Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

If there is anybody whom the hon. Gentleman thinks was not able to contribute to the consultation, I ask him to please let me know, but it was open to anybody to make a submission to the consultation, and all those submissions will be properly assessed by Ministers and officials.

I turn now to the Lords amendments that would restrict the ways in which we can ensure that minimum service levels are achieved, Lords amendment 4B still leaves employers powerless to manage instances of non-compliance when workers strike contrary to being named on a work notice.

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

Could the Minister set out the timescale for the consultation and how he intends to carry it out?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As the hon. Lady may know, our initial consultations closed around the middle of May—9 May to 11 May. Those submissions will now be considered, and we will report back to the House accordingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I should refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the jurisdiction of trade unions. I have said this in the House before, but Government Members just do not seem to understand it. It is the members of the trade union who determine what happens within a trade union—it is not a general secretary or even an executive, but the members—so how are they, as individual members, going to instruct workers to attend work?

[Justin Madders]

That is really a question for the Minister, and one that I think the Government have failed to answer adequately. I think the point my hon. Friend makes is a good one. When Conservative Members traduce the union barons, they actually traduce every single member of the trade union who has voted in support of industrial action, and I am afraid that that is no way for any Government to operate.

I would ask Conservative Members, not that there are many here, to consider what the Bill actually means. Representatives of trade unions will be required to encourage, cajole, advise, pressurise or even demand that their members cross a picket line. They will be asking trade unions to actively go against the very thing they were set up to do. I would say that it is a bit like asking a Conservative MP to vote in support of higher taxes, but I guess that, with the highest tax burden in over half a century, we may have to drop that particular analogy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

I, too, refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In opening the debate, the Minister skirted round amendment 4B and just said that the Government were opposed to it. A number of us intervened at the time, but I really do think that he needs to consider the Government’s position carefully, particularly on that amendment, because it gets to the heart of the Bill and why so many of us are expressing concerns about the attacks on natural justice and on human rights.

Lords amendment 4B asks that employees receive a work notice in good time. It seems fairly uncontroversial that a work notice should be issued to a worker in good time if they are to attend their work. If we do not accept the amendment, we will end up with a scenario where someone returns to work after a day of industrial action and is told they are being dismissed with no evidence whatsoever that they have been given a work notice. Of course, the Government do not want to give the responsibility for the work notice to the employer, so the employer will have no obligation at all to serve an employee with a work notice, but they could dismiss them the very next day after industrial action.

Let me emphasise that the employee would have no recourse to an employment tribunal. Surely it is a fundamental human right, and fundamental to natural justice, that if a worker is dismissed, they have recourse to a tribunal to challenge that decision. That, to me, seems fairly self-evident and obvious, but the Government are allowing a situation where rogue employers will be able to dismiss a worker for taking part in industrial action with no recourse to a tribunal, and they will not need to evidence the fact that that worker was served with a work notice.

The Government find themselves in a preposterous situation by opposing Lords amendment 4B, so I hope that the Minister will be able to answer some of these questions. Is it really the Government’s position, as I have outlined, that it is okay for an employer to dismiss those on strike and that they will not need to provide evidence that the employee was obliged to go into work? It is ludicrous.

[Rachael Maskell]

While the Government clearly do not want workers to have access to justice through the employment tribunal, of course those workers’ human rights will have been infringed, so will they not have access to other courts to challenge this egregious legislation?

[Chris Stephens]

Hopefully the Minister will answer that question.

The Minister did say in answer to my intervention that it happens in other countries. Yes, it happens in Russia and Hungary. Are Government Members really going to justify the Bill by saying, “It happens in other countries like Hungary and Russia”? Is that the Government’s example? Let me name another country—Italy, where workers can be disciplined but short of dismissal. But the Government do not want to follow the Italian model; they want to be in line with Hungary and Russia. It is incredible that the Government have found themselves in that position.