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

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 General Committees

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of Unite the union.

The passengers’ representative Transport Focus told the Transport Committee:

“There is no substitute for good modern industrial relations in any industries where changes and where terms and conditions are negotiated, and agreement is reached because you want to have workers who want to come to work.”

That is the view shared by the majority of the public, as well as by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, which have said that they will decline to enforce minimum service levels. Will the Minister explain why the UK Government—in stark contrast to the devolved Administrations—are so singularly incapable of engaging with trade unions in good faith and instead feel the need to resort to these repressive, anti-democratic measures?

Rail is a safety-critical industry, with the vast majority of rail staff having some safety-critical element to their role. The Government’s deliberately divisive measures, which would compel workers to cross their own picket lines or else jeopardise their own and their colleagues’ most basic employment protections, risk causing serious damage to the spirit of co-operation and trust that is central to the safe running of our rail network. Does the Minister accept that if the Government took the time to listen to rail workers, they would recognise that, far from improving the service provided to commuters, these measures actually risk undermining passenger and staff safety?

There are few things harder for a trade unionist to contemplate than being forced to cross their own picket line. Does the Minister accept, as the Rail Safety and Standards Board has, that many union members who have been instructed to go to work despite having voted to take strike action may simply go off sick, and that this will make the planning of minimum services chaotic and unpredictable and increase risks to passengers?

These regulations risk creating a situation where a guard who has been issued a work notice might feel compelled to take out a train that they believe to be unsafe, when they previously would not have. Does the Minister share my concern that these regulations risk creating a conflict between rail workers’ responsibility to work safely and the requirements to comply with work notices or else lose vital employment protections?