Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I hope the House will appreciate that there are a lot of people who want to contribute. I want to give people the opportunity to do that in their own speeches. [Interruption.] If Members do not mind, I will turn to the detail of the Bill.

The Bill establishes a legal framework to implement minimum safety and service levels during periods of strike action. It will achieve that by amending existing legislation, the Trade Union and Labour Relations Concili —[Hon. Members: “Consolidation”] Thank you folks. The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. I was trying get the word “conciliatory” in there for Opposition Members. The legislation will allow regulations to be made to ensure that specified services cannot shut down completely when workers strike. That is to maintain crucial and, in many cases, life-saving services. The relevant sectors specified in the proposed legislation are: health services; fire and rescue services; education services; transport services; decommissioning of nuclear installations and management of radioactive waste and spent fuel; and border security.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Can the Secretary of State help me with this? The human rights memorandum that accompanied the Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill last October stated specifically that the Government’s legal advice was that it is not justifiable or necessary in a democratic society to have such restrictions in emergency and patient care services, in fire and rescue, or in education—only in transport. That does not appear in the human rights memorandum that accompanies this Bill. Has the Government’s legal advice changed or have they just changed their mind for reasons of political convenience?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. and learned Lady must surely have noticed that we have subsequently had disruption in the NHS, including in the ambulance service. What has happened in that disruption is that although the nurses have very sensibly provided a national level of safe service, unfortunately the same has not happened in the ambulance service. That is why this legislation is required in other areas at this time.

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

rose—

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[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I would like to accept the invitation of the shadow Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who encouraged us to be respectful in this debate. I wish to be so. We have heard a lot from the Labour party this evening about how the Bill is an act of political violence and an attack on the fundamental freedom of working people, but we have not heard an answer to the fundamental question that the legislation poses: do the British people have a right set out in statute to a basic safety and security guarantee during periods of strike?

Let us start with the law. The right to strike is embedded in international law, most notably in article 11 of the European convention on human rights.

[Joanna Cherry]

The hon. Lady asks whether any of us on the Opposition Benches care about fundamental safety levels, and yes we do. She asked whether we would support legislating, but legislation already exists. On article 11, she knows as well as I do that the measures have to be “necessary”. The Government’s own memo with the last legislation said that the measures were not necessary in relation to the health service, education and fire and rescue.

[Laura Farris]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her point, and I will assist her, because I was coming on to that point. The article 11 right may be restricted for two reasons—if the restriction is necessary, yes, and proportionate. The International Labour Organisation, of which the United Kingdom is a founding member, recognises that maintaining a minimum level of service provision can be both when it comes to essential services. Its committee on freedom of association has expressly set out the two circumstances in which it may be appropriate: where strike action would pose a risk to life, safety or health; or where the service is not essential in the strict sense of the word, but where repeated strikes would bring a very important sector to a standstill.

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[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I will not be supporting this legislation, for three reasons. First, the Bill is not really about safety levels at all. Secondly, claims that the Bill reflects current practice elsewhere in Europe are inaccurate. Thirdly, there is the very real risk that these proposals are in breach of the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European convention on human rights and international labour law. As other hon. Members have said, the word “safety” does not even appear in the Bill. It is a Bill about minimum service levels, not minimum safety levels, yet repeatedly Conservative politicians have talked about minimum safety levels and seem very happy for confusion between the two concepts to be caused. I suspect that is because this is a deliberate attempt to hide from the public the real intentions behind the Bill.

Secondly, on European standards, most European countries, as others have said, have a very different model of labour relations from the United Kingdom, which, thanks to successive Tory Governments, has one of the strictest systems of regulations of industrial relations in Europe. In other countries, trades union rights are protected in their written constitutions. Labour law experts will tell you that in most European countries minimum service levels are established by collective bargaining and, in so far as legislation exists, it provides a framework for these agreements, rather than for top-down regulation. The Bill would enable the Secretary of State to impose sweeping regulations from the top on millions of workers in a number of different sectors.

That brings to me to my third point. As I said when I intervened on the Secretary of State, the measures in the Bill go considerably further than the minimum service levels envisaged by the Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill published last October. The Government’s own human rights memorandum which accompanied the previous Bill set out in some detail, with reference to existing legislation, the reason their lawyers then said that minimum service levels imposed by legislation were not justified in fire services, health settings and education. Yet that is what they are now proposing and their human rights memorandum for the Bill is very different. I can absolutely guarantee to hon. Members across the House that as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I will be making sure we scrutinise very carefully the difference between the two human rights memorandums.

On compliance with international labour law, the International Labour Organisation has enshrined the right to strike in its convention, to which the UK is a signatory. It is true that minimum service levels are allowed, but not if they are imposed from the top down. They need to be set by negotiation or, if the negotiation breaks down, by an independent body, as happens in Italy. Only in European countries well known for flouting fundamental rights, such as Hungary and Russia, do we see Government-enforced minimum service levels leading to the sacking of workers and the bankrupting of unions fighting for fair pay and conditions. Yet that is exactly what the Tories want to do in the Bill. Perhaps we should not be surprised that, despite all their anti-Putin rhetoric, the Tories want to emulate Putin’s approach to striking workers. Perhaps it is not so surprising given that the Deputy Prime Minister told us he is not ruling out leaving the European convention on human rights and the Home Secretary is keen it should happen as soon as possible. Given that they are keen to be on the same side as Russia on human rights, it is perhaps not surprising that they are doing that in the Bill.

