Rail Strikes

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) spoke about chilling speeches from Government Members, and I have to say that I have found the speeches from those on the Opposition Benches incredibly chilling. I must be grateful to them, because every time they mention their support for this strike, they remind my constituents what could have been, had they the authority and were they in power.

When hard-working families are facing challenges with the cost of living, and when we are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic, the upcoming strikes will wreak havoc on my constituents. Thousands of my constituents commute to work by train. As a proportion, it is almost double the regional average due to our great connectivity to London, Birmingham, Warwick, Coventry and the surrounding areas. That is not to mention the knock-on effects to the rest of the public transport network and the road network.

Due to the strike action by the RMT, Chiltern Railways has announced that it will be forced to run a significantly reduced timetable, as will Avanti West Coast, London Northwestern and West Midlands trains, all of which run through my constituency. As has already been said, that means patients missing hospital appointments in Birmingham, family days out in London postponed because of the pandemic being put on hold once again and children, who had a hard time through the pandemic, sitting their GCSE and A-level exams with the added stress of getting to school on time. Hard-working families and hard-working people are being held to ransom by the unions and the Labour party.

What does the Opposition have to say to my constituents? The shadow Health Secretary said:

“if I were a member of the RMT…I would be voting to go on strike”.

The shadow Levelling Up Secretary said that she would be standing up with the striking railway workers who will bring our network to a standstill.

Why do the Opposition find it so hard to back hard-working British people and British families? No matter how hard they try and reinvent themselves, they have had more than £100 million in trade union donations over the past decade, and they remain beholden to the trade union barons holding our railways to ransom. That is on top of the news that a shadow Justice Minister said that a Labour Government would take us back into the EU. It is the same old cynical, opportunistic Labour party that backs unions and undermines the British people.