Taxi Licensing: Deregulation Act 2015

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Vince]

My hon. Friend is right to say that different authorities have different standards. One issue is not being licensed in the authority where that taxi operates.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Ind)]

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing so many interventions and for securing this important debate. Taxi drivers in my constituency and elsewhere in West Yorkshire really suffered during the covid pandemic. Is it not the case that the current regulatory framework for cross-border licensing is enabling some of the bigger operators to rip off hard-working taxi drivers by making sure that they do not get the income that they need and deserve, especially after covid?

[Chris Vince]

My hon. Friend is right; covid hit tax drivers in my constituency very hard, and we should do what we can to support them. Repealing some of the legislation would help to do that.

I am on my final paragraph, you will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is not just about needless red tape but—

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

There are a few problems with what the hon. Member has just said. One is that he talks about those figures, but the Government have not taken the time or trouble to set out what the impact of the Bill on passengers and taxpayers is expected to be. Were the Government confident about that impact, I am sure they would have set it out, but they have not. That is why our amendment proposes that they should set it out. We also know that while on the one hand, there are some savings to be made from management fees—I will come to that later in my speech—the benefits of competition, and the pressure of profit and loss and the bottom line, drive innovation and bring efficiency. That does not necessarily happen to the same extent in the public sector.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Whately]

No, I will make some progress.

For the reasons I have described, we have also tabled amendments to put some conditions on franchises moving into the public sector. Under the Secretary of State’s plan, the running of trains on our network will increasingly be tasked to a little-known Government company called DFT OLR Holdings Ltd, or DOHL, the current operator of last resort. It seems to me a huge risk to expect DOHL to successfully take over and run every franchise in the country. DOHL has had, shall we say, mixed results with the franchises it has taken over, and expecting it to run a further 10 on top of the four it is currently operating strikes me as a lot to ask. I recognise that the Bill makes reference to that risk by providing for franchise extensions where it would not be practical to bring the service in-house, but under the current plans, that would be decided by the Secretary of State. It is not that I do not trust the right hon. Lady, but she has shown herself to have a great deal of confidence in public operators, in the absence of any substantial grounds for that confidence.

I have been told that there is no plan to increase headcount, budget or resources of any kind for DOHL as it takes on that increase in workload from four to 14 franchises. I welcome the Government making an effort to achieve efficiencies at the centre, but I struggle to believe that more than tripling the number of franchises brought in-house will not involve some increase in resources. We therefore think it would be prudent for the Office of Rail and Road to form an independent judgment on whether DOHL has the capacity and expertise to take on each new franchise as it comes up, and to run it, at a minimum, as well as it is already being run. That could be done well in advance of most contracts ending, so it would not really be a hindrance to the Secretary of State’s plan, but it would provide a great deal of reassurance to passengers, and all of us as their representatives, about the capacity of the Government to successfully take over the functions of so many train operating companies.

[Helen Whately]

I accept some of the points that the hon. Gentleman made. That is why I said that the record of DOHL had been mixed. Sometimes there has been improvement in performance, but that is not the case for all the franchises it runs. That is my reason for not being confident that it is the right organisation to take on such a large increase in its workload, particularly without any further increase in its resources, including some operators that are performing better than the train companies that he mentioned.

We want every contract that is awarded to place a duty on DOHL to look at how to modernise our network and to ensure that passengers are at the forefront of all decision making—passengers not just in urban areas and around London but, crucially, in rural areas and places that have traditionally been under-served by the rail network. Time and again, the Secretary of State has said that her No. 1 priority is passengers—that she will protect their interests above all else, and that it is for them that she is seeking this change. This is a chance to put her money where her mouth is and create a legal duty that promotes the needs of passengers in all future agreements with public sector operators. That will build in a layer of accountability on things that we all agree are important.

On amendment 8, public bodies marking their own homework is not something that Opposition Members believe leads to good results. I know from my time in government that independent scrutiny makes life harder for Ministers, but it also improves accountability, and with that outcomes. That is why we seek to introduce proper financial reporting and oversight for public sector operators. Under the franchise system, whatever its shortcomings, train operators are incentivised to increase passenger numbers and control costs. That has been an undeniable success of privatisation. Passenger numbers have doubled and costs have been controlled, increasing at a far slower rate than revenue.

