Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill Consideration of Lords
message Mr Speaker I should inform the House that none of the Lords
amendments engages Commons financial privilege. Schedule Minimum
service levels for certain strikes 12.46pm The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 2B.
Mr Speaker With this it will be convenient to discuss...Request free trial
Strikes (Minimum
Service Levels) Bill
Consideration of Lords message
Mr Speaker
I should inform the House that none of the Lords amendments
engages Commons financial privilege.
Schedule
Minimum service levels for certain strikes
12.46pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade
()
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment
2B.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendment 4B, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendments 5B, 5C and 5D, and Government motion to
disagree.
There are three motions before the House. I am grateful for the
fact that both Houses have reached agreement on the appropriate
territorial application of the Bill, but I regret that we have
not yet reached agreement on some remaining issues. I must once
again urge the House to disagree with the Lords amendments before
us. Again, the Bill has been amended in ways that would delay
implementation or seriously limit the operation of minimum
service levels. That would mean that we could not provide the
all-important balance between the ability of unions and their
members to strike and the ability of the wider public to access,
during periods of strike action, the key services that our
country needs. I will briefly summarise for the House the reasons
why the amendments remain unacceptable to the House.
First, through Lords amendment 2B, the noble Lords seek to
introduce additional consultation requirements and new
parliamentary scrutiny processes. We recognise the importance of
ensuring that the public, employers, employees, trade unions and
their members are all able to participate in setting minimum
service levels. That is why we ran consultations on applying MSLs
to ambulance, fire, and passenger rail services on that basis.
The Government maintain that the Bill enables the appropriate
consultation to take place, and we are confident that the
affirmative procedure will allow Parliament to conduct proper
scrutiny of secondary legislation.
(Kilmarnock and Loudoun)
(SNP)
Proposed new section 234F of the Trade Union and Labour Relations
(Consolidation) Act 1992, inserted by the schedule, says,
“the Secretary of State must consult such persons as the
Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
Does that not mean that there is no obligation to consult at all?
The Secretary of State can decide that no one needs to be
consulted. Does that not show the importance of the Lords
amendment?
If there is anybody whom the hon. Gentleman thinks was not able
to contribute to the consultation, I ask him to please let me
know, but it was open to anybody to make a submission to the
consultation, and all those submissions will be properly assessed
by Ministers and officials.
I turn now to the Lords amendments that would restrict the ways
in which we can ensure that minimum service levels are achieved,
Lords amendment 4B still leaves employers powerless to manage
instances of non-compliance when workers strike contrary to being
named on a work notice.
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
Could the Minister set out the timescale for the consultation and
how he intends to carry it out?
As the hon. Lady may know, our initial consultations closed
around the middle of May—9 May to 11 May. Those submissions will
now be considered, and we will report back to the House
accordingly.
(Edinburgh West) (LD)
To be absolutely clear, Lords amendment 2B addresses the concerns
that many of us in this place have about the right to strike and
how it will be protected. How are the Government going to ensure
that these minimum service levels are fair and balanced and do
not affect that right to strike?
We are very clear that we want to maintain the right to strike.
Previous derogations, which we very much appreciate, have not
interfered with people making their views known through
industrial action. We do not expect that situation to change. As
I say, the consultation ran for a good period of time, and the
submissions are now being considered. Of course, we want to make
sure that people have been properly consulted and that the
regulations are fit for purpose.
Several hon. Members rose—
I will make a little progress, but I will make sure that both the
hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun () and the hon. Member for
Glasgow South West () get a chance to make their
points.
The Bill takes the same approach as to any other strike action
that is not protected under existing legislation. Lords amendment
5B may suggest that the other place accepts that trade unions
should have a role to play in ensuring that minimum service
levels are met, but in reality under, that amendment, whether and
how the unions encouraged their members to comply with work
notices would be at their discretion. Unions would be able to
induce people to strike as normal and take steps to undermine the
achievement of minimum service levels. That is clearly directly
counter to the objectives of the policy.
The Minister has said that the consultation has already closed,
but the whole point of the Lords amendment is to oblige the
Government to consult on draft regulations when they bring them
forward and to publish impact assessments. If the consultation
has already closed, that proves that there will be no
transparency going forward, does it not?
Not at all. There will be further scrutiny of the minimum service
levels when they are brought forward, in the usual way that
legislation passes through this House. Those regulations will be
considered by both Houses.
(Glasgow South West)
(SNP)
In response to the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (), the Minister indicated
that the Government agree with the right to strike and want to
protect it. However, rejecting Lords amendment 4B does not do
that, because the consequence would be that employers would have
the right to dismiss a worker taking part in industrial action,
with no recourse to a tribunal. How does that protect the right
to strike action?
