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.