Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Ian Byrne Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) with that extremely interesting speech. I would like to put on the record that I am a proud member of Unite the union and the GMB. I will vote against the Bill and stand in absolute solidarity with all those in Liverpool, West Derby taking industrial action in defence of their pay, their conditions and their colleagues, as well as in defence of the public who rely on those services. I am proud to stand alongside workers on picket lines and will continue to support those workers in their struggle with pride. May I offer a word of advice to Conservative Members? Go to the picket lines and speak to the people on them. Maybe then the demonisation will not slip so easily from their lips.

This is a pernicious Bill that shames the House and the nation. It is designed to attack and demoralise public service workers who are taking industrial action as a very last resort. I have spoken to nurses, firefighters, civil servants and posties in Liverpool at our food pantries, who have been forced into food poverty because of the wages that they have received after 12 years of austerity—a political choice made by the Tory Government in 2010. We are now living through the wreckage of that choice, with the destruction of our NHS and public services.

Let us be clear: the reason why these workers are having to take industrial action in the first place is because of the Government and their decisions. Never, ever forget that the hunger and poverty that many public sector workers face at the moment is a political choice that the Prime Minister unfortunately finds so easy to make. We have a multi-millionaire Prime Minister who will never know what it is like to feel hungry—he will never fear the creep of poverty at the door of his home—telling public sector workers facing this dire situation that they will be sacked if they withdraw their labour when they are simply saying, “Enough is enough.” It is obscene.

We have a morally bankrupt Government with financial scandal after financial scandal, and second job after second job, bringing in draconian legislation to outlaw industrial action for the very people we clapped during covid for everything they had done for us as a nation. The Bill is purposefully lacking in detail. It is a practically unworkable and potentially unlawful attempt to undermine the right to strike. Instead of bringing it to Parliament, Ministers should have been spending time negotiating meaningfully with the trade unions about pay and conditions. They could also have used that time to write the long-promised employment Bill.

The Bill must be voted down. The draconian drift is becoming a raging current. Any parliamentarian who believes in the democratic rights of our citizens must see that clearly and kick this wretched piece of legislation out of this place.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

My right hon. Friend is 100% right. The problem with blacklisting was that it was done very much under the radar; we had Government institutions going behind legislation. This piece of legislation, however, would unashamedly carry out similar practices in broad daylight, with the full sanction of the Secretary of State and his Prime Minister.

This is an authoritarian and undemocratic Bill. The proposed amendments that I am supporting today are therefore designed simply to enhance parliamentary scrutiny, to constrain the unreasonable powers of the Secretary of State and to protect workers and trade unions, in particular by making co-operation with work notices voluntary on the part of employees, by providing that a failure to comply with the work notice will not mean a breach of contract or provide grounds for dismissal or detriment, and by limiting the reasonable steps that a trade union must take.

This despotic Bill not only represents a fundamental attack on workers’ rights, but dangerously divides a nation, demoralising and threatening to sack the very workforce who have tried to hold our country together over the last two difficult years. These amendments are the bare minimum necessary to take the dangerous edges off this very dangerous piece of legislation—but, frankly, this piece of legislation needs to be thrown in the bin.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey).

I rise to speak in favour of amendments 80, 84, 97, 20, 83, 93, 85, 95, 92, new clause 1 and all amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench. I am absolutely delighted to declare that I am a member of Unite and the GMB.

I start by congratulating members of the Fire Brigades Union on their resounding strike ballot today, which really was democracy in action, and expressing solidarity with all the workers in dispute this week. This is a pernicious Bill designed to target the very same workers who, as a nation, we clapped from our doorsteps not so long ago in gratitude for their heroics during the pandemic—the same key workers who, let us not forget, are being forced to use food banks in vast numbers because their work does not pay.

The old chestnut that work pays is becoming a bigger fallacy than some hon. Members’ tax returns. Nurses, firefighters, teachers and other public sector workers are all targeted in this Bill, prohibited from striking and risking dismissal if they resist. Let us be clear: these public sector workers are being forced into industrial action in the first place by a Government who have overseen 12 years of real-terms pay cuts, the erosion of job security and pensions and the destruction of our public services. I note that the Prime Minister said today, after finally sacking his party chairman, that he

“will take whatever steps are necessary to restore the integrity back into politics”.

Well, I cannot help but find that pledge laughable as I stand here speaking out against this Government’s Bill, which will see key workers lose their protection from unfair dismissal and trade unions sued for upholding workers’ rights.

It is clear that the Government are trying to fast-track the legislation through Parliament without proper scrutiny. The Bill lacks detail, and I note that the TUC has submitted a freedom of information request to ascertain why it has been published without an impact assessment. It is a further insult to our key public sector workers that this bonfire of workers’ rights is unfolding just as the Government are laying the groundwork for another bonfire—one of financial regulations, through the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

The Prime Minister speaks about restoring integrity, yet here he is presiding over the empowerment of speculators and lifting the bankers’ bonus cap as our key workers lose their right to strike. It is beyond shameful. I have sponsored 25 amendments aimed at protecting the right of workers to take industrial action, and at neutralising this appalling Bill, which attacks our fundamental right to strike. I support Labour’s amendments to safeguard protections against unfair dismissal, and further amendments that would require the Government to submit the legislation to greater parliamentary scrutiny, including by forcing the publication of assessments of how the Bill would impact on individual workers, equalities, employers and unions.

I am deeply opposed to the Bill, which further curtails the right to strike and other trade union activities. I fully support the rights of workers to take industrial action. I voted against this dreadful Bill on Second Reading, and I will continue to oppose it in this place and out on the streets with the public, who also oppose it. We can and must do better than this dreadful, divisive and potentially unlawful Bill.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

I rise to speak in support of the amendments that protect democracy, our devolved Parliaments, our human rights, our workers’ rights, our compliance with international law and, fundamentally, our freedom. Those aspects are laid out in new clause 1 and amendments 92, 93, 80, 27, 83, 84, 20, 8, 40, 94, 4 and 1, among others. I declare my proud membership of Unite the Union, the GMB and Unison.

It is clear that the public do not need protecting from public sector unions. The workers and the public—ordinary people—need protecting from this Government. The only fit end for this appallingly vague, skeletal and frighteningly broad Bill is the scrapheap. It should be withdrawn or, if not, voted against in its entirety. At the very least, the amendments and new clauses are needed to minimise the immediate and potential harm that this “sack the workers” and anti-trade union Bill will cause.

The Conservative party has already demonstrated its readiness to trample on legal principles and the democratic and human rights of people in the UK. Through the Bill, as it stands, the Government are seeking to bypass democracy in this House, which is why amendments 80, 27 and 40, among others, are needed. The Government are also seeking to circumvent the established autonomy of the UK’s devolved Governments without even assessing the impact of those actions. That is why amendment 28 and others are vital.

It is essential that the amendments and new clauses force the Secretary of State of to seek the approval of Parliament to amend or add to the legislation. In fact, the Bill’s provisions are so wide and vague that it would set a precedent in allowing the Government to amend or revoke, in private, any legislation that they do not like, against any set of people they disagree with, or simply on a whim to make a political point. The Bill is also a mass assault on the rights of millions of working-class people, no matter where they live, and on the unions that enable them to organise and act together to improve their working conditions and living standards.