Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Geraint Davies Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman makes some important and valid points. In the past 12 months to two and a half years, we have seen the unravelling of the VIP fast-track lane for people linked to the Conservative party—that was a waste of billions of pounds that could have gone into investment in our public services. The public have seen 13 years of Conservative failure. Most of the public who are watching this debate today can ask themselves one question: do they feel better off after 13 years of the Conservatives? The answer to that question is no, unless of course they are in that 1%, with a WhatsApp number of a Government Minister.

Labour would have resolved these disputes a long time ago, by getting back around the negotiating table in good faith and doing a deal.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Labour Government in Wales were given more than £1 billion for personal protective equipment and test, track and trace, and spent only £500 million? If we had had that level of savings, instead of having Tory crony donors putting their hand in the till, it would have aggregated up to a saving of £11 billion, as against a total pay cost to the NHS of £56 billion? In other words, we are talking about 20% of the annual pay for all nurses and all health workers. So does she not agree that if we had a Labour Government, we would have more money to provide decent wages for those in our health service?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend; not only would we have grown the economy—and we have a plan to grow the economy, unlike the Conservatives —but we would not have wasted billions of pounds and we would not have crashed the economy like the Conservatives did.

This Government are not working and this Bill is unworkable. The sacking nurses Bill is one of the most indefensible and foolish pieces of legislation to come before this House in modern times. It threatens teachers and nurses with the sack during a recruitment and retention crisis, and mounts an outright assault on the fundamental freedom of working people, while doing absolutely nothing to resolve the crisis at hand. We on these Benches will vote against this shoddy, unworkable Bill, and I urge every Member across this House who cares for fundamental British freedoms, and who knows that the only way to resolve disputes is by negotiating in good faith, to join us in standing against it this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Geraint Davies, GMB, Swansea West constituency Labour party. [Laughter.]

The Tories have impoverished Britain and now working people who cannot afford to put food on the table, heat their bedrooms or pay their rent or mortgage, face a pay cut or the sack if they vote, along with over 50% of their trade union members, to defend their families, communities, towns and cities. It is an absolute disgrace. The Tories refuse to negotiate. They prefer disruption and chaos to cause political division. They just say, “Like it or lump it” unless, of course, you are a banker with a bonus, a crony with a contract or a donor with a dividend.

Our nurses witnessed thousands of their colleagues dying through a lack of personal protective equipment and, alongside that, billions of pounds given to Tory donors to provide that PPE. Nurses who spent their own money for three years to get a BSc now face a starting salary of £13.84 an hour, when they could start in McDonald’s for £12.25 without the stress and with the overtime.

The NHS faces long covid, more older people coming back from the EU, sicker people, and one in four people in poverty. It costs more to treat those people and there is much greater pressure on the system, yet the Tories turn their back and threaten NHS workers with a strike. The truth is that had the economy grown at the same rate as it did under the Labour Government, average wages would be £10,000 higher and we would not be facing this appalling situation. Instead, the Tories want strikes to create a diversion from that and to create a sort of Dickensian Britain where capital gains and labour loses.

The right to democratically vote to go on strike and not be sacked is a fundamental right. The Tories are torpedoing talks, whether on rail, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea or the nurses. They want to create strikes to cast blame, but frankly the public will not be fooled by their political attempt, in their authoritarian journey, to divide Britain. That is not who we are.

The Tories are isolating Britain. They are shaming Britain. They are dividing Britain. Britain deserves better. Britain deserves a Labour Government and a Labour Government will repeal this appalling draconian Bill.