In future, passengers and taxpayers will have to foot the bill for any loss of control on costs, any inefficiencies or any failures to innovate. That is a serious implication, and something we should do our best to protect people from. Creating, or recreating, some incentives is a good place to start. We will need to know how well the public train companies are performing—what they are doing to increase passenger numbers and drive growth in rail services, how reliable their services are, how well they are keeping costs under control, and how satisfied passengers are with the service they provide.

Our proposals will allow us to identify both good and bad performance, hold the managers of those companies to account and reward them accordingly, such as by linking managerial pay to performance. Those companies will no longer have shareholders to answer to, or the financial incentives that go with a senior role in the private sector. The Government have told us that part of their rationale for these changes is to better align the incentives of train operators with the interests of passengers, but the Bill currently provides no mechanism for that. We are not seeking to frustrate a change that this Government were elected to deliver; we simply wish to bring proper transparency and accountability to the process. That includes reporting on the costs involved in bringing operating companies into public ownership.

Government Members will no doubt point to the money that will be saved by removing management fees, but this equation is not one-sided. While the Secretary of State might be saving £150 million each year on fees, industry experts have predicted that the Bill could cost passengers and taxpayers up to £1 billion a year in lost productivity and growth—and that is before accounting for the Government’s taking on all the long-term liabilities of the companies. Pension obligations, rolling stock and long-term leases will all be transferred on to the Government balance sheet, and we have had alarmingly little information on what that figure will be.

[Richard Burgon]

The shadow Secretary of State is making a case from her ideological point of view, although she denies it. Running through her speech is a deep suspicion of the public sector. Suddenly she is suspicious about the quality of service for passengers. Suddenly she is suspicious about the quality of service provided, and the amount of money being spent on it. If only those suspicions and that scrutiny had been applied by the shadow Secretary of State and her colleagues while they were in government to the disastrous privatised railway service. Is she really trying to convince this House that privatisation of the railways was in any way a success? It seems to me that she is trying to stand as a barrier to public opinion and the Bill’s progress, because the majority of people in this country support public ownership of the railways and the Labour Government were elected with that as a clear manifesto pledge.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is about to finish.

[Richard Burgon]

I am, thank you. I will bring my remarks to a close by asking, is it not the case that the shadow Secretary of State is being deeply ideological and is only interested in the privatised model and the pursuit of profit, regardless of the effect on the public?

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman and I probably do have different views ideologically; I will acknowledge that. I think that he probably, as was implied in his intervention, thinks that profit is bad. I think that profit can be a helpful thing, and it is thanks to the motivation of people to make profits that we in this economy, and those in many similar economies, have the prosperity that we enjoy today. I think that Government can do a lot, but I am also thoughtful about when Government can help and when Government might hinder. That is why I take the view that, in rail, sometimes it is right for the public sector to do things and sometimes it is right for the private sector to do things.

One thing that I fundamentally think is missing from the Bill is scrutiny. I am not trying to frustrate the mandate that the hon. Gentleman’s party has to bring forward this legislation—I think I made that clear—but I want to improve it, and improving it involves introducing a level of transparency and accountability that simply is not in the Bill. That is why I tabled my amendments.

We also seek clarity on how the Bill will affect other privately run passenger services on the network. It is clear that deep down, those on the Government Benches know that the public sector cannot, and should not, run every service on the network. That is why open access operators like Eurostar and Gatwick Express have rightly been allowed to continue under these plans.

Open access represents a huge opportunity for passenger rail in this country. When done right it can provide nimble, cost-effective services that give passengers greater choice and bring in revenue for the network. In fact, the EU has enshrined in law the rights of open access operators in tendering for passenger services. We are not proposing that at this stage, but I am concerned about how this change will impact on those already operating on the network, and what opportunities will remain open to them or others to offer new open access services in future.

The same goes for the future of devolved concessionary models. Why, if Government Members truly believe that private providers are simply siphoning off cash, can Transport for London and Merseyside still run concessionary models? While I happen to think they should be allowed to do so, it does not seem fair to have one rule for Sadiq Khan and another for everyone else. What about Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham? What if they want to run their own transport systems in a way that suits them?

