Draft Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Passenger Railway Services) Regulations 2023

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 General Committees

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

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few comments about the human rights aspect of the regulations in my capacity as acting Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. When the Committee published a very full legislative scrutiny report on the parent Act in March, we raised serious concerns about the Act’s compatibility with the UK’s obligations under international law, in particular the rights to freedom of assembly and to freedom of association under article 11. We share those concerns in relation to these regulations and the way in which they have been framed. As the Minister is aware, the European convention on human rights is, thankfully, still part of our domestic law, due to the survival of the Human Rights Act 1998. Article 11 does not refer expressly to the right to strike, but it has been interpreted as covering the taking of strike action—in a case brought against the Russian state, ironically.

When the Joint Committee on Human Rights took evidence from international law experts, the only country in the whole of Europe they could think of that had similarly draconian legislation to the United Kingdom was Hungary, as well as Russia, of course, although Russia has now left the ECHR—rightly so, after the invasion of Ukraine. I am not sure that the UK Government should want to be in the same grouping as the Government of Hungary, but by bringing in this draconian legislation, they are.

Article 11, as I said, has been interpreted as covering the taking of strike action. The European Court of Human Rights has also referred to requirements set down by the International Labour Organisation when assessing compliance with article 11. I know from my recent meeting with the TUC that it has reported the Government to the ILO in relation to the parent legislation, and it is also concerned about these draft regulations. In legal terms, a qualified right to strike is also provided for by article 8 of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights and article 6.4 of the European social charter, both of which bind the United Kingdom in international law.

Compliance with article 11 of the ECHR requires that any restrictions on strikes are

“in accordance with the law”,

which includes a requirement that the consequences of the law must be foreseeable for those it affects—we heard earlier that perhaps that is not so in the draft regulations. The restrictions must also be

“necessary in a democratic society”

to meet a “legitimate aim”. That condition requires the restrictions to meet a “pressing social need” and for them to be

“proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued”.

I very much question whether these draconian regulations are proportionate to the aim being pursued.

The Committee might recall that at the tail-end of the year before last, the Government introduced a Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, which had an alternative mechanism in it. That was going to be based on negotiation and independent resolution of disagreements about minimum service levels. That kind of approach would reflect standards set out by the International Labour Organisation, and would involve less interference with article 11. It would therefore be more likely to meet the requirement of proportionality.

The Government have never adequately explained why they went from initially proposing negotiation and an independent resolution of minimum service levels to the draconian imposition of them. I will be interested to hear if the Minister has been able to come up with an answer to that.

As I said, the Joint Committee on Human Rights had similar concerns about the draft regulations as we did about the Act. Last week, in my capacity as acting Chair, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade setting out our concerns about the regulations. In doing so, I was very conscious of the fact that the consequences of employees failing to work as required by a minimum service level imposed through a work notice, and of trade unions not taking reasonable steps to ensure that their members complied, would include a loss of automatic protection against dismissal for participating in a strike. That is a big deal.

Sometimes, Government Front Benchers talk about the rights of the public as though somehow those rights were in conflict with the rights of trade unions in exercising the right to strike, but trade unionists and workers are members of the public. They face very straitened times at the moment, with the cost of living crisis, and some people are struggling to make ends meet. If people are struggling to make ends meet and their wages are not being raised in line with inflation, in particular in relation to energy bill inflation, the only option they have is to withhold their labour in a dispute. It is a fundamental part of our democracy that they should be able to do that.

[Chris Stephens]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for her excellent speech. She is correct to say that the Government do not support decent wages for workers. I go back to the point that she made about protections from dismissal, because she is articulating the fact that, under this legislation, anyone could be dismissed without the right to an employment tribunal. Can she name any other groups of workers who do not have that basic right?

[Joanna Cherry]

The Joint Committee made that point in our initial report. A trade union’s involvement in an illegal strike could result in damages of up to £1 million. Any individual worker who participated in a strike that was found to have been illegal could be dismissed. The difficulty with these draft regulations is that workers and trade unions may not be able to foresee the legality of action, which is why the penalties are particularly concerning. We pointed out that lesser penalties for individuals—suspensions rather than dismissals— would make interference with the right to strike more proportionate.

[John McDonnell]

Let me try to give a concrete example of what the hon. and learned Member is talking about. An employer can take a union to court and argue that it has not performed its role of encouraging workers to go to work. As a result, the strike is rendered illegal. Any individuals who participate in that strike would therefore lose their legal protection against unfair dismissal. We could have employers using this as an opportunity to sack a large number of their workers. They could shed workers at will.

[Joanna Cherry]

To be frank, these are the kinds of laws and consequences that workers in Russia and Hungary face. We do not want them here in the United Kingdom.

Of course there should be minimum service levels; I am not arguing against that. However, they should be reached through negotiation. When negotiations between unions and the employer break down, there should be arbitration. That is what happens in a lot of other European countries.

I am concerned that the regulations on passenger trains would allow an employer to require 40% of timetabled services to run. That would allow some employees to participate in strikes, but infrastructure services such as signalling would have to be provided between 6 am and 10 pm for a substantial number of priority routes. That gives rise to a risk that employees working on those lines would be effectively prevented from striking.

I have met the TUC to discuss its concerns about these draft regulations. It made a number of points, some of which have been covered already, so I will confine my remarks to those that have not been covered. It said the rail industry is highly complex, so the effect of the draft regulations on the right to strike is difficult to quantify without access to industry information. The impact of any work notice will depend on how an employer seeks to deploy it. The TUC is concerned that the regulations will prevent many workers from taking industrial action. It says that providing 40% of a service is likely to require a lot more than 40% of staff once consideration has been given to cover staff, for instance.

The TUC also fears that many infrastructure staff on priority routes, including signal operators, will be denied the right to strike completely because their presence is necessary for the routes to run. It shares the concern I articulated in my letter to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.

The TUC also made the point that the Government seem to have given little consideration to safety and the role of transport workers in ensuring that passengers are safe. Overcrowding could be a real issue when only a partial service is running. Rail workers need to know that they can apply “work safe” principles and, if necessary, stop working. It needs to be clear that, in those situations, staff would not face legal consequences—or political opprobrium from the Government.

The TUC also raised the significant uncertainty over whether the draft regulations include or exempt those working on freight services. Will the Minister clarify that?

The main point I want to raise with the Minister, and on which I want an answer, is this: what assessment have the Government made of the extent to which the article 11 rights of those working on passenger rail infrastructure on priority routes would be protected in cases when services must be provided between 6 am and 10 pm on strike days? A proper, full assessment with regard to the law is required to have been made in that respect in order for this to be proportionate interference with rights under article 11. I do not believe that that has been done, and I do not believe this is proportionate interference.