I begin by declaring an interest as a proud and long-standing member of Unite the union.
I rise to speak in support of amendments 91 and 92, which stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and others. These amendments reaffirm the principle that a trade union is a democratic organisation beholden to the will of its members, and not the other way around. That might be an alien concept to a Government who have spent the last year forcing through legislation that undermines the most basic rights of their citizens, but it is an article of faith for those of us in the labour movement.
These amendments are just two of the many brought forward by Members on the Opposition Benches, who have among them many lifetimes’ worth of experience in the trade union movement. It is a shame that that experience is so obviously lacking on the Government Benches, or else the Government might not have brought a Bill to the House that the general secretary of the TUC has rightly denounced for being
“undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal.”
We must confront the uncomfortable truth that no amount of tinkering in Committee could ever hope to salvage this Bill. It is, frankly, rotten to the core and a grotesque affront to our most basic democratic principles. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) has written today, anybody who
“is concerned about individual liberty and freedom should be opposed to this attack on the fundamental right to withdraw your labour.”
Since the Business Secretary first confirmed on 10 January that he would be bringing forward this Bill, we have been subjected to a torrent of tedious lectures from those on the Government Benches about the responsibilities that key workers have towards the public. What right have a Government who have led this country into the worst recession of any G20 economy bar Russia, and who preside over the highest level of child poverty in a generation, to lecture the nurses, ambulance drivers and teachers who saw this country through its darkest days since the end of the war?
The Business Secretary has even had the temerity to tell the House:
“The British people need to know that when they have a heart attack, a stroke or a serious injury, an ambulance will turn up, and that if they need hospital care, they have access to it.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 432.]
After 12 years of Tory failures, that is not even a guarantee he can make to my constituents when there is no strike action. If he wants to know who is failing the public, he does not need to turn to the picket lines; he need only look in the mirror.
This Wednesday, teachers, civil servants and train drivers will take to the picket lines in what is expected to be the single largest day of industrial action in more than a decade. Whatever Government Members might believe, these are not radicals intent on the overthrow of the state; these are ordinary, conscientious public servants who, after a decade of real-terms pay cuts, simply cannot take it anymore.
Instead of electing to sit down and engage in good faith about the real issues that are driving public workers across the country to such desperation, this Government have instead opted to bulldoze through this House in
only a week a Bill that will do lasting and irreparable harm to our democracy, without adequate scrutiny or reference to the devolved Governments in Cardiff and Edinburgh. I will be voting against the Bill in its entirety this evening. On Wednesday, I will proudly stand with striking workers exercising their democratic right to demand better in the midst of this Tory cost of living crisis.