I speak as a proud trade unionist, a member of Unite the union and Unison, and as someone who appreciates and is grateful to all our public servants. I echo the case put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) and support the amendments put forward by Opposition Members. My view is simple: this draconian Bill is as anti-democratic as it is unethical. It is as
unworkable as it is counterproductive. It is an admission by a Conservative Government who are out of ideas and fundamentally out of touch with the working people who are the backbone of our public services. We are witnessing the greatest strike disruption that this country has seen since 1990. It is not a mystery why: workers have faced the biggest squeeze in their wages since the Napoleonic era.
In the private sector, many employers have engaged in constructive negotiations to agree pay deals, but in the public sector the Government have refused to get around the table. They have decided to legislate rather than negotiate. It would cost £18 billion to provide proper, inflation-matching pay awards for public service staff. The Public Accounts Committee estimates that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is owed an eye-watering £42 billion in unpaid taxes. Rather than bringing forward a Bill to restrict workers’ ability to fight for fair pay, perhaps Ministers could look into recovering that revenue to cover the cost of these fair wages. I understand that a former Cabinet member has some experience in this area and now has some time on his hands as well.
When the public look to our NHS or our schools or any of our public services, they see 13 years of Tory mismanagement. The staff working in those services are simply echoing the same concerns, because they too are members of the public. They are reliant on those services and they are feeling the cost of living crisis.
Today, after much consideration, firefighters have overwhelmingly, and democratically, voted to strike. This is a last resort for those members, but they have witnessed their pay being eaten away, some of them are having to use food banks, and their life-saving services have been cut by 30%. Fundamentally, this case underlines why this legislation is not about public safety. This Government’s cuts have been putting the public at risk every single day. Moreover, the FBU has already negotiated a major incident agreement with fire employers, proving once again that this Bill is a desperate attempt to restrict its ability to push for a fair wage.
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Removing legal protections for strikers will not settle this or any other dispute. This Bill has one single purpose: to empower the Government to silence workers who might dare to speak out about the decaying state of our public services and to sack those who will not comply. This Bill will not resolve a single dispute or fix a single broken public service. It is just an assault on working people trying to defend their living conditions in a Conservative cost of living crisis. It is an utter injustice that the same Government Members who have defended lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses will not stand up for the hard-working nurses and firefighters in their constituencies who want to negotiate for fair pay.