I agree with the right hon. Member.
A joint statement by Wales TUC and the Welsh Government called on the UK Government to cease their controversial approach and learn lessons from the collaborative, social partnership approach adopted in Wales. It said that the UK Government should allow the rail companies and RMT to negotiate a deal that is fair and acceptable to Network Rail employees and employees of the UK train operating companies. That is the approach guiding the Welsh Government and the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill before us today is in complete conflict with that legislation. Clearly, there has been no opportunity for the Welsh Government to timetable a legislative consent motion in the Senedd. If they had done so, they would have recorded that the Senedd would withhold consent for this piece of legislation.
The Welsh Government’s view is clear. First Minister Mark Drakeford has stated:
“The Welsh Labour Government does not believe that the response to strikes should be to bring forward such restrictive and backward-looking laws, that trample over the devolution settlement.”
Counsel General Mick Antoniw has said in the Senedd:
“The way to resolve industrial disputes is by negotiation and agreement.”
The Wales TUC has also been very clear. Its general secretary, Shavanah Taj, has said that
“this Bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations”,
and has urged all Welsh MPs to reject the Bill.
That is why I have tabled four amendments, each of which seeks to prevent the application of this legislation from taking effect in Wales. I have sought to amend clause 3 by asserting that Senedd Cymru can still pass legislation counter to this Bill. In amendment 77, I have sought to remove the application of the Bill to Wales. In amendments 88 and 97 I seek to remove the powers in the Bill to repeal primary legislation passed in the Senedd, as the Government are seeking to do on agency workers involved in strikes. In amendment 98, I seek to ensure that Welsh workers employed in Wales by English firms are not impacted by this legislation.
I also support a raft of other amendments, as I said earlier, including Opposition amendment 1, which would mitigate some of the most authoritarian elements of the Bill and preserve existing protections against unfair dismissal, including for an employee who participates in a strike contrary to a work notice under the Bill. I also associate myself with amendments setting out the importance of meeting conditions set by the ILO, as already discussed. There must be negotiation between the social partners rather than the imposing of minimum service levels, as this Bill will do.
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I refer to those amendments because, as has been mentioned already, the Government have made so much of the claim that the Bill’s purpose has been endorsed by the ILO, only for that claim to be rebuffed by the ILO. In an answer to my written question last week, the Minister confirmed that the Government had had no dialogue whatsoever with the ILO regarding the Bill.
The amendments I have referred to are only a few of those necessary to change the Bill. It should be withdrawn completely, as others have already said. The Government have no interest in social partnership, no interest in good industrial relations and no interest in the views of devolved authorities.
In response to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who spoke about the NHS in Wales, the reason we are in this situation as a country is that we have endured 12 years of austerity and cuts, and Wales has suffered more than anywhere else. The Welsh budget is worth up to £4 billion less in real terms than when the current three-year funding settlement was set last year. The purse-strings still reside here in Westminster, so shame on this Government for giving money to their wealthy crony partners and friends and to themselves while the rest of the country is suffering.
The Tories’ determination to create a low pay Britain is why we are in this situation, but I am pleased to say that the trade unions and the public are organising and fighting back. The Tories are concerned that they are losing control, and they want to restore it, so what do they do? Attack, attack, attack, enforcing authoritarian and draconian legislation on this country, which we will oppose.
The Bill clearly shows the Tory Government’s contempt and disregard for working people whose difficulties they have caused. It is people’s right to have decent pay
and a decent standard of living, but that is not happening in this country. While the wealthy 1% get richer and richer, the 99% are being left behind. That is wrong in so many ways, and we will not accept it anymore.
The purpose of this piece of legislation is to dismantle the trade union movement and workers’ rights, while transferring yet greater powers to the Government and overriding the devolution settlement. I commend my amendments to the House and urge everybody to oppose this terrible piece of legislation.