apply only when it comes to bankers; workers should just suck up the cost of living crisis and not use their force in the market to get themselves a decent wage. If this was about bankers’ bonuses, there would be no problems for Conservative Members whatsoever. They should be doing something about the inequality that is driving this. We saw yesterday from the SNP’s prospectus for independence that the UK has the greatest inequality of any of the north-western European countries. That lies at the doorstep of the Tory Government, and Transport Ministers and other Ministers do nothing about it.

[Gavin Newlands]

I could not agree more. I knew my hon. Friend would manage to shoehorn yesterday’s statements on independence into this debate on rail strikes, and I wholeheartedly agree.

I was talking about the difference in approach between the Tories in Scotland on the ScotRail issue as compared with the current issue. The Scottish Conservatives’ Twitter account said that the SNP Government

“must sort this mess out and address the travel misery facing commuters.”

Graham Simpson called for the Scottish Government to get involved and get round the table. Graham Simpson is a Scottish Conservative transport spokesperson in Holyrood. When he was on “Good Morning Scotland” on 20 May, he was asked seven times how he would resolve the rail dispute and he could not answer on any of those seven occasions. That is the difference in approach we get from the Conservatives in Scotland and the Scottish Conservatives in this place. It would be nice to think that the same energy and vim would be directed towards the Secretary of State and his Ministers for their role in the UK-wide dispute next week, but I somehow think that their social media output will instead absolve the Government of any blame, after throwing the kitchen sink at a Scottish Government only weeks after nationalisation.

Perhaps there is something to be said for real public control of our railways, because under the DFT’s fragmented and privatised system, next week will be catastrophic for our rail network. It would be churlish to point out, but I will anyway, that for years the Scottish Government have called for Network Rail to be devolved to Holyrood and come under the auspices of the Scottish Parliament so as to operate a fully integrated railway bringing together track and services. Indeed, former Rail Minister Tom Harris, now an HS2 Ltd board member, advised the Williams review that Network Rail should be devolved when he was a member of the expert challenge panel, but, as per, the Scottish Government, and the rail sector in Scotland, were ignored. Perhaps if that were the case, and given the likely resolution of the ScotRail dispute, we would have services operating next week in Scotland instead of an almost complete cessation of any rail operations across the country for a week.

At least ScotRail tried to give some certainty to passengers, despite the disruption to services, by publishing an emergency timetable outlining which services were running. As of today, we are promised an emergency timetable on Friday for the disruption starting next Tuesday, and that simply is not enough time for people to plan whatever trips they might have to take. This industrial action has been known about for weeks, yet passengers are waiting until days beforehand to find out what skeleton services will be in place. Whatever other lessons are learned by the DFT from this dispute, a key one will have to be that early information is crucial in allowing potential passengers to make informed decisions about how, where and when they can travel and what alternative arrangements they might need to make.

I was stunned to see the Secretary of State appear to call for an overtime ban for striking rail workers. The entire railway can only function on overtime. One thing that the ScotRail rest day and overtime issue has highlighted is the antiquated rostering system we have in rail systems across the UK. ScotRail has been working to phase that out. That job has been hindered by the pandemic and the impact it has had on driver training—130 new drivers would be in place on the network right now if covid had not hit. Training and recruitment is back on track, with those drivers now scheduled to finish training and be deployed over the next 18 months.

That will go hand in hand with the agreement that ASLEF is now recommending to its members, which will bring Sundays into the working week and put a truly seven-day railway in place over the coming years. That agreement also includes, as highlighted by my colleague on the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), revenue sharing for all ScotRail staff when revenue targets are met. That kind of initiative—giving workers a stake, not just in their job roles but across the service—should be considered across the industry and taken to the negotiating table by the Secretary of State.

Elsewhere in Parliament today, there is a debate on fire and rehire secured by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). I was keen to take part in that debate, but my Front-Bench duties have brought me here. One of the key points in the speech I would have made there is equally valid here: modern and progressive industrial relations must involve dialogue and collective working between management and the workforce. It is clear that the Secretary of State appears to have been doing everything possible to run far away from the very thought of even appearing progressive or modern. He suggested that striking rail workers should be banned from getting overtime, despite the reliance of the network on overtime and rest day working—a situation we are working on in Scotland.

The Secretary of State wrote a column for The Sun about “rapacious union barons”

and the RMT executive holding

“a gun to the industry’s head”,

while

“ministers are determined to ensure strikers cannot milk the system”.

He used veiled threats to bring in unqualified, untrained staff to bust strikes, which simply poured even more fuel on a fire of his own Department’s making. That might go down well around the Cabinet table or at the next meeting of the 1922 committee—at least when it is not trying to change the rules for the next leadership election—but that is not the way to show actual leadership, and it certainly is not the way to negotiate with workers who are at the end of their tether with a Department that has used rail to grab headlines when it suits, but quietly dumps the negative stories when it suits, too, whether that is HS2 to Leeds and Bradford, the Golborne link or the truncated Great Western electrification.

Passengers and rail workers all want to see a better railway that delivers efficiency, punctuality, value and convenience. The Government’s attempt to drive a wedge between those groups and their ambitions are as predictable as they are regressive. They are the behaviours of the past and of those with their heads in the sand. Ministers must meet transport workers and trade unions to resolve this dispute before mass disruption affects us all, and in doing so commit to no redundancies, as the Scottish Government have.

This motion—in fact, this whole approach—is all part of the Tory culture war to cripple unions, undermine strikes, ban disruptive protests and end pickets with temporary agency staff, and it highlights yet again why the Tories are unfit to govern. Rail has a bright future. In Scotland, after decades of underinvestment and gradual decline, electrification and decarbonisation have been a core part of the Government agenda for every party that has been the Administration, whether Labour, Liberal or SNP. Sadly, we have not had a Conservative Government in Scotland yet.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Not sadly at all.

[Gavin Newlands]

It was ironic. Electrification and decarbonisation are a key part of the drive towards a net zero society and a more balanced and sustainable economy, but that modernisation has to be accompanied by a modern, mature industrial relations strategy. That maturity and modernity was demonstrated by ScotRail and the trade unions in Scotland this month in coming to an agreement that benefits staff and the network, and the contrast with the utterances of the Secretary of State and his team could not be clearer.

The Secretary of State is a dinosaur stuck in the dark ages of industrial relations, retreating to his ideological instincts instead of looking elsewhere to see how to manage a railway and work collectively with staff and unions to plot a path for the future. It is not too late for him and this Government to see sense and join the rest of us in the 21st century, to learn lessons from elsewhere on these isles and in Europe, and to take heed of the voices in the industry, unions and management who want a grown-up discussion about where the industry goes. This motion is not grown-up. If the Secretary of State is serious about a new start for railways, he should seek permission to withdraw it immediately.