Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Paula Barker Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a proud union member and I was a trade union official before entering this place.

After 13 years of Conservative Government, life for ordinary people in this country has got harder. This country is again an outlier on workers’ rights, and has been for some time. What a sad indictment of a Government who purport to be a standard bearer of democratic rights in defence of a free society. This legislation, amounting to yet another brazen attack on an already fragile settlement for workers in this country, flies in the face of the basic liberty to withdraw one’s labour. This legislation does not protect the public—quite the opposite. This Bill, hastily put together, is incoherent and unworkable, and I am sure that in time it will prove unlawful.

This bosses’ charter will make it easier to sack workers across several sectors: our paramedics, firefighters, nurses, train guards and many more. It will not make those workplaces safer. Key workers are demanding a decent settlement amid an economic crisis they had no part in creating. Those workers received the adulation and applause from Conservative Ministers throughout the pandemic, only to be abandoned, threatened and dehumanised when the going got tough. I will oppose this Bill with every fibre of my being.

It was the trade union movement that delivered the weekend, paid holidays, paid sick leave, equal pay, maternity and paternity rights, and the minimum wage. Our collective role now in Labour is to defend the trade unions, provide a voice for their members and our constituents in this place, and prevent this latest attack on our communities. If Conservative Members want to know how Labour would resolve these disputes, they should tell their leader to call a general election and we will soon find out.