My understanding is that the Labour Government want to build on the progress we have made in devolving responsibilities to cities and regions, but this Bill looks more likely to reduce the options for other devolved authorities, leaving them able to run concessionary models only if they get an exemption under section 24 of the Railways Act 1993 to do so.

Railway Ticket Offices

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Both the proposal and the process have been carried out incredibly badly, and both, I would argue, are discriminatory. The proposal to close all these ticket offices is bad for passengers and the public in general, and it will disproportionately impact disabled people, women and other minorities. That is one of the reasons the public object to it so much.

We then turn to the process itself. How can we have a situation where the Government are pushing through a discriminatory proposal with a consultation that, itself, is discriminatory? The National Federation of the Blind of the UK said that the public consultation was not accessible, and that is the extended one—first it was meant to be 21 days, and then it was extended, but even then, the consultation was not fully accessible to many of those who will be most adversely impacted by this dreadful proposal.

Despite that, nearly 700,000 people have registered their objection to this proposal. If the consultation had been carried out more sensibly and more accessibly, that figure would have been even higher. There have been 13 train operating companies and 25 email addresses, with variation in the level of accessibility of documents, and yet 700,000 people still made their point. Many more out there feel very strongly about it.

The heart and soul is being ripped out of our local shops, our local railway stations and our communities. Human interaction is so important. There are more important things than profit. Community and accessibility are both very important, and they are being ridden over by this proposal.

Rail Ticket Offices

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

There are no plans to replace paper tickets through the train operators’ process. Again, the aim is to ensure that ticket office staff are freed up and on the platform to sell the tickets and help passengers to purchase them at the machines or online. The hope is that, thereafter, those passengers will be able to book for themselves with confidence, without needing to use that service. Those staff will also be available at Stoke-on-Trent to provide other services and information: more customer services. This is the exact way in which our rail passengers transact across the retail and financial space, which is why it is the right approach for the railways.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

My constituents who use Cross Gates station and people across the country will be worried about this proposal, because closing ticket offices is yet another example of private profit being put before the public good in our railways. This move is really about gutting railways of station staff, who have a big impact on passenger accessibility and safety, especially for older and disabled people. Does the Minister really believe that this will make the railways more welcoming for people—or does that not matter?

[Huw Merriman]

If we like seeing station staff when we access our journey and like the fact that we will be seeing more of them because they will be freed up, then I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Rather than gutting the railways, this Government, and indeed the taxpayer, have provided £41 billion of support since the pandemic. That does not sound like gutting the railways to me. I truly believe that we will end up with a better station experience, one that better reflects modern usage, which is why we are happy to support the train operators with these proposals. As I say, 10% of transactions are purchased across the ticket office counter—10 years ago, it was one in three. The railway is adapting to the manner in which consumers have changed their habits.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

It is about more than just wages. That was one of the things covered in the nine-point plan, but we are working on other things, including various seafarers’ protections and measures with our international partners. This specific Bill is to deal with the specific issue of what seafarers are paid. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the issue is wider than that, but the Bill deals with what they are paid. It is focused on that, and I hope it gets the support of the House.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State explain to the House clearly why, in the Bill’s original draft, frequent visits to UK ports was defined as 52 times a year and now it is 120 times a year? That surely makes it far easier for unscrupulous companies to drive through loopholes here and evade paying people the national minimum wage?

[Mr Harper]

We think the definition in the Bill at the moment will capture the vast majority of the services we wish to capture. We think that defining that in the way that we have makes it more difficult for people to avoid than it would be if we were very specific about types of vessels, for example. I am conscious that a number of people wish to speak in this debate, so I will make a bit of progress before taking any further interventions.

We said from the start that where new laws were needed, we would create them, that where legal loopholes—which the hon. Gentleman referred to—were cynically exploited, we would close them, and that we would strengthen employment rights. That is why the Bill is important. Operators of regular services to the UK will be required to pay their crew a decent wage if they want to access our ports, and it will remove the incentive for other, unprincipled firms to drag down pay for seafarers with close ties to the UK.

