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

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Davies of Gower) (Con)]

My Lords, these draft regulations will be made under the powers conferred by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, as amended by the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. The regulations will apply across Great Britain, and their purpose is to set minimum service levels for specified services that can apply during strikes affecting passenger rail services.

The minimum service levels are designed to balance the public’s need to make important journeys and the impact of rail strikes on the economy with the ability of rail workers to take strike action. Since 2019, there has not been a single day without either a strike happening on the railways or mandates for strikes outstanding. The result has been many periods of disruptive strike action, with widespread consequences for passengers and the wider economy. This Government want to see an end to this disruptive strike action, but the trade unions continuing to call for it has led to these regulations being necessary.

I acknowledge the amendments to the Motion relating to this instrument. The regret amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, references the views of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on the detail of the policy in the Act, the retrospective element of the regulations, the fact that the impact assessment was not published at the time of laying, contractual concerns, and concerns for the ability for workers to take strike action. The fatal amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, references concerns around the impact of these regulations on the workforce and about safety, and raises concerns that the Act places undue obligations on trade unions.

In its 3rd Report of Session 2023-24, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that more information should have been provided to explain the policy decision in the Explanatory Memorandum. The committee also noted that the impact assessment was not published at the time of laying and mentioned the issuance of an initial review notice by the Regulatory Policy Committee. I will address the amendments to the Motion and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s remarks but will turn first to the instrument under consideration today.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 establishes a framework for the making of regulations to set minimum service levels during strikes. The Act provides that for certain sectors, including transport, the relevant Secretary of State may specify, in regulations, the relevant services and the minimum service levels that will apply. These regulations for passenger rail specify three categories of services that minimum service levels apply to, and the associated minimum service levels.

Thecategories are: category A, train operation services; category B, infrastructure services; and category C, light rail services. For category A services, the minimum service level is specified as the

“provision of the train operation services necessary to operate the equivalent of 40% of the timetabled services operating during the strike”.

With regard to category B services, the minimum service level is specified as a list of priority routes to be operated for the specified hours of 6 am to 10 pm during strike action. The priority routes are defined in the regulations and listed in the schedule to the regulations. In addition to the listed priority routes, the minimum service level also applies to any part of the network that is within a five-mile radius of the priority routes and is a loop, siding, or a line that connects the priority routes to freight terminals, stabling facilities, or depots used for rolling stock or for plant, equipment, and machinery used in providing the other infrastructure services. This is to enable trains to travel to and from berthing areas and terminals to the priority routes.

With regard to category C services, the minimum service level is specified as the provision of the train operation services and infrastructure services necessary to operate the equivalent of 40% of the timetabled services during the period of a strike for the relevant light rail system.

I now turn back to the amendments to the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the recent remarks by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to which I previously alluded. I regret that the impact assessment was not published at the time of the laying of these regulations. My department has a good track record in the quality of our impact assessments. It was the right decision to revise the impact assessment and allow the committee time to review.

Although I regret that the Regulatory Policy Committee has not yet been able to issue an opinion, it is important that noble Lords can scrutinise the impact assessment in this debate, which is why we have now published the impact assessment. The Act sets out the framework, and it was correct that these regulations set out the policy detail of passenger rail minimum service levels. Each sector being debated today has its own complexities and operates very differently. There is no one size that fits all models.

I now turn to the retrospective provisions. The disruption caused by continuous strike action puts these passenger rail regulations in a different position to other sectors. The Government have therefore taken the step of including retrospective provisions to create certainty for employers that strikes called under mandates secured before the primary legislation received Royal Assent would be in scope. This legislation is not intended to prevent workers from taking strike action. My department launched a consultation on minimum service levels for passenger rail to develop a more detailed understanding of how minimum service levels might impact on staff. This department has at every stage carefully balanced workers’ continued ability to take strike action against the needs of people to make essential journeys by rail. It will be at the discretion of individual employers whether to issue work notices to deliver minimum service levels. There are no plans to compel employers to use these regulations. There is comfort in that the Act includes the safeguard that employers should not identify more persons than are reasonably necessary to deliver the minimum service level.

Finally, I turn to the fatal amendment. Tackling strikes in transport was a 2019 manifesto commitment. As we are seeing now, when the rail trade unions choose to strike, people, including doctors, nurses and teachers, experience disruption in accessing their places of work, schools and vital medical appointments. In some cases, they are unable to travel at all. If the House supports this amendment, it will be voting against protecting passengers from the disproportionate impacts of rail strikes. I beg to move.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour for me to speak to this Motion. It marks my return to the Labour Front Bench, which I am delighted by.

Alas, I feel a very personal interest in this matter. My father was a Carlisle railway clerk and a long-standing member of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association. I was so steeped in Labour and trade union history when I was a student that my thesis was on railway industrial relations.

Growing up, one of the things that I learned about industrial relations, particularly on the railways, was that the right to strike was fundamental but should be used sparingly. Despite employers and employees sharing common interests, there will be conflicts of interest. Collective bargaining to resolve those conflicts will not work unless the unions have the power to strike, even if they rarely use it. That is of fundamental importance.

That power is not absolute. As my noble friend Lord Hendy said in an earlier debate, it is not untrammelled. There must be ballots and regulations on picketing and secondary action. Labour has accepted all that. Our objection to what is being proposed for the railways is that the practical effect of these minimum service levels is to eliminate the right to strike for vast numbers of railway workers—40% by some estimates.

That is correct—you have to think about it for only a second—because if you are to run any trains on the principal parts of the network, you have to keep all the staff in place necessary to keep the network safe and running. Anyone working in a signal box has to be on duty, or in a control room; station staff have to be there, because they play a vital role in ensuring passenger safety; and the permanent way teams have to be there to do their work on maintenance of the track. If that does not happen, you will be running an unsafe railway in an incredibly short time. As my noble friend Lord Coaker said in his remarks about the border staff, this is a wholly disproportionate measure in the case of the railways.

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Moved by

[Lord Liddle]

As an amendment to the motion in the name of Lord Davies of Gower, at end to insert “but that this House regrets that the draft Regulations contain policy detail that was not included in primary legislation, contrary to the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; that their retrospective element will create uncertainty; that the impact assessment is not sufficiently robust; that it is unclear whether contractual relationships will impact the issue of work notices; and that they may prevent workers from being able to take industrial action.”

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I will test the opinion of the House on the amendment standing in my name but, before that, I thank the Minister for his carefully considered reply. I did not agree with it, I am afraid; I just do not think that what is proposed is proportionate in terms of workers’ right to strike. I sincerely hope that employers and companies with common sense will not try to make use of these regulations. In that spirit, I wish to test the opinion of the House.