Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lisa Cameron(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Ms Ghani
My right hon. Friend is always so succinct in his questions, and there is often a huge amount of sense behind it. I fundamentally agree that we need to collaborate with business and industry. [Interruption.] Forgive me, Mr Speaker. The response I want to give to my right hon. Friend’s very good question is that, as he will be pleased to know, there is the Lord Hill listing review and the Sir Douglas Flint review, and in particular the Edinburgh reforms, which will be considering competitiveness and will, I think, provide some sort of answer to his question. It would be remiss of me—because I know that he is particularly interested in this—not to mention that it is 50 years since women were first admitted to the floor of the New York stock exchange after 170 years of just men.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lisa Cameron(6 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
The Government are committed to improving station access for disabled people, including those with hidden disabilities. Further funding for the Access for All programme will be made available in the next rail control period, and we are introducing new accessibility commitments as part of franchises. In addition, whenever the industry carries out infrastructure work at stations, it must meet current accessibility standards. I must say “thank you” to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who did a huge amount of work on accessibility across all transport modes.
Dr Cameron
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on disability, I have been hearing accounts from people throughout the United Kingdom about a lack of access to both underground and railway stations, which contributes to isolation and social exclusion and also impedes their ability to get back to work—and getting people back to work is one of the Government’s key tasks. Would the Minister kindly agree to discuss with the all-party group the progress that can be made if we work together on the issue?
Ms Ghani
I am aware of the hon. Lady’s work on the APPG. As she will know, I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment, and we did a lot of work together.
I believe that 75% of platforms are accessible by steps, but we need to do much more work. All train operating companies and Network Rail are required to have a disabled people’s protection policy as a condition of their licences.
The hon. Lady also contributed to the draft accessibility action plan. There were a number of recommendations, and I look forward to meeting her and ensuring that they are followed through.
Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Lisa Cameron(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
Q 383 What are your opinions on the use of agency workers? What effect could that have on public safety and, where you represent healthcare workers, patient safety?
Frances O'Grady: We have very good relations and agreements with agencies and the federation representing agencies in this country. We have always worked very closely on the fair principles of employers needing flexibility to cover peaks and troughs in production, or staff absences, and doing that on the basis of equal treatment within the framework of the union agreement. This proposal is obviously quite different. We are potentially talking about employers having the right to replace wholesale workers who have democratically voted to go on strike with, potentially, untrained and inexperienced agency workers.
As we know, labour providers source from all over Europe, so is the idea that workers would be bussed in, perhaps from another country, perhaps not knowing what they are being bussed in to do, and be put in the invidious position of being asked to cross a picket line? Many employers, including the industry federation, have said publicly, very clearly, that it is absolutely wrong-headed to put agency workers in the middle of difficult disputes. It is not something we have seen in this country for 40 years or more, and frankly it is either naive or positively dangerous to deliberately seek to undermine legitimately decided and democratically voted on strikes by the use of agency labour.
Dave Prentis: It is a very final resort when a public service worker or a health worker takes industrial action. Last year was the first time in 34 years that our members have taken action over pay, and it was to achieve the Government’s 1% pay award, which the Secretary of State had denied the workers, but we reached written agreements to provide cover. We provided written agreements—we signed them with the other unions involved—on ambulance workers to make sure that ambulances were there, all ready to go in an emergency. We reached written agreements for cover on wards. Sometimes, they have better cover than they do at times when they have staff absences because they want to ensure that the critical wards are covered. There is no need for agencies to be brought in.
With the change in the thresholds and the idea of agency workers—even Margaret Thatcher did not propose this. The idea of using agency workers, combined with all the other restrictions on industrial action, is punitive. Somebody wants to attack trade unions, but they are basing it on 1980s values, and we have moved on. The Bill will not in any way affect the productivity of the country, which we should be looking at—whether competition in Britain is good enough to take on the rest of the world. We are just going to end up fighting with each other, when we should be working together to ensure that workers benefit, the organisations they work for benefit and, in our case, patients benefit.
Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
Q 384 To continue on agency workers, we took evidence earlier from Mr Jon Skewes from the Royal College of Midwives. He mentioned how potentially disruptive it could be if midwives were to go on strike. There are two issues: the fact that it costs so much to bring in agency staff, and the need to ensure that staff have the right skills to support mums and babies. If midwives were to go on strike, it would put at risk pregnant mums and their babies. Are you saying you would not want any agency staff available at that unit if a mum was going into labour? Would you not then allow agency staff to come in to work, to help those mums and babies?
Dave Prentis: I heard Jon’s evidence, and he said very clearly to you that they put in far more workers—midwives—than they have brought out in demonstrations.