Under the existing national minimum wage legislation, not all seafarers who regularly call at UK ports are currently entitled to the UK national minimum wage. It cannot be right that seafarers who frequently work in the UK and in our territorial waters are not entitled to the same as other workers simply because they work on an international, rather than a domestic, service. The Bill will fix that particular issue. I recognise that there are other issues that people wish to deal with, but the Bill deals with that. It does not amend the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, but it makes provision for seafarers on services in scope of the Bill to be paid at least a rate equivalent to the national minimum wage.

Since March, we have consulted extensively with the industry to make sure the measures we are discussing are workable. Those discussions have been productive and are continuing. As was just alluded to, the legislation will apply to international passenger or freight services that call at UK ports on at least 120 occasions in a year, which equates to 72 hours on average. Harbour authorities will be empowered to request declarations from operators of services to confirm that they pay their seafarers no less a rate than that equivalent to the national minimum wage. If they do not provide that declaration when requested, harbour authorities will have the power to impose a surcharge, or may be directed by the Secretary of State to do so. It will not be a profit-making exercise for harbour authorities. They may only use the money raised from the surcharge for the discharge of their functions or for provision of shore-based seafarer welfare facilities.

We hope the surcharge is never required. The point of it is to be a disincentive to operators paying low wages. It will be set at such a rate that it does not make financial sense for operators to underpay staff. If they do not pay the surcharge when it is levied, harbour authorities will be empowered to deny access to the port. That will not be an onerous responsibility for harbour authorities; beyond accepting the declarations, they will not be responsible for checking the details of seafarers’ pay. The enforcement role will be carried out by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which will undertake inspections and investigations and, if necessary, prosecute offending operators.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I have made it very clear, as the Dover MP, I have worked very constructively with the RMT, and particularly with the local branch. What I saw that day was the Labour leader on Zoom, and it seemed to me from that meeting that he was looking for political opportunism, rather than having the interests of my constituents at heart. I am therefore very pleased that so many Members on the Opposition Benches now speak so freely about my constituents, but I urge them to fully support the Bill, and not to seek to create division and engage in shameless political opportunism on what they know is a very specific Bill, as they have already done in the Lords.

[Richard Burgon]

We do not seek to oppose the Bill. We seek to strengthen it and improve it, but I do have a question for the hon. Member. She has repeatedly referred in her speech to “trade union barons”. Will she take this opportunity to make it clear that trade union leaders—of the RMT and other unions—are not barons, because they are elected by their members? Would it not be helpful to stop using this silly, right-wing tabloid language of “barons”? They are not barons. They are elected leaders—elected by many more people than some Conservative Prime Ministers.

[Mrs Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think he has made his point about his choice of language, in the same way that I have made mine.

As we look forward to the Bill going through Committee, I urge Opposition Members not to seek to create division in the name of improvement, when in fact they are making amendments that are outside the scope of the Bill. It is this Conservative Government who are prioritising fair pay and equal rights for our workers on land and at sea. We are applying the minimum wage to ensure that we do not see a race to the bottom of foreign crews and cheap labour, helping to secure the future of the workforce on the short straits.

In Dover, the maritime industry is part of our DNA. I just visited Viking’s Maritime Skills Academy in Dover, which trains seafarers in fire and sea rescue safety. Like a number of local businesses, it has worked really hard to support those in P&O who have lost their jobs, and I pay tribute to all those across my constituency who have come together to help. It is a reminder that, from training to deployment, Dover has a central role in the maritime community. With that central role, I would like to see this Bill accompanied by further international steps to improve the pay and conditions of international seafarers.

The conditions for some international seafarers are nothing short of slavery. That point was very well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). We have a moral responsibility to address that. We have taken action to address the use of sweat shops on land in other countries. We must show international leadership in tackling the sweat shops at sea—the shocking conditions for international seafarers, particularly those from poorer countries. We must also go further in completing bilateral agreements with port-to-port European and other counterparts, so as to ensure that standards, safety and training meet the demands of the sea. As I raised with the Secretary of State earlier, it is those bilateral agreements on which we should be focusing the specific needs of the channel routes.

