Queen's Speech December 2019 - Railways minimum service levels legislation

Railways minimum service levels legislation

“To ensure people can depend on the transport network, measures will be developed to provide for minimum levels of service during transport strikes.”

The purpose of the legislation is to:

• ●  Reduce the disruption caused to the public during rail strikes, while preserving rail workers’ right to strike.

• ●  Allow railway companies to plan services more effectively, well in advance.

  The main benefit of the legislation would be:

• ●  Maintaining a level of service that ensures the public is not disproportionately affected by strike action and can conduct their personal and/or family lives, and to access healthcare, education or employment.

• ●  Mitigating against the overall economic cost of disrupted travel to passengers. The main elements of the legislation are that:

• ●  Minimum Service Agreements will set out the minimum service pattern to be provided during rail strikes, and the minimum number and nature of staff who shall work to provide that service.

• ●  Any strike against a rail employer shall be unlawful unless a Minimum Service Agreement is in place. If the Minimum Service Agreement is not honoured,
  the strike shall be unlawful and injunctions or damages may be sought against the union in the normal way.

• ●  We will consult on how best to implement this in a proportionate way, including ensuring that sanctions are not directed at individual workers, and how this would interact with the wider industrial relations framework.

  Key facts

• ●  Almost 200 days of rail strikes have taken place, or are in progress, since 2016.

• ●  Transport workers went on strike over three times more than the UK average last year, causing significant disruption to passengers and the public.

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● The Trade Union Act 2016 increased the thresholds required for strike action on essential public services.

Territorial extent and application

● The legislation’s provisions

would extend and apply to England, Wales and

Scotland. Employment and trade union law is reserved in Scotland and

Wales, but devolved to Northern Ireland.