Industrial Action

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I simply make the point that it is not the case that we have frozen recruitment, because we have 44,000 more nurses, not fewer—that is an increase rather than a decrease. It is also not the case that we have frozen pay, other than during the aftermath of the financial crash, which as I recall happened under the Labour party and we had to pick up the pieces, and through covid, although not all the way through covid, as I mentioned. Last year, even while the rest of the public sector was experiencing a pay freeze, we made an exception for NHS workers and paid them more, so the hon. Lady’s narrative is simply not true. Again, if the Opposition are saying that they would pay 19% more, I do not understand where that money would come from and whose taxes would be raised to pay for it and the increased interest rates.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is astonishing: I did not realise that, when we were making the comparison with France and Spain, we were talking about Franco’s Spain and the Vichy regime in France. Many elements of the laws in this country already do not comply with ILO regulations; we are one of the most restrictive anti-worker countries in the world—that is a fact.

I and my constituents would like the Government to stop blowing up the talks with the trade unions, as they did against the NHS over the weekend, with Unite reps coming out of that meeting in a worse state, or against the RMT by dropping driver-only operation into the talks. The Government could end the strikes in multiple sectors; instead they have upped the ante to wage war on working people who are suffering because of their rancid governance.

[Grant Shapps]

At least we know where the hon. Gentleman stands: against the instructions of his Front Bench, it is on the picket lines. He is one of the people who has helped to extend the rail strikes. Driver-only operation has been in there from the outset and there has been no change in that at all. It makes perfect sense and operates on the line that my constituency is on. It causes no problems and is a safe way to operate. It is the kind of modernisation that would help to bring this industrial dispute to a close. I did not follow his point about Franco and the Vichy Government. Spain and France have moved on a bit from that and seem to manage to have minimum safe levels of service on strike days under the International Labour Organisation.