Today’s Bill is one that I strongly welcome. It will help to ensure that the financial incentives that led to the decision-making of P&O Ferries will be neutralised. It will help to avoid the race to the bottom and shore up jobs here in the UK ports. It is an important and focused Bill to plug a gap in employment law to ensure that British workers operating at sea between Dover and Calais will be treated just the same as workers operating in Dover itself.

I would like to finish by saying how grateful I am for the work of a number of right hon. and hon. Friends, in particular my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) and my hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Robert Courts), for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who all worked so hard alongside me on this P&O situation, understood it for the disgrace it was and showed determination to push forward on the nine-point plan for action. I know my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister will be following through on that to ensure that such a situation cannot happen in the same way again.

This Bill shows it is the Conservative party that is on the side of seafarers. It is the Conservative party that is the party of the workers. It is the Government who support jobs, training and pay to protect British workers, including all those excellent workers at Dover and those who work on the short straits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I have listened to all the contributions with great interest. There is clearly a consensus developing that, although this Bill is a step in the right direction, it is completely inadequate to the scale of the situation seafarers face.

Who can forget those appalling scenes when balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained security guards were sent on to the ships to remove P&O workers? That was a real wake-up call about the reality of employment law in this country and more widely. What worries me is that the Bill is full of loopholes—ones that will be exploited by unscrupulous employers. Before I was elected as a Member of Parliament, I was for 10 years a trade union lawyer representing workers, including seafarers. Time and again, I saw ruthless employers exploit loopholes in well-intentioned laws and get away with treating workers like dirt. We cannot allow that to go on. Far from the divisive language of the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), we need to work together to improve the Bill.

What are some of the loopholes? I mentioned in an earlier intervention my concern that when the Bill was drafted, frequent use of a port was defined as a ship calling at a UK port 52 times in a year. That has now been increased to 120 times a year. I am still not clear on why that is the case, but it is logical that if we define regular use of a UK port not as 52 visits but as 120 visits, that is a great loophole for port-hopping and for unscrupulous employers to avoid paying the national minimum wage when they should do so.

There is also a lack of legal clarity on whether dismissed P&O workers resided in Britain. The Insolvency Service has still not pursued legal charges against P&O. The TUC rightly says that that loophole continues in the Bill, and it is therefore clear that it must be closed. It cannot be acceptable for this House to be content with a Bill that, following the P&O scandal, does not close the loopholes that allowed P&O Ferries to get away with its behaviour in such a horrific manner.

The Bill does not go far enough on employment protections. We need stronger protections in law. P&O is currently making more savings from the intensive roster patterns forced on agency workers, for example, than it does from paying below minimum wage. It is clear, then, that the national minimum wage provisions in the Bill are not enough on their own, because firms can still undermine workers’ rights if minimum wage protections are not coupled with broader employment protections. We see deductions taken from workers’ pay for their accommodation, for example, which is completely outrageous.

The Bill does not protect all seafarers, by the way, as has already been mentioned in discussion about workers in the offshore renewables sector. If we want, as we do, a future of well-paid, green and unionised jobs that help us to tackle climate change and solve the ongoing energy crisis, we need to ensure that those jobs are well paid, secure and unionised, not part of a race to the bottom. We need to ensure that offshore workers in the green sector have proper protection as well.

As the Bill progresses, I will introduce or support amendments to close legal loopholes and prevent port-hopping—that is essential—and, crucially, to inscribe a seafarers’ charter into law, expand collective employment rights, and ensure that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has the powers and resources to enforce employment protections. We have already heard in the debate about the conflicts of interest for companies that run ships and have financial interests in ports. We also need the Bill to be changed so that minimum wage rights for seafarers’ working in offshore renewables are equalised with the entitlements for those working in the offshore oil and gas industry.

The Bill needs to be amended and strengthened or it will be a huge missed opportunity, which we cannot allow to happen. We all remember the strong feelings in the country, which were reflected on both sides of this Chamber, about what happened at P&O, but we must ask ourselves these questions. First, is it right that, as we have heard, P&O’s parent company benefits from Government funding to the tune of £50 million for London Gateway freeport? More importantly and more fundamentally, is it right for this House to be content with legislation that is a tiny step in the right direction—that is why we are not opposing it—but does not go far enough?

