Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

What about the Conservatives crashing the economy? The Secretary of State forgets the fact that inflation has gone through the roof under their watch. Thirteen years of Conservative failure. Members watching this debate and constituents up and down the country know the truth, and they will tell this Government what they think, come the next general election.

Working people are facing the largest fall in living standards in a generation. In-work poverty, insecure work and financial insecurity are rampant. Inflation is in double digits. It is in this context that we have seen the greatest levels of strike disruption in 33 years, with ambulance workers taking their first major strike action in decades and the first ever strike in the history of the Royal College of Nursing. Our posties, train drivers, Border Force, health workers, train cleaners and even Ministers’ own officials have taken action too. The Prime Minister will not admit it, but this is a crisis and it is a crisis of the Government’s making. This legislation does nothing to resolve the problems that they have caused. There is no common sense in it at all.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a proud trade union member. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this legislation does nothing to address the underlying reasons NHS staff and others have taken the incredibly difficult decision to strike? We are going to spend a number of hours in here this evening, but surely that time would be much better spent by the Government getting round the table with members of the NHS, listening to their concerns and coming to a resolution that would help to move things forward, rather than wasting our time here this evening on this horrible piece of legislation.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and I absolutely agree. I was reflecting while the Secretary of State was making his opening speech, and I was thinking that, if I still worked in social care or one of the key public services—if I was paramedic, a nurse or one of those key workers he mentioned—and I was listening to this debate, I would be really upset and offended by the way he represented them here today. That is not what the Labour party thinks of those key workers.

The Secretary of State has claimed that this legislation is about public safety, so why does the Bill not mention safety once? He knows full well that working people already take steps to protect the public during strikes through derogations and voluntary agreements, yet he brazenly claims that this punitive legislation is needed because of ambulance workers. That is insulting and shameful, and I think he should apologise for the way in which he has awfully smeared ambulance workers.