Because it requires people who are named in a work notice to turn
up for work, which is common in other jurisdictions that use
minimum service levels in order to ensure that the public can go
about their daily lives and businesses continue to operate. It
does not interfere with that ability.
(Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister give way?
I will give way for the final time.
The Minister is an honourable person, and I know that he
understands the issues and where we are coming from. Decent,
ordinary people vote to strike only when they feel voiceless and
invisible to management. Government and big business can prevent
strikes by listening and acting before that stage is reached, but
the right to strike must always be a last-ditch possibility, and
those people must reserve that right. Does the Minister
understand that and agree with it?
As always, I entirely agree with all the points that the hon.
Gentleman has made. Of course strikes should be a last resort,
and workers should be able to take industrial action when they
feel their voices are not being heard. I do not think there is
anything in the Bill that cuts across that. Hon. Members may
disagree, but that is our position, and it is a position we have
maintained throughout the passage of the Bill.
Will the Minister give way?
No, I have given way twice to the hon. Gentleman.
The Government maintain that there must be a responsibility for
unions to ensure that their members comply. Without that, and
without any incentives for employees to attend work on a strike
day when identified in a work notice, the effectiveness of the
legislation will be severely undermined. Unfortunately, I do not
consider that these amendments are a meaningful attempt to reach
agreement. I fear that we are having a somewhat repetitive debate
that is delaying us getting on with the important business of
minimising disruption to the public during periods of strike
action, and I encourage this elected House to disagree with the
amendments.
Mr Speaker
I call the shadow Minister.
(Ellesmere Port and Neston)
(Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I draw the attention of the House to my
entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Today, we consider a number of Lords amendments that will go some
way towards making the Bill slightly less draconian than it
currently is, but will not make it a Bill that we can ultimately
support. I start by paying tribute to Members in the other place
who have done their best to ameliorate the Bill with the sensible
amendments that we are considering, and which we will be
supporting. What those Members understand is that the Bill is the
act of a weak Government who have lost the authority and the will
to govern for everyone; a Government who prefer legislation to
negotiation, diversion to resolution, and confrontation to
consultation. How Ministers have the gall to come to the Dispatch
Box and talk about the importance of minimum service levels when
we have seen the decimation of our public services under this
Government—with a record 7.4 million patients left on waiting
lists, record teacher vacancies, and ever-increasing response
times to calls to the police—is beyond me.
(Wirral West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making excellent points. I have heard from
doctors in Wirral West who firmly believe that the Bill
represents an intrusion on legitimate trade union activities,
undermines workers’ rights to representation, and would leave
unions unable to effectively represent their members. Does my
hon. Friend agree?
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I do agree with
those doctors. I will go on to explain why the Bill is an attack
on basic freedoms and liberties that I thought this country held
dear.
Turning first to Lords amendment 2B, as we know, the Bill
presents the Secretary of State with huge, unchecked powers,
throwing scrutiny and democracy out of the window. We think it is
entirely reasonable that if a Secretary of State wants the power
to set, impose and police minimum service levels, they should be
accountable for the impact of those powers and able to
demonstrate what their impact will be. Requiring them to conduct
a proper impact assessment on the use of those powers and hold a
consultation on any specific proposals they have could be helpful
to a Secretary of State, because they cannot possibly know how
every nook and cranny of any particular sector operates and what
is needed to deliver a minimum service level—assuming they can
define what one is.
If the Government think that it is such a wonderful idea to
introduce minimum service levels in the sectors covered by the
Bill, they should not fear scrutiny of their proposals,
consultation with those directly affected, or challenges to their
assumptions. My fear is that the Government fear all of those
things. When the Regulatory Policy Committee described the Bill
as “not fit for purpose”, one would have hoped that any sensible
and rational Government would put a little bit of effort into
talking to people to make sure that their own Bill had even a
remote chance of working, but I suspect that—like so many things
that we hear from this Government—they do not look beyond the
easy headline and do not think through the consequences of their
actions.
I will turn briefly to Lords amendment 5B, which attempts to deal
with what is essentially a full-blown attack on the independence
of trade unions and their members. I know that the Government
have been raising the bar ever higher on the number of members
required to vote in favour of industrial action. However, even
they must see that putting a requirement on a trade union to take
action to stop some of its members from participating in
industrial action once they have voted in favour of it—as
proposed new section 234E of the Trade Union and Labour Relations
(Consolidation) Act 1992 would do—undermines the very essence of
what a trade union stands for.
We have never had an adequate explanation of what reasonable
steps a union is expected to take in those circumstances. The
Minister previously told us that it would be a matter for the
courts to determine, but that represents an abject failure by the
Government to do their job. Are they really saying to trade
unions that they can face damages of up to £1 million if they
fail to comply with the Bill, but that they will have to wait for
a court to decide what they need to do to avoid that liability?