The Seafarers’ Wages Bill needs vast improvement if it is to be worthy of its name and if it is to prevent what happened at P&O from happening again. If we do not improve it, people outside this House will be very disappointed indeed, because the Bill will not match the speeches made in this House back then and tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he and I have worked closely together on many local transport issues. National Highways and Tees Valley Combined Authority have worked closely on developing proposals for the Darlington northern link road, connecting the A66 and junction 59 of the A1. The work to date will form part of a body of evidence informing the investment plans for RIS3—the third road investment strategy—for future roads between 2025 and 2030.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

People expect the Government to be trying to help resolve these rail strikes, not block a resolution. How can the Transport Secretary claim that it is not his role to get involved when the Government are handing over tens of millions of pounds a day in indemnity payments to rail companies to back them up during this strike?

[Mr Harper]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman listened to my earlier answers. It is not my interest to block a settlement at all. I want to resolve this issue. I want to facilitate the trade unions and the employers getting together to hammer out some reform measures to help pay for a better pay offer for the staff. I will do everything I can to end these damaging and unnecessary strikes, and I hope he will do what he can to persuade the trade unions to get back around the table with the employers.

Industrial Action on the Railway

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and she gives another example of how not condemning the strikes is being part of the problem. People must be prepared to stand up for what they believe in. If they want school trips, companies doing corporate social responsibility and people to be able to visit Parliament—all those different activities—they have to be on the side of people using the railway, and they have to condemn the strikes.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

It is disgusting how the Secretary of State and the Government have smeared and continue to smear ordinary, hard-working, decent people such as railway cleaners, safety operatives and ticket staff who just want to keep their jobs and get a decent, fair pay rise. Does it not go to show which side the Government are on when they seek to slash workers’ pay while the train companies continue to make hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds in profits?

Rail Strikes

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Nothing excites Conservative Members more than the chance to give the trade unions a good kicking. Some of their speeches have been chilling in their anti-trade union bile. Why do they not get as passionate about the number of food banks in this country as they do about bashing the trade unions and bashing working people who are trying to defend their pay, their jobs, their terms, their conditions and, of course, public safety? As a trade union lawyer for 10 years before being elected to Parliament, I know something that many Conservative Members do not seem to know: working people go on strike as a last resort, not a first resort.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I have been on strike a few times myself. Does he think that any Opposition Member who has received a donation from the RMT should put that money in a pot to help people who suffer during next week’s rail strike? Does he also think that other MPs who have stolen money from the mineworkers—165 grand in the case of the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) —should pay it back?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Thank you very much.

[Richard Burgon]

The only time we seem to hear Conservative MPs worrying about the future of our children, our public services, nurses, doctors and other workers seems to be when they are condemning a potential strike. Isn’t it funny that they do not seem to have this concern for working people at any other point?

Today, I was looking at an interesting letter, dated 27 May 2020, from the Secretary of State for Transport to the RMT. There was a handwritten flourish at the end of the letter in the handwriting of the Secretary of State, and it said:

“Thank you for your continued engagement with Chris Heaton-Harris and me as we try to bring services back together. Your members have been true heroes!”

Those are the words of the Secretary of State for Transport, written in his own hand, to the RMT.

[James Daly]

Many self-employed people have been heroes throughout the pandemic. They have gone out every day to provide services. As a result of this strike, they will not be able to go to work, earn money and eat. So what does the hon. Gentleman say to those people, who will not be able to earn money to put food on the table for their families as a result of the actions of the RMT?

[Richard Burgon]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the Transport Secretary should reply positively to the letter from the RMT today, which is in the public domain and which asks for a meeting with him and the Chancellor, without preconditions, to try to sort this out. The RMT does not want this strike to have to go ahead.

The truth is that the Conservatives are living their Thatcherite revivalist fantasies; anybody would think we were back to the age of the “enemy within”. Let me tell them this: train drivers, cleaners and people who work on our railways are not the enemy within. They are true heroes. They are the people who keep our society running and who bring our communities together. They deserve to be treated with respect. The Secretary of State put in his own hand that they are true heroes, and I agree. If they are true heroes, why move this politically contemptuous motion today? This is from the same repugnant right-wing box as that sick Rwanda policy. It is all about kicking migrants, kicking workers and seeking to cling on to power. This motion, just like that vile Rwanda policy, is red meat for rabid Tory right-wing Back Benchers. That is why the Conservatives have got so excited and so red-faced on those Back Benches today, shouting about unions and treating them as the enemy within.

