Employment Policies

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Indeed, but the national living wage has been raised to one of the highest levels in Europe under this Government. For those who wish to compare our record with those of European member states, I remind Members that maternity leave provisions in the UK are one year; the minimum standard in Europe is 14 weeks.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that those who support the right to strike should be careful about seeming to be enthusiastic about all strikes? Does he agree that the current train strike is not simply against workers who want to get to work by train to support their families and pay their mortgages but against sick people who want to get to their hospital appointments and against young people who want to get to their colleges and schools? Is it not about time that we accepted that there are some strikes where the balance shifts from a right to strike to holding the whole country—the weak, the sick, the needy —to ransom, which is increasingly the case with this train strike?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend puts it extremely well and I agree with him completely. It is almost as if this action is designed to punish the travelling public. With the way they are targeting the Christmas period, when a lot of essential engineering work was due to take place to improve the service for the travelling public, and with the way that they are targeting the weeks before Christmas, when they know that many people travel to see their friends and loved ones, it almost seems as if they are positively enjoying the right to inflict damage on the public.