Industrial Action on the Railway Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

Industrial Action on the Railway

Martin Vickers Excerpts
Monday 20th June 2022

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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My hon. Friend makes an interesting point.

Martin Vickers Portrait Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
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In generations past, the railway industry played a major part in developing seaside resorts such as Cleethorpes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, were these damaging strikes to continue, all they would succeed in doing is damaging many small businesses in communities such as mine? Will he do all that he can to ensure that working people can get to work on the trains?

Grant Shapps Portrait Grant Shapps
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This is the great irony: the people whom the strike will hurt the most are not the white-collar workers who will sit behind their computers using Zoom and Microsoft Teams but the people trying to support tourist industries in places such as Cleethorpes—people trying to run bed and breakfasts—and people trying to get to work to do their jobs, and often they can least afford to lose a day’s work. However, they will lose not one day’s but at least three days’ work, and there will be chaos on the other days of this week. It is a disgrace, and the Opposition cannot find their way to condemning it, which is disgraceful, too.