Politics is about which side you are on. I am proud to be a supporter of the trade union movement and to be supported by it. The people who should be ashamed are those whose politics are framed not by mass movements of the working class but by the billionaires and those at the very top, who have done very well in this crisis. So I say: meet the RMT, agree to no compulsory redundances, agree that all rail workers should receive a fair pay rise that takes into account the rising cost of living, and agree that working conditions and jobs are subject to renegotiation and agreement with the RMT. Let us also stop lecturing rail workers on modernisation. They want to modernise, but we are not in the best place to lecture them about that, in this Ruritanian palace of powdered wigs, buckled shoes and swords. It makes us look out of touch. I will tell you this: the railway workers earn their pay; not every MP does.

P&O Ferries

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts]

It would not be normal for any Minister to comment on the legal advice that has been given, but I share the hon. Lady’s concerns, which is why we have asked the Insolvency Service to investigate in these circumstances. I take on board her suggestion, as I do those of all hon. Members, and we will update the House on that package shortly.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Dockers in Rotterdam refused to load freight on to a ferry in support of 800 unlawfully and illegally sacked P&O workers. Does the Minister endorse that action in support of saving those 800 jobs? If so, why is it good enough for workers and trade unions in Rotterdam but still illegal in this country to take solidarity action?

[Robert Courts]

This is a Government who are standing up for workers. We have been absolutely clear about our condemnation of the way that P&O workers have been treated in this case and we will be taking action, which I will explain in due course.

P&O Ferries and Employment Rights

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Like so many in my community, in this House and across the country, I am sick to the back teeth of working-class people in our society being treated with contempt and like dirt. That was shown graphically, was it not, with balaclava-wearing, handcuff-trained security guards boarding ships to chuck workers off their ships?

We have also had enough of the crocodile tears and manufactured anger from Conservative Ministers. We heard the Secretary of State earlier make the pathetic suggestion of a response including asking P&O to change the ship’s name from “Pride of Britain”. Now, if it were to be renamed, I would suggest the unwieldy yet accurate title “Pride of Neoliberalism”, because that is where it has landed us.

The brutality and authoritarianism of the security guards—people laugh, but it is a company whose parent company is in Dubai, and trade unions and labour strikes are illegal in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates—provided a grotesque spectacle of workers being treated like dirt. We need action. Forty years of the domination of neoliberalism and the celebration of the weakening of trade unions and working people’s legal powers have brought us to this despicable point.

DP World has done very well. It posted record profits and has paid dividends of hundreds of millions to its owner, the state-owned Dubai World company, in the past two years. Its own website has a press release saying:

“DP World announces record results”,

and adds:

“DP World Limited announces strong financial results for the year ended 31 December 2021.”

It states that revenue grew 26% to $10.8 billion and earnings grew 15% to $3.8 billion.

Today, the Government have a choice. They need to act like a Government, because what this company is doing is treating not only workers and trade unions, but an elected Government with contempt. It is saying to the workers, “You can’t do anything about this. We can treat you like dirt,” and it is saying to the Government, “We know you won’t dare to act.”

The Government need to act. Nothing should be off the table. That means that until P&O reinstates the workers, the Government must ban P&O from using British waters, cancel any Government contracts with P&O and DP World, including future involvement in freeports, and launch a national consumer boycott campaign encouraging citizens of this country not to go with P&O. If after all that P&O still does not comply, the Government should take the P&O ferries on those routes and run them.

The reason P&O has not been able to sack seafarers this way in France is simply because France has better employment laws than we do. We need stronger employment laws in favour of employees. We need stronger trade unions. We need a repeal of the anti-trade union laws. Let us stop attacking trade unions. We heard the nonsense about so-called militant trade unionism earlier. If the Government want to see militant trade unionism increase—because it will have to increase—they should allow P&O and DP World to get away with this, because all that workers will be able to do in response is increase action and increase strong, fighting trade unionism.