Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Ruth Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

This is a debate about the balance of rights, and balancing the right to strike of our constituents who work in essential public services with the rights of our other constituents, and their right to get to work, to school, to have their operation, and even in the case of blue-light services, their right to life. That is what we are talking about. The Bill is not about views on the rights and wrongs of the current strikes. It is certainly not an attack on public sector workers, and suggestions otherwise from Labour Members are both disgusting and an attempt to stifle genuine debate.

I deeply value the work of nurses, teachers, firefighters, ambulance drivers and rail staff across Rushcliffe and the country, and of course they should have the right to withdraw their labour. The Bill is about how they can do so safely. The Labour party would have us believe that this is some outrageous attack on workers’ rights—“political violence”, said the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne)—and something that no civilised country could possibly contemplate. No civilised country other than Spain, Italy, Germany, France, or indeed the United States, Australia and Canada, which in some areas have an outright ban on strikes in blue-light services. Normally, Opposition Members idolise Europe’s approach to employment rights, but on the issue of minimum services they are keeping very quiet. Why? It is because their paymasters in the unions do not want to let them do otherwise. I understand, I do—[Interruption.] I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Sam Tarry]

Most Labour Members will be proud of the fact that trade union members in their local branch meetings vote democratically to make donations to local Labour party Members of Parliament. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw that preposterous, outrageous and untrue comment.

[Ruth Edwards]

I certainly will not, because the hon. Gentleman failed to declare in his intervention that he received £13,000 from unions. I notice there are a lot of proud union members who are not declaring their donations. That is not me being party political—it is a requirement of this House.

I understand the position of Labour Members. It is not easy to turn round to the union barons who have given them and their colleagues more than £1 million in the past four years and tell them that they are wrong. The Bill builds on principles in the Trade Union Act 2016, which put higher vote thresholds on important public services when unions ballot on strike action. It builds on the principle of life-and-limb cover, and will prevent the situation that we had at the end of last year when different ambulance services had different agreements in place with unions. That resulted in a postcode lottery for patients, which is unacceptable.

The Bill complies with the criteria set out by the International Labour Organisation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) set out in detail. In short, the Bill sets out a pathway for workers to exercise their rights safely. It should not be controversial. It has precedent in the UK, all over Europe, and in international conventions. We are making the responsible choice to protect all our constituents. On the Opposition Benches, however, it may be a new year, but it is the same old Labour, still acting as the mouthpiece of their paymasters, the union barons. They have been bought by the barons, and are still doing their bidding.