That is ludicrous, dangerous, and a potentially disastrous
situation for any trade union to be in. This amendment removes
Government interference in lawfully and democratically made
decisions by an independent non-governmental organisation, and
removes the completely disproportionate risk that trade unions
face if they fail to adhere to the undemocratic, unspecified and
unconscionable requirements of this provision.
1.00pm
I should refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial
Interests.
My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the jurisdiction of
trade unions. I have said this in the House before, but
Government Members just do not seem to understand it. It is the
members of the trade union who determine what happens within a
trade union—it is not a general secretary or even an executive,
but the members—so how are they, as individual members, going to
instruct workers to attend work?
That is really a question for the Minister, and one that I think
the Government have failed to answer adequately. I think the
point my hon. Friend makes is a good one. When Conservative
Members traduce the union barons, they actually traduce every
single member of the trade union who has voted in support of
industrial action, and I am afraid that that is no way for any
Government to operate.
I would ask Conservative Members, not that there are many here,
to consider what the Bill actually means. Representatives of
trade unions will be required to encourage, cajole, advise,
pressurise or even demand that their members cross a picket line.
They will be asking trade unions to actively go against the very
thing they were set up to do. I would say that it is a bit like
asking a Conservative MP to vote in support of higher taxes, but
I guess that, with the highest tax burden in over half a century,
we may have to drop that particular analogy.
My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. I am a proud
trade unionist, but I am also a former schoolteacher. I am
concerned not only about the administrative burden that this
requirement for employers to serve work notices on staff will
create, but about the risk of damaging relationships within the
workplace. He is talking about people being required to cross
picket lines, and that would most definitely be a case in point.
I am very concerned, because schools and hospitals in particular
operate through staff collaborating with each other, and risking
those relationships is a very dangerous thing to do.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why so many employer
organisations are also against this Bill, because they understand
what it will do for industrial relations: it will make them
worse, not better. I would ask Conservative Members to think
carefully about what they are asking trade unionists to do, which
is to go against deeply held, genuine and sincere beliefs—
(Eltham) (Lab)
I intervene to give my hon. Friend a chance to get his throat in
order. Does he agree with me that, first and foremost, the Prime
Minister withdrew his Labour on Monday with the intention of not
showing leadership, which is a remarkable feat on the part of a
Prime Minister? Does my hon. Friend agree that these are the
death throes of a Government who have really run out of steam?
They are trying to blame everybody else for what is going wrong.
They are going for a cheap headline and have created this piece
of legislation, which is anti-trade union and anti-democratic, to
try to throw the blame on to the trade unions and workers, and
away from where it really lies—with this Government.
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention—I think my voice has
returned, thankfully—and he is absolutely right. This Bill is
counterproductive because ultimately it will not quell the
concerns of many people in those sectors that have taken
industrial action. Taking away the right to strike will not take
away people’s concerns; it will just make them worse, and it will
prolong anxiety, concern and discord.
Again, I ask Conservative Members to think about what they are
asking trade unions to do—to go against deeply held, genuine and
sincere beliefs. Whether or not they agree with the right to
strike, do they really think in all conscience that this is
something that sits comfortably with notions of dignity, respect
and freedom? How would they feel if they were compelled to take
actions in direct contravention of their own values?
Finally, I turn to Lords amendment 4B. It attempts to tackle the
pernicious heart of this Bill, which seeks to destroy the basic
freedoms that the trade union and Labour movement have fought to
secure over the course of history. From the Chartists to the
founding of the TUC, the trade unionists at Taff Vale and the
formation of the Labour Representation Committee, the working
people of this country have faced a long and arduous struggle to
improve their working conditions, and fundamental to that
struggle has been the right to withdraw labour. When Conservative
Members inevitably vote down this amendment, they are saying to
their constituents—the teachers, doctors, nurses, bus drivers and
train drivers—that their voice does not matter and that, should
they dare to withdraw their labour in search of better terms and
conditions, they do so at their own risk.
The shadow Minister is being very generous in taking
interventions. The heart of the Lords amendment is to protect
workers who have been dismissed so that they have recourse to a
tribunal. That is a fundamental human right, is it not?
One would have thought so, and that is probably why the Equality
and Human Rights Commission has expressed great alarm at this
Bill. If the Government want to give themselves the power to
threaten every firefighter, every teaching assistant and every
paramedic with the sack when they exercise their democratic right
to withhold their labour, they should think very carefully about
what they do with that power, because in a free society no
Minister should hold that power—not that Ministers seem to
understand what this Bill actually does, because the Minister
said last time:
“The reality is that nobody will be sacked as a result of this
legislation.”—[Official Report, 22 May 2023; Vol. 733, c.
103.]