The bottom line is that key workers are striking because their wages have not begun to keep in line with inflation and because the interest rate hikes caused by Tory economic incompetence mean they cannot afford their rent or mortgage. The Government need to recognise the stark reality of those people’s lives and work with their unions respectfully to reach agreement.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Mullan]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates my remarks. Whenever we say that, Opposition Members want to bring up differences in union law. The Government do not decide to make individual bits of legislation only if they match all the other legislation in a similar environment. This is a separate issue. Whether we have collective bargaining does not mean that minimum service legislation is or is not valid. You either think it is important to have minimum services, or you do not. Determining whether there can be a strike is completely separate from whether there are restrictions on the impact that a strike can have. I will not withdraw that remark; I stand by it.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Mullan]

No, I have given way a couple of times and I want to make progress. [Interruption.]

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[Laura Farris]

An experienced employment lawyer like the hon. Member for Middlesbrough will know the true mechanics very well. A union and probably the TUC and Professor Keith Ewing, because he did the last one, will put in a written submission to the ILO, and its committee of experts based at the ILO office in Geneva will respond in due course. It is not appropriate to say that something is the complete answer of the ILO because somebody has waggled a microphone under somebody’s nose at Davos. There is a procedure.

I hope my speech is not confusing the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), because I am not suggesting for a moment that what was sent to MPs this morning is a comment on the United Kingdom. It is the ILO’s statement of general principles on minimum service levels, and I will continue, if I may. The ILO says that the second acceptable restriction is where strikes take place in activities that may be considered essential services. It lists, at paragraph 135 of its 2012 report:

“air traffic control, telephone service…firefighting services, health and ambulance services, prison services, the security forces and water and electricity services.”

The report continues:

“In situations in which a…total prohibition of strike action would not appear to be justified…consideration might be given to ensuring that users’ basic needs are met or that facilities operate safely or without interruption, the introduction of a negotiated minimum service…could be appropriate.”

[Joanna Cherry]

What the hon. Lady is saying is very interesting, but does she accept that, as we are in Europe, any analysis of the legality of these proposals has to start with article 11 of the European convention on human rights? Can she point to any country in Europe with Government-enforced minimum standards that can lead to the sacking of workers on strike? [Interruption.] The Minister should listen to the question carefully, because the answer will be on the record. Can the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) point to any other country in Europe that has Government-enforced minimum standards, without negotiation and without arbitration—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. and learned Lady will be trying to catch my eye later, and I do not want interventions to be too long.

[Joanna Cherry]

I was interrupted.

[The Chairman]

I know, and I was going to say that it is important that interventions are not interrupted. Has the hon. and learned Lady finished?

[Joanna Cherry]

Can the hon. Member for Newbury point to any country in Europe in which, as a result of Government-enforced minimum standards, without any negotiation and without any arbitration, a worker can lose his or her job, other than—wait for it—Hungary or Russia?

[Laura Farris]

The hon. and learned Lady is right that negotiation is required. I was shocked to find that, in France, the sanction for a person who refuses a requisitioning request is via the criminal courts. I did not know that, and I did not know it is the case in Canada, too. It may be that I have misread the legislation, and that it is a “life and limb” exemption—I am not familiar enough with French legislation.

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[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I begin by declaring an interest as a proud and long-standing member of Unite the union.

I rise to speak in support of amendments 91 and 92, which stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and others. These amendments reaffirm the principle that a trade union is a democratic organisation beholden to the will of its members, and not the other way around. That might be an alien concept to a Government who have spent the last year forcing through legislation that undermines the most basic rights of their citizens, but it is an article of faith for those of us in the labour movement.

These amendments are just two of the many brought forward by Members on the Opposition Benches, who have among them many lifetimes’ worth of experience in the trade union movement. It is a shame that that experience is so obviously lacking on the Government Benches, or else the Government might not have brought a Bill to the House that the general secretary of the TUC has rightly denounced for being

“undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal.”

We must confront the uncomfortable truth that no amount of tinkering in Committee could ever hope to salvage this Bill. It is, frankly, rotten to the core and a grotesque affront to our most basic democratic principles. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) has written today, anybody who

“is concerned about individual liberty and freedom should be opposed to this attack on the fundamental right to withdraw your labour.”

Since the Business Secretary first confirmed on 10 January that he would be bringing forward this Bill, we have been subjected to a torrent of tedious lectures from those on the Government Benches about the responsibilities that key workers have towards the public. What right have a Government who have led this country into the worst recession of any G20 economy bar Russia, and who preside over the highest level of child poverty in a generation, to lecture the nurses, ambulance drivers and teachers who saw this country through its darkest days since the end of the war?

