Industrial Action on the Railway

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady, whose own constituency Labour party received £3,000 from the RMT, may have missed the leader of her union address a press conference about an hour ago, where he made it clear that he had walked out of the talks to which she is encouraging the employers to return. We are ready to speak. We want to see this settled. Pay offers have been put down, but modernisation is required in return. It takes two to tango.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

UKHospitality, the hospitality trade association, believes that the strikes tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday will have a massive effect on the hospitality industry. We are talking about not just the major employers, but the small, family-run restaurants and cafés. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, rather than taking these strikes, the RMT should be going back to the talks and trying to stop these strikes, so that we can protect the jobs within the important hospitality industry?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is right. These strikes will cost the railways a lot. They will particularly cost people who are unable to travel—particularly the lowest paid, because they often have jobs to which people still have to physically turn up. There is probably not a sector that will suffer more than the hospitality sector. Just as this country is recovering from covid, it is completely unforgiveable of the unions to call their members out on strike when they are doing so artificially and without good cause, while negotiations are still continuing, and on the false prospectus of there not being pay rises when there were always going to be pay rises.