It is an honour to follow that speech from the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), who explained, epically, why people in Wales are so angry. I should begin by drawing the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I do so proudly, because every pound that has been donated to me has come as a result of democratic decisions made by the thousands of local trade unions members who support me in the work that I do as a Labour party representative.
I wish to speak in favour of amendment 86, tabled in my name, and other amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). This Bill represents one of the most restrictive, interventionist and incoherent industrial relations strategies that we have ever witnessed in this country. If it is passed in its current form, nurses, firefighters, teachers, bus workers, paramedics, lecturers, pilots, rail workers, solicitors and civil servants—the very same workers whom the Government have praised time and again during the pandemic—will find themselves deprived of their fundamental rights as workers and at risk of arbitrary dismissal, as so many Members have pointed out this evening.
This is nothing more than a sacker’s charter. Hundreds of thousands of workers have taken industrial action this winter. There are individual disputes, but with a common cause: a pay disaster that means that workers are paid significantly less in real terms now than 14 years ago. Today, firefighters have voted in record numbers to take industrial action, saying “Enough is enough” to a Government-created pay crisis. This Government could simply listen: improved pay and conditions could resolve that, not autocratic, poorly thought out legislation.
The Government have often invited comparisons with other European countries, which I find completely disingenuous. As the general secretary of the European Federation of Public Service Unions noted, the Government have failed to mention that unions in those countries negotiate their minimum service levels and do not face anywhere near the excessive balloting rules and thresholds imposed in the UK. As I said in an earlier intervention, European countries with minimum service levels typically have huge levels of collective bargaining—often 80% to
90%—while here in the UK it is around 25%. If the Minister wishes to bring our workplace law in line with that of European neighbours, perhaps he should start there. I have heard so many people say that the Bill is like Australia, France and Germany. It is not. It is more like Turkey, Singapore or Russia.
Amendment 86 would go some way to combating the lopsided relationship put forward in the Bill, by requiring employers to consult recognised trade unions before the imposition of a work notice. After all, every trade unionist I know who runs a local branch is perfectly capable of getting around the table, having a discussion and coming to an agreement—sometimes compromising to do so—in the interests of the workers they represent. The problem is that getting a deal is easy for trade unionists, but this is a no-deal Government who are focused on attacking workers, not resolving disputes.
The Bill is unique not just in its vicious anti-worker sentiment but in the extraordinary powers that it grants the Secretary of State. It leaves a tremendous amount of detail to be decided, as the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) pointed out. It is a constitutional farce. It would deny all Members proper scrutiny. The Government are trying to push the Bill through rapidly, in one evening. That flies in the face of our traditions and democracy, and certainly gives far too much power to the Secretary of State.
I spoke to a representative from the British Airline Pilots Association earlier today. The Bill covers transport, which could include aviation. They expressed serious concerns that the Bill would enable the Secretary of State to overturn the highest-ranking aviation safety officers in the country, and force airlines to run dangerous and potentially understaffed flights. Will the Secretary of State sit in Whitehall deciding on flights coming in or out of London Heathrow or any other major international airport? I would be happy if he banned a few more flights to Mustique and the Cayman Islands, because Members on the Government Benches would probably have more time to spend here working on the Government’s agenda to sort out our country’s parlous state.
It is no wonder the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge referred to the Bill as a
“skeleton bill with a supercharged Henry VIII clause”.
It will grant the Secretary of State powers to rule by diktat. We should not be debating such extreme legislation that gives the Secretary of State absolute power to decide which workers will be able to take industrial action and when. It severely restricts the democratic and human rights of millions of people in this country, without the necessary detail or time to scrutinise it properly in this House. That is clearly unacceptable and should not stand.
Turning to the workability of the Bill, outside the clear moral issues that compel Opposition Members to vote against it, it simply will not work. It is utterly dangerous, and will set back industrial relations. It will do nothing to help resolve disputes or support good industrial relations, which I am sure the Minister will agree are the basis of a healthy economy. In fact, it will do the opposite. It will force trade unions to develop other tactics to fight for better jobs, pay and conditions.
If Members will indulge me for a minute, I will give a short history lesson. In the 1940s, order 1305 was brought in during the war to give the Government power to decide, in a similar way to this Bill, to ban strikes in various sectors. Of course, we were fighting a fascist regime and we want to think that all those powers were appropriate, but when they were used it was a huge own goal because they led to significant increases in the number of days lost to strikes. Workers got so fed up that they simply walked out on unofficial strike, and they did so without any trade union involvement, creating a situation where the unions had less say and less influence to reach a resolution or to monitor what was happening. So history shows that this kind of legislation is a total disaster.
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The Bill is not just impractical; it might even be illegal. The right to strike is a hallmark of any democratic society, recognised and protected by UN treaties, ILO conventions, the European social charter and the European convention on human rights. These proposals clearly violate our obligation to sustain those rights and are almost certainly in breach of other laws protecting rights in this country. Let us look for a moment at the rail sector, the bit that is such a focus for the Government. Earlier I mentioned the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and he has admitted—this came from the horse’s mouth—that the Bill was essentially about defeating the rail unions to ensure that there could be no resolution to the rest of the disputes across the public and private sectors. The Government simply do not want to pay the money to the people who need it.
Someone who is not involved in trade unions but is an expert on safety standards on the railways is the chief executive officer of the Rail Safety Standards Board. At the Tory party conference he talked about the first iteration of this Bill, which was just about transport. He said:
“It can be progressed but it won’t make the slightest bit of difference… If you introduce minimum service levels there’s a huge issue of how that level is set and particularly if you set that minimum level and you’ve rostered staff to work then I would suggest then you’d probably have a much higher level of sickness arise because of that, because people won’t want to be seen to be breaking the strikes that their colleagues are involved in.”
This is farcical. Our railway system is broken—the Government do not even seem to be able to get HS2 to come to Euston at the moment—yet they are creating a situation that will lead to even more days being lost to strikes.
The Bill will also place trade unions in an impossible position where they will be enforced to instruct their members, who have democratically voted for industrial action, to break their own strikes. If they do not comply, the unions may face an injunction and be forced to pay damages. This is an outrageous infringement of trade union freedoms. In my view, this will create the modern Tolpuddle martyrs, because we know how fond this Government are of deporting those people who least deserve it.
The effects of the Bill will not be confined to those directly impacted by the minimum service standard. Indeed, the impact assessment produced the first time this was brought forward, with the Transport Strikes
(Minimum Service Levels) Bill, suggests that it could drive down pay and conditions in other sectors. I want to quote from it, because I think it is relevant. It states:
“If terms and conditions are reduced over time relative to the strength of the economy in one sector then there is a potential for employers in other related sectors to be able to offer similarly reduced terms and conditions”.
At a time when workers are suffering their longest pay squeeze since Napoleonic times and facing double-digit inflation, this Bill could not be worse timed. For too long, decisions have been taken in this place that do not have the consent of working people.
The Bill is just the latest attack on the workers and people in this country who are struggling the most, and on the people who have fought for and championed the rights that have been won by working people in this country over two centuries. It is worth reminding ourselves that it was trade unions that ended child labour, that made our workplaces safer and that gained us paid holidays, maternity and paternity leave, sick leave, equal pay legislation, pensions, workplace anti-discrimination laws and even the weekend. It is high time we had a Government that respected and valued the incredible contribution that the trade union movement has made to this country, instead of attacking and blaming the workers who deserve a pay rise. On that basis, I commend these amendments to the House.