Industrial Action

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

In the politest possible way, I think that once we have been going for an hour, some of the questions that were written in advance and possibly even handed out by the unions have been categorically disproved—as I have explained many times, this is not against international law or the ECHR, for all the reasons that I have already covered—but they continue to be read out as if they are a new contribution. Those questions ignore the basic fact that there is another side to the issue, which is the safety of the hon. Lady’s constituents and ours. Tomorrow, when there is an ambulance strike and the unions refuse to commit to national safety levels with the management of the trusts, everyone’s life will be more at risk than it should be. It is perfectly reasonable to introduce what happens throughout much of the rest of the world, and certainly our European neighbours, and to have minimum safety standards in place so that we can protect the public.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The Government intend to use minimum service levels to force workers to work against their wishes, which undermines their legitimate disputes and imposes servitude on workers. The safest level of provision is to pay our firefighters, nurses, teachers, paramedics and rail staff a proper decent wage and to give them the appropriate resources to do their jobs effectively. Why does the Secretary of State need a new law to help the Government to effectively drive down the wages of the key workers in vital services who he clapped during the pandemic?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady described people as working in “servitude” if there are minimum service levels, but I point out to her that they would be paid for that servitude. At Network Rail, the average worker is on £46,000 of servitude and the average is £62,000 of servitude for train drivers. If we are going to have a serious debate about minimum service levels, I should say that they are designed to ensure that school kids can get to school again; that office workers, who may be on lower pay, can get to their job; and that the constituents of Members across the House can be guaranteed minimum safety levels during a strike tomorrow. The idea that that is somehow enforcing servitude is absolute nonsense.