Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and here is the rub. I think it is the reason for the latest poll out today on support for the action that trade unions are taking. It is not because the general public like the inconvenience. Of course we all want strike action to be avoided, but the public can glaringly see through the Government’s defence—that this legislation is needed because we need minimum service levels—because they have seen ambulance workers, nurses, and all other key workers fighting for this country and protecting people when this Government cannot provide the minimum safe service level at any other time, during any other week, when there is no strike action. It is this Government who are failing the British people and not providing the level of care, not our key workers, not our nurses, not our teachers and not our firefighters. They are the ones supporting our key public services, and I applaud them for doing that.

The Bill also allows bosses to target union members with work notices. What is to stop that happening? Will trade unions be liable for the actions of non-members? What about when there is no recognised trade union? What reasonable steps will a trade union need to take? Will it be penalised for picketing, or could the simple existence of an otherwise lawful peaceful picket line be effectively banned? The Secretary of State claims to stand up for the democratic freedom to strike. Where are the protections to ensure that work notices do not prevent legal industrial action, or the requirements on employers to take reasonable steps to make sure that they do not, either intentionally or not? Can he really say that not one worker will be banned from action by simply being named in every work notice? What about workers in control functions on the railways, such as fleet managers, route managers and maintenance managers, who would be forced to work regardless under this law?

If the Secretary of State does not care about workers, what about the burden on the employers? Does he seriously think that overstretched public services have the resources to assess new minimum service laws—to work out who needs to be in work, how many people and where, before every single strike day? Should we not promote good-faith negotiations instead? If only the Government put their time and their effort into doing the one thing that will resolve this crisis: negotiating with the employers and the workers in good faith. There are reports that some Ministers are seeing the light and are ready to negotiate. The Transport Secretary admits that these measures will not work; the Education Secretary sees the damage they will do to schools.

As is normally the case in Committee upstairs, we have tabled probing amendments—for example, why these six sectors? Will the Secretary of State add more, and how are they defined? Do health services include veterinary services, dentists or pharmacists? What about parcel delivery, ferry and waterway services, or steam railways? Does he mean to include private schools? Will he regulate minimum service levels for Eton?

The Government are running away from scrutiny precisely because they know that this Bill will not stand up to it. Does the Secretary of State not accept that first we need to see the assessment by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and inquiries by the relevant Select Committees, and that all promised consultations must be completed and published before the Act comes to pass? I know the Minister understands the challenges with legislation and the need to ensure that those affected are consulted properly, so I do not understand why he stands at the Dispatch Box today and does not want, as a minimum, these things to have happened before legislation is passed.

Who is the Secretary of State planning to consult? Will he consult the trade unions and employers affected? Why has he failed to publish the impact assessment that he promised? The Bill has nearly passed through the lower House and we have still not had any sight of it. This is near unprecedented and deeply anti-democratic. Even the Regulatory Policy Committee has not seen it. Is the Secretary of State scared that the impact assessment will speak the truth—that it will conclude that this legislation is unneeded and will actually make things worse?

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The Minister should go on a field trip to really understand what happens with these agreements. The paramedics on the ambulance service picket line carry bleeps, as do those in the NHS, so that they can provide surge staffing when that is required. That is an ongoing dialogue throughout the day and the minimum standards in the Bill will not address that. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the standards are therefore superfluous because they will not address the day-to-day, minute-by-minute needs of the health service?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Her point links to what I was trying to express earlier: the Government fail to recognise that every time they suggest in some way that our paramedics, nurses and other key workers do not provide a minimum service and do not take seriously the impact of challenging in the way they have been forced to. They protect the very people they are there to support. The Government have misjudged how people feel about that, because not only have they caused offence to those workers who protect us day in, day out, but they have failed to recognise that every single one of our key workers who does that has friends and family who know that they do that. This is why the public get very upset with the Government when they suggest that somehow our paramedics, nurses and other key workers do not provide those standards. I agree with my hon. Friend: if the Government were able to get out more and see what happens on the ground, they would have a clearer understanding of why this legislation will not work and fix the problems. The public understand that and the Minister should take note.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Just a tiny point of information: when I am sitting at the Table, I am not Madam Deputy Speaker; I am either Dame Rosie or Madam Chair. I call Rachael Maskell.

[Rachael Maskell]

Thank you, Dame Rosie. I rise to support many of the amendments. Not only is this Bill bad law, but it will make the industrial landscape far worse. The Minister is trying to make a monster out of something that does not exist and a problem that does not occur.

The Bill needs correcting to comply with international law. I am grateful to Members for tabling amendments 39 and 34, which highlight how the Bill is at odds with ILO convention 87. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) tabled amendment 83, which would bring that convention into law by creating a framework by which the Bill must go forward—otherwise, it will just spend months in the courts, and I expect that that is where it will end.

We are talking about safety, so not having an impact assessment is quite unbelievable, not least when we know that many of the clauses could well result in services being more unsafe than they are currently. I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that we already know that those services are unsafe. On Second Reading, I raised statistics from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine about the health service being unsafe, with 500 additional deaths every single week. The Secretary of State dismissed those figures. However, a witness from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine set out his peer-reviewed workings when he appeared before the Health and Social Care Committee.