Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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

Order. A great many Members are trying to get in. I cannot impose a time limit because we are in Committee, but I strongly advise colleagues to speak for rather less than 10 minutes. I also intend to prioritise those who have tabled amendments.

[Dr Mullan]

Let me begin by making it clear that I do, of course, want everyone working in the emergency services and the wider NHS to earn a decent living and to work in conditions that help them to perform at their best. I think that everyone wants that.

There is no doubt that our NHS has been under enormous pressure, and that continuing state of affairs has been the subject of much of the debate on this Bill, but I think we must recognise the record investment in the NHS. Demand has soared, and there are pressures on the service run by Labour in Wales and by the Scottish National party in Scotland. We hear the narrative of, “This party this” and “this party that”, but Labour Members keep their heads down when we are discussing the NHS in Wales. That just shows that they are making political capital out of the challenges in the NHS. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) shakes her head, but the problems in the NHS are exactly the same in the Labour-run NHS in Wales. That is a fact—and there is more money per head for the NHS in Wales than for the NHS in England.

That said, I welcome the additional steps to support the NHS that the Government have taken today. We need to come to terms with the existence of an ageing population and increasing demand, although I recognise that issue is separate from what we are discussing today, which is what reasonable legislative steps we might take whether public services are performing well or not, and whether or not there is pressure on employees and wages.

I will always defend workers’ right to strike as important, but it has always been a qualified right, not an absolute right. I intervened on the deputy Leader of the Opposition to make the point that we already have legislation—not a voluntary agreement—that states that police officers cannot strike. I have not yet heard of the Labour party putting in their manifesto that they would repeal that if they were lucky enough to win the next election, because they think that legislation on mandatory strike control is unacceptable. That makes the politics of this issue very obvious. Any successful society must balance the right of workers in certain sectors of the economy.

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[Dr Mullan]

No, I have given way a couple of times and I want to make progress. [Interruption.]

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

Order. The hon Gentleman says that he will not give way.

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, Opposition Members need to make up their minds. On the one hand, they want to constantly castigate this Government for moving away from what they say is the gold standard of employment relations in Europe—I do not agree with that—but when we come up with something that is done in Europe and that we want to do here, they are not interested. They talk about differences in how ballots are run and other elements that are separate from the issue of whether to have minimum service legislation.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

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

Just a little reminder that I said under 10 minutes would be helpful, otherwise not everyone will get in.

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[Joanna Cherry]

What the hon. Lady is saying is very interesting, but does she accept that, as we are in Europe, any analysis of the legality of these proposals has to start with article 11 of the European convention on human rights? Can she point to any country in Europe with Government-enforced minimum standards that can lead to the sacking of workers on strike? [Interruption.] The Minister should listen to the question carefully, because the answer will be on the record. Can the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) point to any other country in Europe that has Government-enforced minimum standards, without negotiation and without arbitration—

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

Order. The hon. and learned Lady will be trying to catch my eye later, and I do not want interventions to be too long.

[Joanna Cherry]

I was interrupted.

[The Chairman]

I know, and I was going to say that it is important that interventions are not interrupted. Has the hon. and learned Lady finished?

[Joanna Cherry]

Can the hon. Member for Newbury point to any country in Europe in which, as a result of Government-enforced minimum standards, without any negotiation and without any arbitration, a worker can lose his or her job, other than—wait for it—Hungary or Russia?

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

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

Let me say to the hon. Lady that she was not being annoying; I thought she made a thoughtful speech. I also want to emphasise that I cannot impose a time limit. I simply make a plea to colleagues that if everybody is going to get in, a little discipline might not go amiss on the time front.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I rise to speak against this Bill and in support of amendment 2, which stands in my name and that of my party. Having listened to the debate so far, it strikes me that we can dance on the head of a pin all we like, but this legislation would not, in any way, resolve the situation the country is facing. The Bill does not address the problem; it simply seems to take a mallet to peel a peach.

My amendment, which I ask the Committee to support, would address the problem, because it calls on the Government to look at the level of minimum service they are calling for and ensure that it did not exceed the relevant service recorded on any day of the 12 months previously. It also seeks to ensure that before making regulations on minimum service the Secretary of State would lay before Parliament a report showing that that condition as to the previous 12 months had been met.

