Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I am not funded by unions—or Russia—so before I even get on to the Bill, it is important for me to highlight the fact that the laws on trade unions in the UK are already among the most restrictive in Europe. Ministers claim that such Bills are common in France, Spain and Germany, but they leave out the fact that this Bill is much harsher than any of the examples that they cite. UK workers will lose their automatic protection from unfair dismissal, for instance. Ministers also claim that the Bill is about ensuring that a minimum level of service is available for the health and safety of the public, when they know fine well that life-and-limb agreements are already in place.

The truth is that this Bill is designed to undermine and attack both workers’ rights and democracy. It carves out yet another door through which Westminster can further erode and undermine the Scottish Parliament. It is so bad that it might fall foul of the European convention on human rights, which protects the right of workers to assemble as they wish—the very same convention that the Tories want to take us out of. I wonder why.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Are we not seeing a pattern of behaviour? When the Government could not reach the child poverty targets, they scrapped them. What they are doing now is moving the goalposts and introducing a hostile environment and hostile legislation to attack workers’ rights and human rights.

[Mhairi Black]

Absolutely—and that leads me neatly to my next point.

I have previously spoken about the dangers of sleepwalking into fascism if we are not careful. I did not say it lightly then and I do not say it lightly now, but history is undeniable. The slide into authoritarian and anti-democratic politics has always been underpinned by anti-trade union rhetoric. Over the years, we have listened to countless right-wing politicians and Governments claiming that Brexit would in no way affect workers’ rights, yet here we are.

The reason trade unions organise industrial action is that it works. It has always been the only language that those who hold power understand. The only reason any worker has any rights at all is the existence of trade unions, and the ability of workers to organise collectively in defence of their jobs and their livelihoods. People who bleat about the disruption that strike action causes are missing the point entirely. If your day is disrupted by someone not turning up to their job, it just goes to show how crucial that person’s job is, and why their pay and conditions should reflect that.

There is another myth that I have heard. In fact, people do not undertake strike action lightly. Strikers lose money. Strike action indicates a crisis. Our nurses, doctors, teachers, cleaners and supermarket workers are the very people who have kept the world turning through a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis and 13 years of Tory austerity, but this Government choose to ignore and demoralise them at every turn. This Government would rather blame striking workers than acknowledge the fact that the root causes of strike action lie directly at their door. We have the lowest pensions and sick pay in Europe, we still do not have a living wage and we are living in economic chaos, with inequality getting worse.

The only people who are putting the health and safety of the public at risk are the members of this Government —a Government run for Twitter; a Government of clicks and culture wars, with no serious answers. Ultimately, trade unions work, and that is exactly why the Tories are going after them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I ask myself what problem so afflicts the British state that its Government see fit to bring forward a major piece of primary legislation. Is it really the case that militant pickets are preventing people from getting life-saving treatment? Is it the case that callous trade unionists are refusing to negotiate life-and-limb emergency cover, and that people are dying as a consequence? The answer to all those questions is no. In fact, we know of countless stories in which trade unionists have left their picket-line protests to make sure that people do not die. When I asked the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to say how many lives would be saved by this legislation, he refused to answer, perhaps because the answer is none.

So why is this Bill being introduced? I think the answer is quite simple. We are approaching the fag end of this Tory Government. Their poll ratings are in the toilet, their members are disillusioned and their Back-Bench MPs are increasingly despairing about their own survival. In a desperate attempt to revive their fortunes, they are trying to resurrect the strategy of the Thatcherites a generation ago. They are trying to monster ordinary working people who are fighting for their rights. They are trying to pretend that ordinary working people are other, that they are somehow against the public interest and are therefore not deserving of public support, but it will not work this time, because they have gone too far and there are too many people involved. There is not a family in this land who do not know someone caught up in this dispute and who do not recognise the justice of their cause, so the Government will not be able to do it this time round.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we speak, firefighters who ran into Grenfell are suffering and dying from cancer, and it is workers like them who will be prevented from protesting and striking? That continues to be a disgrace.