Rail Strikes

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up the debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, and I thank all those who have contributed to what I can definitely say has been a lively debate.

There is no doubt that our railways, and the committed workforce who run them, are of huge importance to our country, and we can all agree that the tireless efforts of our rail community in keeping the country running throughout the pandemic and beyond should be commended. That is precisely why the significance of the proposed strikes cannot be underplayed. But they can be avoided. It is good that we are debating this issue, and Conservative Members should take heed of the Labour party amendment to the motion.

The rail industry has arguably seen more turbulent times throughout the pandemic than most industries. Service and revenues stopped, funding structures changed, and the franchise system was ditched. No one is arguing for things to return to the way they were before, but instead we should build effective and collaborative change for passengers and the industry. Our rail network faces issues such as pay, job losses as a result of cuts, safety and maintenance, but instead the Government seem busy playing politics—mud slinging, and trying to start Twitter wars. They are spoiling for a fight. That is precisely what this debate is about, and precisely what the intended strikes are about, rather than doing what is in the best interests of the British people. But we can see through all that.

Blaming the Labour party for strike action that has been driven from Tory policies and mismanagement just will not fly. Perhaps Conservative Members need reminding who is in government, and who have been in government for the past 12-plus years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) said, if they put just half that energy into getting around a table with the unions to negotiate, we could have avoided the situation in which we find ourselves today.

[Chris Loder]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the RMT has refused to come to speak to the Government? The only reason why the Secretary of State has received a letter from the general secretary of the RMT is that this very debate has been called in the House of Commons.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but the true fact of the matter is that the Secretary of State has not even tried. He has been missing in action. The unions, including the RMT, have been asking for negotiations. Indeed, there have been discussions over the past couple of years, but the unions have been highlighting that many of their members have not received a pay increase for the past couple of years. As I said, they have not met since March. The Secretary of State needs to show leadership and hold an urgent meeting between Ministers, employers and the union. Sadly this behaviour is indicative of wider incompetence when it comes to managing our transport network.

[Claire Coutinho]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the unions called a strike before they saw the finalised deals of a pay plan?

[Mr Dhesi]

As I highlighted, they have been in negotiations for the past couple of years. I am talking about wider incompetence, so let us take Transport for London and the Government’s failures in securing a long-term funding deal. That has left Transport for London in limbo, leaving it no choice but to make cuts to services in the face of a lack of Government support. Ministers are playing political games, where the only losers are the hard-working British people.

Why are the Government choosing to cut when they should be choosing to invest? Instead of delivering on a rolling programme of electrification, they are scrapping huge parts of HS2. I see the Rail Minister, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), laughing from a sedentary position, but the Government scrapped the eastern leg of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail to boot. Why are they choosing managed decline, when they should be choosing growth? Why are they cutting services, when they should be cutting fares, as many of our European neighbours are doing?

We could have a rail network with affordable, reliable services where more people want to travel by rail, helping us to address the climate emergency. Instead, the Government are focused on punishing rail passengers, punishing key workers on our railways, and presiding over the managed decline of our railways with £1 billion-worth of cuts imposed from the top. A decade-plus of Tory government has driven our transport systems into the ground, and the pandemic has catalysed that process to crisis point.

The Labour party will always stand to defend the rights of working people, the British people, who currently face a blistering cost of living crisis in the wake of a global pandemic. Workers are looking to the Government for answers, but the Government simply do not have a plan: no employment Bill, which has been promised for the last three years; and no progress on fire and rehire.

I have just been in a debate in Westminster Hall, which I managed to secure, on fire and rehire. Not one single Conservative Back Bencher managed to attend that debate. They simply do not—[Interruption.] They say they were here. Many other Members from the Labour party, the SNP and the Democratic Unionist party attended, but not a single Conservative Member from the Government Benches was there to support their Minister, because they do not believe in workers’ rights. They do not believe in supporting the British people who are going through this cost of living crisis.

Now, the Transport Secretary seems intent on jeopardising the right to strike at all. If his Department wants to move forward, I suggest that what it should be doing is negotiating, ending the strikes next week, and giving our transport system the attention it rightly deserves.