I proposed that because I would like the Government to ensure that we can depend on a minimum service level in this country regardless of whether there are strikes and that their attention is to the service provided to the public rather than to attacking the unions. In his comments, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) confirmed that this legislation has been on the books, or in thoughts, for some time and that it is not simply about the present strikes but rather about addressing the issue of industrial relations. I would like the Government to think about whether, in talking about setting a minimum service level, the level of service we have at the moment is acceptable or whether they have run public services into the ground, and whether all they are doing with this Bill is shifting the blame on to workers rather than accepting their own failures.

This Bill is yet another attempt to use the workers and the situation we are in, with crisis after crisis, as a political football to distract from the mismanagement of public services that has led us to this point. If the Government truly want to find a solution to these problems, surely the answer is to take a step back and look at the poor levels of service on days when there is no industrial action. Those poor levels of service have not arisen through anyone’s will to have low services. It has happened simply because of lack of resources and investment in our public services, which for many years, including through the pandemic, staff have struggled to improve on and work through, in conditions that they believe in many cases are unacceptable.

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[Chris Stephens]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. That is the problem, is it not? The Bill says “transport services”, and that could be anything. It could be buses, taxis or the horse and cart for all we know, because the Bill is so open-ended.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope that the Government will look at the amendments that my hon. Friends and I have tabled, which are an attempt to improve the Bill. Our main reason for opposing the Bill is that the Government will be impinging on devolution and on human rights, and they do not know what happens in a trade union-organised environment. That is why the Bill should not get a Third Reading.

[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.

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If we saw this happening anywhere else in the world, we would be outraged. We would call it draconian, undemocratic or evidence of a dictatorial regime. The Government should be ashamed of themselves. They style themselves as espousing the best of British values, but they would undermine one of the most fundamental British rights, all because they have lost the argument. Let us make no mistake: they have lost the argument on pay and conditions, which is why teachers, nurses, train drivers, physios, firefighters and others are all striking or set to strike. The Government are doing this because disputes are being won, right across the country, and they do not want to see any more wins for our trade unions. This unprecedented situation is no ringing endorsement of this Government; it is further evidence that it is time they left office, taking their shoddy legislation with them.

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

I call Liz Saville Roberts.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dame Rosie. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am the co-chair of the justice unions parliamentary group. I am not employed by it and do not receive a penny from it, but I still have to declare it. It would be very useful if other hon. Members had to declare their support from employers as well.

I rise to speak to amendment 76 and new clause 3 in my name. It is telling that amendment 76 is one among many amendments—including those tabled by SNP colleagues and by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter)—designed to prevent the UK Government from interfering with primary legislation passed by Senedd Cymru or the Scottish Parliament. Powers to amend or revoke workers’ rights legislation on a whim have no place in a modern democratic society. The protections that my amendments would afford are critical in a period when it is becoming increasingly clear not only that devolution is under attack from Westminster, but that our fundamental rights and freedoms as citizens are not safe from an increasingly authoritarian Government in Westminster.

New clause 3 would require the UK Government to conduct an impact assessment of the effect of the Bill on industrial relations in Wales. Actually, it does not go as far as the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley. It seems a very reasonable request to see what the effect of this legislation is on a sister Parliament in the United Kingdom. The assessment under the new clause would have

“particular reference to the intended outcomes of the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill”.

That Bill, which is currently being debated in the Senedd, will place a duty on certain public bodies to work with trade unions when setting and delivering on wellbeing objectives.

In Wales, we seek to include workers in the making of the very public policy decisions that will have an effect on their working lives. We want to chart a different path: one whereby workers are empowered and valued, not bullied as they are by Westminster. That brings us to the very heart of the question why the right to strike is so important. Giving workers the opportunity and the choice to be represented collectively in the work environment by a trade union enables them to be heard and to bargain collectively. Okay, those are good words, but why do they actually matter? They matter because this is the key tool for improving living standards and tackling inequality. That is especially important in a country like Wales, where sadly a third of children are growing up in poverty.

We have a duty to tackle inequality and poverty. Undermining the effectiveness of industrial action at a time when the cost of living crisis is biting will only perpetuate the cruel poverty cycle that has trapped so many people in so many communities. Amplifying workers’ voices can also bring significant benefits to employers, as it can be a way of identifying issues at an early stage and ensuring that the valuable insights that workers have into how services can be improved are heard and acted on. This is about facilitating meaningful discussions and negotiations that lead to real solutions—which is not to say that such an approach is always easy, but in the long term it is far more effective than actively sowing the seeds of discord between workers and their employers.