Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Andy McDonald

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). As a proud trade unionist, I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For the avoidance of doubt, I declare that I do not have an £800,000 overdraft facilitated by the chair of the BBC, a multi-million-pound repayment with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or shares in a tax haven.

I wholeheartedly oppose this hurried, vicious and anti-devolutionary Bill in its entirety, and will vote against it tonight. I rise to speak specifically to the amendments in my name and those of right hon. and hon. Members. Our country is in crisis. Millions of workers are seeing their terms and conditions ground down and their wages eroded. Many are unable to meet their bills and are saying very loudly “Enough is enough.” Yet this Government’s response to strikes called successfully—despite the most severe, draconian balloting requirements and restrictions that they have imposed on trade unions—is to say no to legitimate pay demands and to negotiations, and to attack the very right to strike itself. Britain already has the toughest anti-union laws in Europe.

No worker wants to go on strike. It is a last resort taken at a financial cost. That desperation is evidenced by workers beating some of the strictest thresholds in the western world to do so. The reason that workers are pushed to strike is that in the face of a spiralling cost of living crisis, they have no other option. No amount of tightening the screws on trade unions will change that material fact. This Bill will do nothing to change the reality for millions of British workers who have seen their real-terms incomes drop dramatically since 2010.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I fully support all that he has said in his speech. Would he agree that the effect of the Government’s attitude, and of this and other anti-democratic legislation, is not only to increase support for strong industrial action to win decent pay rises but to encourage many other people who want to live in decent housing and do not want to live in desperate poverty to support this wave of industrial action and bring about a fairer society?

[Andy McDonald]

My right hon. Friend is right. People’s response has not been to lie down and accept the Government’s bidding; they have no choice but to stand up for themselves. Labour will have no truck with this terrible attack on working people, and once in government we will not only repeal this appalling legislation but, under the expert stewardship of my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, bring in the new deal for working people to tackle in-work poverty head on. The real impact of this Bill will be that any employee who disobeys an order to work during a strike could be fired. That is simply unacceptable in a free society. I was staggered at some of the comments from Conservative Members that they did not think that was the impact of the Bill. It clearly is.

ISIL in Syria

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Andy McDonald

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Abuse has no part in responsible democratic political dialogue, and I believe that very strongly. That is the way I wish to conduct myself, and I wish others to conduct themselves in that way.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Prime Minister came to the Dispatch Box and made a clear apology with a simple “I’m sorry”, he would clear the air immediately and we could move on with this debate?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

As he often does on these occasions, the Prime Minister appears to be taking advice from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter. If he wants to apologise now that is fine. If he does not, well, the whole world can note that he is not apologising.

Since the Prime Minister first made his case for extending British bombing to Syria in the House last week, the doubts and unanswered questions expressed on both sides of the House have only grown and multiplied. That is why it is a matter of such concern that the Government have decided to push this vote through Parliament today. It would have been far better to allow a full two-day debate that would have given all Members the chance to make a proper contribution—you informed us, Mr Speaker, that 157 Members have applied to speak in this debate.

Palestine

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Andy McDonald

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I start my contribution by thanking all the people who signed this e-petition and other petitions to ensure that the debate would take place, and all the people who have campaigned not just for months but for years for the recognition of a Palestinian state and justice for the Palestinian people. Those who have stood on wet and windy high streets on a Saturday morning collecting signatures do matter in a democracy, and this debate is, in a sense, the product of that.

In the short time available to me, I want to draw attention to a few points. First, I was asked to give a talk last week to a group of students at City and Islington college about the history of the whole conflict in the middle east. It was a fascinating discussion, which ranged from the first world war right up to the current situation. The students had an incredible sense of the historical importance of the vote that took place in Parliament recently, when we voted finally for the recognition of Palestine, but I argue very strongly that that is only one very small step that we need to take. A settlement has to involve an awful lot more than just the recognition of the state of Palestine. People should cast their minds back to Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and to the Nakba in 1948. The victims of those processes are still living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria; the Palestinian diaspora across the world is huge. They also have rights—they also have the right to return home and a right to recognition. That is extremely important. They should never be forgotten.

Secondly, any peace process requires Israel to say what it wishes its final borders to be. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) made many points, as did others, about the Hamas charter and what it is supposed to say. The reality is that Hamas is involved in a unity Government, and that is what provoked Operation Protective Edge this summer.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about Hamas’s charter, which refuses to recognise Israel, but the charter of Likud, the ruling party in the coalition, states:

“The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

Is that not a fetter to progress on this issue?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. The Likud charter, which is not talked about too much by those who support the Government of Israel, says that in those very specific terms, and there has to be some recognition that the Prime Minister of Israel is a member of Likud and is in power because of Likud support.

Another point—there are many—is that half a million people are now settlers all across the west bank. Travelling around the west bank is travelling through an occupied land where the best land and the best water are taken by the settlers, the red-roofed buildings are built increasingly over Palestinian land and the massive concrete wall snakes around the place. If it was unwrapped, so to speak, it would stretch all across Europe. That wall divides farmers from their land, divides people from their water, divides children from their schools and makes travelling impossible. There has to be not just an end to the settlement policy but an end to the settlements. They have to go; they have to be withdrawn if there is to be any peace settlement.

Another issue is, of course, trade. Britain is a trading partner of Israel. We sell arms to Israel; we buy arms from Israel. Although some licences have been suspended or withdrawn, the arms trade goes on. If we are making engines for drone aircraft in this country and those drones are used for surveillance over Gaza and used to bomb the people of Gaza, as they were during Operation Protective Edge, we are complicit in what goes on there. That is what provoked an awful lot of people to sign the petition and make their views heard recently.

Gaza is under siege and has been under siege for a very long time. It has been my pleasure to visit Gaza on nine separate occasions during the past 15 years or so, and there is a feeling of depression and anger there at the way in which the people of Gaza are denied the right to work, the right to travel, the right to trade and the right to develop. Now, Egypt is joining in with that by developing a cordon sanitaire along the border between Egypt and Gaza, so I hope that when the Minister replies, we will hear some fairly robust remarks about the policies being followed by Egypt at present, which are compounding the siege of Gaza already being undertaken by Israel. A powder keg is developing because of the lack of freedom to travel, the lack of supplies, the lack of water and the lack of food. The people are crying out for recognition, help and support.