Draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Passenger Railway Services) Regulations 2023

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s full response to the questions from the Labour Front Bencher. Also, given the intervention from the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), will the Minister say whether Chelmsford is covered by the priority routes in the regulations? I will stand corrected if it is, but I have looked through the routes a couple of times and cannot see Chelmsford. I do know whether that will help the right hon. Lady’s constituents.

A breakdown in industrial relations in a train operating company can, as elsewhere, result in disruption for the long term, as workers who volunteer for rest-day working decide to take their rest days, overtime is knocked back, and good will disappears. No doubt some service managers think that they will be able to use the regulations to bully staff back to work, but the fact is that they would cause longer-term damage to the rail network and the industry. The Government are facilitating that damage through their legislation and the regulations that are before us.

Do the Government seriously think that when the industrial action is over, the workforce will be keen to go back to working under the managers and decision makers who threatened them with criminal charges if they did not comply? It does not take an expert in industrial relations to work out that the legislation could only harm relations between management and staff, and in turn harm our rail network and the wider economy. Perhaps that is why the industry has repeatedly expressed its reluctance to get involved. While the primary legislation was passing through Parliament, the Rail Freight Group told the Transport Committee—after the Minister’s time as its Chair—that

“our members who are private companies wish to manage their relationships with the trade unions directly rather than with any legislative overlay.”

Transport Focus said:

“There is no substitute for good, modern industrial relations in any industry where changes and terms and conditions are negotiated, and agreement is reached. You want to have workers who want to come to work.”

The Government have repeated their proportion of 40% in order to give the impression that the majority of striking workers will still be able to avail themselves of their human rights, but given the nature of work on the railway network—signalling, station management and maintenance, dispatch, ticket gates, public safety and so on—the reality is that far more than 40% of staff will be ordered to work.

The Scottish Government continue to regard the legislation as unnecessary, unwanted and ineffective. It seeks to undermine legitimate trade union activity and goes against the principles of fair work, the interests of the Scottish public, workers and employers, and the delivery of public services in Scotland. The UK’s record on employment rights, and indeed basic human rights, is exemplified by the International Trade Union Confederation’s annual report on workers’ rights, which this year ranked the UK alongside such champions of workers as El Salvador, Angola and Qatar.

Further to the points about the efficacy of minimum service levels in other countries, let us say hypothetically that the Scottish Government supported this idea. A look at the priority routes I mentioned to the right hon. Member for Chelmsford proves that Mick Lynch was right when he said the Government and the Department for Transport do not care about Scotland or Wales. The most northerly station covered by these priority routes is Cowdenbeath, which is barely one third of the way up mainland Scotland and 170 miles as the crow flies, or 270 miles and three train journeys, to the most northerly station, in Thurso. Therefore, even if we supported these priority routes, they would mean nothing to vast swathes of Scottish passengers.

To be crystal clear, the Scottish Government are not interested in using any of the powers the UK Government have grabbed for themselves. The Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy has made it clear that the Scottish Government will not co-operate in establishing any minimum service orders in Scotland over which Holyrood has competence, which is nearly all of them.

I am grateful to the Government for highlighting through their regulations the continued illogical control of Network Rail in Scotland by Westminster and the DFT. The UK Government cannot impose minimum service levels on ScotRail or the Caledonian Sleeper, because both are under the auspices of the Scottish Government—better still, they are publicly owned by the Scottish Government. However, because Network Rail remains undevolved, these regulations can be applied to track and infrastructure. So we have laws being applied to force employees to work, and trade unions to take part in that coercion under pain of criminal penalty, in order that train tracks, signalling and stations remain open and semi-functional to serve trains that will not run, because the Government who run them actually respect individual human rights. What complete nonsense! It is another nail in the coffin of the idea that Network Rail in Scotland should remain outwith the control of Scotland. Given that no services will run on all the routes I have just mentioned, will the Minister confirm that a higher proportion of Network Rail staff in Scotland will be able lawfully to withdraw their labour compared with their counterparts south of the border?

The truth is that the overwhelming consensus in Scotland—among three quarters of Members of the Scottish Parliament, over 85% of MPs, and trade unions serving Scotland—is that these work regulations are wrong, like much of the UK Government’s attitude to workers’ rights. Indeed, polling shows that the strongest opposition in this island to minimum service levels comes from people in Scotland. So when Ministers say that this legislation is what the people want, I am not so sure that that is true south of the border, but it certainly is not true in Scotland. That is just one reason why we will vote against the regulations this evening.

[John Spellar]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

ScotRail is owned and operated by the Scottish Government, who have been very clear in their attitude to this legislation: they will not issue work notices. While I am on my feet, I want to quickly ask about Network Rail, which is obviously a reserved issue that comes under the auspices of the Department for Transport, but it operates slightly independently in Scotland. Some of its workforce will potentially fall under a work notice for DFT, but obviously a lot of network in Scotland is used only by ScotRail. How will that work?

[Huw Merriman]

There are interesting parallels. When I talk about train operators, I also mean the operators of last resort: Southeastern, the east coast main line and TransPennine Express. They are under the same control that he referenced the Executive in Scotland having. We, as the Government, will treat those with the exact same autonomy, and will not be autocratic; we will not tell them what they must and must not do. There is talk of this legislation being controlling, but we are demonstrating that we are not being controlling, whereas the hon. Gentleman is demonstrating that he would perhaps intervene, which is obviously a policy matter for him.

Network Rail is, of course, an arm’s length body. It will be down to Network Rail across the whole of Great Britain to determine whether it wishes to use the work notices, when it comes to category B. That will be a matter for Network Rail in Scotland, as it will be in England, and not for me, the hon. Member or the Scottish Executive.

I want to come back to a point that the hon. Member for Portsmouth South and others mentioned: safety. Let me be absolutely crystal clear—this is why we have the safest railway in Europe—that there will be no compromise when it comes to safety and these regulations. Those are not just words. Everyone needs to remember that we already have a minimum service; it is the key route strategy, and it operates right now, but our contention is that it does not operate to the same extent—it is about 20%. Safety is the most important ingredient during a strike day, as it is during a non-strike day. There will be no difference to that, as far as the regulations are concerned; safety will always be paramount in the railways.