Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between John McDonnell and Claudia Webbe

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Many have commented on the almost ludicrous nature of how we are legislating today. We are about to legislate to penalise a union for not taking reasonable steps to ensure it instructs its members to break a strike, yet we do not know those sanctions, or what “reasonable steps” are. We do not know what the implications are for the union itself, yet we are legislating tonight to give a free hand to the Minister. That cannot be right in any democratic forum.

[Claudia Webbe]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, to which I hope the Government are listening. The Bill is manifestly unjust and must not become law. That is why amendments 93 and 92 are needed. The Government are not just showing their contempt for the UK’s legal and democratic principles with this Bill. As it stands, the Secretary of State can ignore the UK’s international legal and treaty obligations on the treatment of workers and allow the sacking of workers simply for exercising their internationally recognised right to withdraw their labour, with nothing to protect certain workers and union officials from being targeted by bad bosses. Time and again, this Government bring forward legislation without an impact assessment. Where is the impact assessment? Where is the equality impact assessment? That is why new clause 1 and amendments 4, 83 and 84 are needed.

The harm this Bill does to the rights of our people is obvious, but it also does huge harm to the UK’s international standing, making this country yet again an outlier among so-called developed nations in its readiness to disregard international law and agreements. The Bill is clearly unfit and is designed to break the will of the unions and demoralise workers. These amendments and new clauses will not actually make the Bill fit, but the proposed changes will at least mitigate some of the dangers it evidently poses. I urge the Committee to support them.

As workers rise in opposition to this Bill, to defend their rights and to say enough is enough, and as industrial action increases as a direct result of this Bill, I urge all hon. and right hon. Members to do the decent thing and to stand with them not only here in Parliament, but on the picket line. On 1 February, I will be standing with workers in Leicester who are rightly exercising their democratic right to strike for fair pay, terms and conditions. I ask Members to support the amendments and to scrap this Bill for good.

Sri Lanka

Debate between John McDonnell and Claudia Webbe

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing the debate, together with the vice-chairs of the APPG, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. The significant Tamil and Sri Lankan communities of Leicester East are watching the debate with interest. Many have experienced the atrocities at first hand. They are deeply troubled by the appalling human rights abuses and worsening economic situation in Sri Lanka.

It is worth repeating that Sri Lanka is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a lifetime, with food inflation running at over 90% and a large majority of people receiving reduced incomes. There is significant hunger, with 8.7 million people inadequately fed, including millions of children. Access to healthcare is severely limited, with even basic drugs in desperately short supply.

[John McDonnell]

It is important in this debate to try to get across an understanding of Sri Lanka’s economy. It has natural resources on a scale any other country would wish for and dream of, including natural mineral resources, and agriculture resources. The problem is that a political and military complex now controls the economy for its own interests. As a result, we have extremes of wealth and poverty through not just mismanagement but calculated management by the military who dominate the economy.

[Claudia Webbe]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right. I thank him for reminding us of that situation; it is absolutely clear.

Sri Lanka has defaulted on $55 billion-worth of debt and declared bankruptcy, causing widespread misery for its citizens. It does not even have enough foreign exchange reserves to buy essentials for its citizens. After months of delay, the International Monetary Fund has reached a staff-level agreement on an extended fund facility arrangement, but behind closed doors—no one actually knows what has been agreed.

The Sri Lankan people are experiencing the deepest austerity in a country that is already on its knees, with its people starving and dying from lack of food, medicines and fuel, despite the natural resources and wealth of the country. Protesters took to the streets to demand their voices be heard in three popular uprisings to end the Rajapaksa dynasty and to demand a new democracy when the new president was sworn in this year. The state responded brutally, despite the protests being non-violent and peaceful. Remarkably, it has brought demonstrators from different communities together, with protests spreading out, rather than being focused on Colombo alone.

However, there is an enormous wave of state repression taking place in Sri Lanka at present. The entrenchment of all Executive power in the presidency has caused the politicisation of all arms of the state, leading to corruption, mismanagement, impunity and the brutal denial of human rights. The new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, launched a brutal attack on the protesters and started a new wave of repression.

Human rights organisations, including the UNHRC, have said that the Executive presidency, which has entrenched an exceedingly authoritarian rule, must end the use of terror laws against protesters. The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act 1978 was used on Tamils for over 30 years, and on Muslims after the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks, on a massive and barbaric scale. The state has again begun to use its atrocities against peaceful protesters. Despite criticism from the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, the Sri Lankan Government have also recently planned to introduce a Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill, which will essentially see the building of mass internment camps where protesters fighting for democracy would be sent to rot.

We must never forget the large-scale corruption of the Rajapaksa regime, including the stealing of funds from the bilateral private credit lines the country procured. As we know, information has come to light that there could be $10 billion of foreign reserves hiding in overseas accounts, including in tax havens in UK territories such as the Cayman Islands. Along with other nations in the global south that suffer at the hands of a global economy that favours the global north, we must call on multilateral institutions to cancel debt collection at this critical time, as we did for Ukraine.

The UK Government must take a stand against the current repression and mass arrests of peaceful protesters. We must push the Sri Lankan Government to end the use of terror laws on protesters and stop the cruel Bureau of Rehabilitation Bill from passing, and assist the country in relation to repatriation funds that could be easily hiding in the UK and in our overseas territories. It is worth noting that Amnesty International’s recent report on the crisis points out the importance of the opportunity to offer a debt amnesty to Sri Lanka and a package of international aid tied to action from the Government to resolve their human rights issues, bring justice for war crimes and abuses, and implement a universal approach to social protections. Any response from the UK to the crisis that does not involve a cast-iron commitment to take a role in those solutions will inevitably be inadequate. It is vital that the Government put Amnesty International’s proposed solutions at the heart of their actions.