Geraint Davies, GMB, Swansea West constituency Labour party. [Laughter.]
The Tories have impoverished Britain and now working people who cannot afford to put food on the table, heat their bedrooms or pay their rent or mortgage, face a pay cut or the sack if they vote, along with over 50% of their trade union members, to defend their families, communities, towns and cities. It is an absolute disgrace. The Tories refuse to negotiate. They prefer disruption and chaos to cause political division. They just say, “Like it or lump it” unless, of course, you are a banker with a bonus, a crony with a contract or a donor with a dividend.
Our nurses witnessed thousands of their colleagues dying through a lack of personal protective equipment and, alongside that, billions of pounds given to Tory donors to provide that PPE. Nurses who spent their own money for three years to get a BSc now face a starting salary of £13.84 an hour, when they could start in McDonald’s for £12.25 without the stress and with the overtime.
The NHS faces long covid, more older people coming back from the EU, sicker people, and one in four people in poverty. It costs more to treat those people and there is much greater pressure on the system, yet the Tories turn their back and threaten NHS workers with a strike. The truth is that had the economy grown at the same rate as it did under the Labour Government, average wages would be £10,000 higher and we would not be facing this appalling situation. Instead, the Tories want strikes to create a diversion from that and to create a sort of Dickensian Britain where capital gains and labour loses.
The right to democratically vote to go on strike and not be sacked is a fundamental right. The Tories are torpedoing talks, whether on rail, the Driver and Vehicle
Licensing Agency in Swansea or the nurses. They want to create strikes to cast blame, but frankly the public will not be fooled by their political attempt, in their authoritarian journey, to divide Britain. That is not who we are.
The Tories are isolating Britain. They are shaming Britain. They are dividing Britain. Britain deserves better. Britain deserves a Labour Government and a Labour Government will repeal this appalling draconian Bill.
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