Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Stephanie Peacock and David Linden

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephanie Peacock]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), who made a passionate speech.

As a proud trade union member, I begin by referring the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I speak today in opposition to the Government’s proposed measures. The decision to go on strike is never taken lightly, especially as families struggle with the financial effects of the cost of living crisis. Opting to lose a day’s wages, particularly for workers such as teachers and nurses, is always a last resort when all others have failed, as I know because I have been on strike as a low-paid teacher.

I will focus my brief remarks on amendment 1. The Bill currently allows for workers who do not comply with a work notice to be sacked. The Labour party does not believe that any worker should be sacked for taking industrial action. As a former state school teacher, and as an MP representing a coalfield area that has previously suffered from Tory attacks on unionised workers, most notably during the 1984 miners’ strike, I have seen at first hand the importance of the right to strike and how it would be fundamentally unfair for people to lose their livelihood for taking the decision to withdraw their labour.

This goes beyond public sector workers. For example, transport services could include road haulage and distribution, both of which are key to South Yorkshire’s regional economy. The Bill allows two ways to enforce a so-called work notice: employers may either sue a union for losses, or they may sack individual workers.

One of the clearest examples of how this legislation targets workers and is not fit for purpose is in the transport sector. The train operating companies do not make losses due to strikes. Operators get a fee regardless of whether their services run, meaning they have no financial incentive to settle industrial disputes. Frankly, my constituents are lucky if they can travel across the Pennines, whether or not it is a strike day, but that does not touch the companies’ profits under the current system. Surely the only power that this Bill provides in such cases is to sack the workers in question. In an industry facing massive shortages, it is a strange solution to sack staff. It is hard to escape the conclusion that, instead, employers are simply being encouraged to target union activists, which is why amendments 64 and 68 are also important.

Fundamentally, minimum service levels are ineffective. Comparable countries such as France and Italy, which already have legislation in place for minimum service levels, have seen an increase in strikes rather than a decrease. The Government propose this Bill as a solution to the current levels of industrial action in the UK, but the reason why the number of strike days is at its highest in a generation is because this Government have given us a low-wage, low-growth economy for 13 years. These strikes are a symptom of Conservative economic failure. Key workers kept our country moving throughout the pandemic. This Government should stop threatening to sack them; they should pay them a fair wage.

[David Linden]

I rise to speak to amendments 21 to 24, which are in my name. In doing so, I am happy to support the amendments in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry). I declare my interests, as other hon. Members have: I believe in democracy and I am a member of Unite.

Before I speak specifically to the substance of amendments 21 to 24, I will say a few words about the Bill and develop some of the points I outlined on Second Reading. To be blunt, this is a bad Bill that I believe is in total violation of the fundamental human right to withdraw one’s labour. Since Brexit, and throughout this Parliament, we have been promised an employment Bill but, alas, none has materialised. Time and again, we have been told there is insufficient parliamentary time for such legislation to go through both Houses of Parliament but, miraculously, the British Government have suddenly found parliamentary time to ram through a hugely controversial Bill, albeit a short Bill, that will radically alter employment law and trade union relations on these islands.

This Bill will be railroaded through its remaining stages in just six hours tonight, which is a total disgrace that makes a mockery of those who say Parliament is taking back control. We are about to confer huge, sweeping powers on a Secretary of State who, at the stroke of a pen, will be able to force employees to work against their wishes. I do not know how often it needs to happen for Ministers to take it seriously, but when the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) suggests this Bill is going in a dangerous direction, it is a clear indication that they ought to think again.

It is clear from the few speeches we have heard from Conservative Members tonight that the British Government see the foundations for this Bill as being the fact that some European countries have provisions for minimum service levels. Leaving aside any surprise at the UK suddenly benchmarking itself against legislation from EU member states, we see nothing on the continent that is anywhere near as strict as what is proposed in this Bill and drafted in a way that gives one man in Government such wide-ranging powers.