The Business Secretary has even had the temerity to tell the House:

“The British people need to know that when they have a heart attack, a stroke or a serious injury, an ambulance will turn up, and that if they need hospital care, they have access to it.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 432.]

After 12 years of Tory failures, that is not even a guarantee he can make to my constituents when there is no strike action. If he wants to know who is failing the public, he does not need to turn to the picket lines; he need only look in the mirror.

This Wednesday, teachers, civil servants and train drivers will take to the picket lines in what is expected to be the single largest day of industrial action in more than a decade. Whatever Government Members might believe, these are not radicals intent on the overthrow of the state; these are ordinary, conscientious public servants who, after a decade of real-terms pay cuts, simply cannot take it anymore.

Instead of electing to sit down and engage in good faith about the real issues that are driving public workers across the country to such desperation, this Government have instead opted to bulldoze through this House in only a week a Bill that will do lasting and irreparable harm to our democracy, without adequate scrutiny or reference to the devolved Governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh. I will be voting against the Bill in its entirety this evening. On Wednesday, I will proudly stand with striking workers exercising their democratic right to demand better in the midst of this Tory cost of living crisis.

[Joanna Cherry]

I rise to speak to amendments 115, 116 and 117, which stand in my name. The Joint Committee on Human Rights is about to commence our legislative scrutiny of the Bill but, given the Government’s timetable, any amendments that the Committee recommends at the end of that scrutiny will require to be laid in the Lords. I have therefore tabled these three amendments as a way of probing the Government’s intentions in relation to the three issues I raised on Second Reading: the fact that the Bill is not really about safety levels at all; the inaccuracy of claims that the Bill reflects current practice elsewhere in Europe; and the very real risk that these proposals are in breach of the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European convention on human rights and international labour law.

The Government’s ECHR memorandum acknowledges that the Bill engages article 11 of the ECHR, and that is where our legal analysis should start, not with the ILO. As I said in my speech on Second Reading, it is interesting to compare the ECHR memorandum for this Bill with the ECHR memorandum for the Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, which I think probably has a slightly more accurate description of the law. I would love to know why the Government changed their position between the two memorandums. No doubt we will not be favoured with that information.

Article 11 protects the right to strike as an aspect of free association. It is, as Members have said, a qualified right, meaning that its protections are not absolute, but any interference with its protections must comply with the requirements set out in article 11(2). Any restrictions on the rights protected under article 11 must be in accordance with the law and must pursue one of the legitimate aims set out in article 11(2). The most recent ECHR memorandum states that minimum service regulations have the legitimate aim of

“protecting the rights and freedoms of others”

because of

“the disproportionately disruptive and harmful impact that strike action has on the public, on their lives and on the national economy”.

In contrast, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s press release for the Bill said that the new law would reduce risk to life, and Government Ministers and spokespersons have made much of that as a justification for the Bill—the Minister was at it again today. The ECHR memorandum, however, does not list public safety or the protection of health as one of the legitimate aims of the Bill.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will deal with that question in a second; it is covered by one of the Lords amendments that I will speak to, so I will address it when I come to the element of my speech relating to the devolved Administrations.

The Bill returns to us with a number of amendments made in the other place. I would like to be clear that, with the exception of our own Lords amendment 3, the Government consider the majority of the changes to be designed to make the Bill either less effective or entirely ineffective in achieving its aims. The Government will therefore be disagreeing with those amendments.

I will speak first to Lords amendment 3, which was tabled by my colleague Lord Callanan in the other place and provides clarity in respect of the matters to which an employer must not have regard in respect of trade union membership and activities when deciding whether to identify a person in a work notice. The amendment addresses a point raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its report on the Bill.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The Minister and I have had some correspondence about the Bill in my capacity as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but can he not see that many of the concerns we expressed in our report on the Bill are echoed by the amendments that the Lords have brought, and also by organisations such as the TUC and the Equality and Human Rights Commission? Why is he not giving them more weight?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

At times in life we have to agree to disagree, do we not? The Government feel that the Bill strikes a balance, but the hon. and learned Lady does not, and I respect her opinion. I studied carefully the letter she sent me and I responded to it.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am not talking about the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights alone; I am saying that many of our concerns are widely supported by other groups such as the EHRC, the TUC and, now, the majority of their lordships. Will the Minister not reconsider the response he gave to my Committee’s report?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Of course we have considered those concerns, and we considered the amendments in the other place. We feel that what we are proposing with this legislation strikes the right balance. I fully accept that the hon. and learned Lady disagrees with that position.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

In some countries, such as those I referred to earlier, strikes are banned completely for those working for some blue light services. We already have that situation in the UK for the armed forces, prison officers and the police. There would be a breach of contract if people in those positions were to strike.

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will make progress, if I may. Lords amendment 5 also seeks to make the Bill inoperable. It would mean that there were no legal consequences for a union that induced people to go on strike when they had been identified, through a work notice, as needing to work, or for a union that failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that their members complied with work notices. The amendment would mean that unions had no responsibility for ensuring that their members did not participate in strike action and attended work if named in a work notice.