I know that the Government chose to bypass the normal
line-by-line consideration of this Bill, but one would have hoped
that the Minister had read as far as the schedule, because it
does actually contain the power to sack people for going on
strike.
Even if the Government do not understand the powers they are
giving themselves under the Bill, they ought to understand the
principle of the withdrawal of labour in the event of a dispute.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham () has mentioned, many
Conservative Members withdrew their labour the other night. In
fact, 200 of them had no difficulty in doing so. Indeed, former
Prime Minister Johnson withdrew his labour after he disagreed
with the report from the Privileges Committee. So they should
understand that the principle of people withdrawing their labour
is an important one. It is a basic and fundamental right that
every one of our citizens should enjoy in a free and democratic
society. We are not serfs required to provide toil to the lord of
the manor or conscripts engaged in a war against an invading
force; we are citizens of this country, and in a free country the
right to withdraw labour should be protected and respected.
Even if Conservative Members believe that the requirement to send
someone into work against their will is somehow consistent with a
free and democratic society, they should at least consider the
fact that the Bill as it stands means an employee can be sacked
for failing to comply with a work notice, even if they say they
have not received it. Yes, someone can be sacked for not
complying with a work notice without any challenge to it legally,
and they can also be sacked for not complying with it even if
they have never seen it. How is that justice, how is that
reasonable and how is that good industrial relations? It is a
recipe for injustice, for toxicity and for abuse by employers who
want to get rid of the most troublesome employees.
I will not list all the organisations that have condemned this
Bill, but two of the main employers in the key rail and health
sectors have called this out for what it is, because they know
that rather than resolve industrial disputes, this Bill will
prolong them. They know that the kind of restrictions this Bill
places on people are anti-democratic and not in the best
traditions of this country. It is no wonder that even members of
the Cabinet have criticised this Bill. Indeed, this week we had
the shameful news that the United Nations, through the
International Labour Organisation, has called on the Government
to respect international law, such is the threat that this Bill
poses to it. No, we cannot accept this tawdry, vindictive,
unworkable disgrace of a Bill. This Bill attacks the people who
keep this country going, and the sooner the Government realise
that the politics of division will not work, the better.
Mr Speaker
I call the SNP spokesperson.
I want to start by simultaneously condemning and praising the
Lords, because although I still disagree with the premise of
unelected peers for life, I respect the work ethic of some of
those who have been trying to improve this God-awful Bill. It
also shows that, while the Tories can stuff the place with their
cronies and donors, the issue with cronies and donors is that
they cannot be bothered to turn up, do their work and vote
accordingly, as in the case of , who is absent after
pocketing millions of pounds for selling dodgy personal
protective equipment to the NHS. On the Lords as an institution,
we have a perfect illustration of the Labour leader’s continued
flip-flopping. Overnight he has gone from wanting to abolish the
Lords to now planning to stuff it full of Labour peers when he
gets into government. It is pretty shameful.
I am disappointed that the Lords did not hold out on an amendment
to restrict the Bill’s extent to England only, which would
recognise the position of the devolved Governments.
I commend the Lords in their consistency on other matters
pertaining to the Bill. Lords amendment 2B would require the
Government first to publish draft regulations, and then to
undertake impact assessments on their effects and to consult with
representatives of trade unions and employees. That is hardly an
onerous request—in fact, it is just putting in place basic
transparency. Throughout the Bill’s passage, the Tories have been
eager to tell us that it is about health and safety, minimum
service levels and allowing the public to get to work. If that is
the Bill’s real intent, and it is not a draconian attack on the
rights of workers to strike, surely the Government should be
willing to comply with the requirements of Lords amendment
2B.
Paragraph (c) of the amendment perfectly encapsulates the
rhetoric of the Tory Government about balancing the impact of
regulations on the general public with complying with workers’
rights to strike. Given all the quotes and speeches from Tory
Ministers and Back Benchers, surely they should be content with
the amendment and be confident that they can comply with it and
set out the aims of any draft legislation, allowing the public to
understand its intent and impact. If the Government were true to
their stated aims, the amendment could mean them backing trade
unions into a corner with transparency. At a stroke, the
amendment would take away claim and counter-claim on the impacts
of any regulations, as the impact assessments and consultations
would be crystal clear to everyone involved. What is it that the
Government are objecting to, because the Minister certainly did
not make that clear earlier? The Minister said that the
consultation is already closed, which means there is no
transparency going forward.
In voting to disagree with the previous Lords amendments, the
Government said that it was because the Bill already contains
adequate consultation requirements. I have already illustrated
that the Government are completely at it with that statement. If
we look at proposed new section 234F of the 1992 Act, the
Secretary of State is required only to consult such persons that
he or she considers “appropriate”. That clearly leaves the door
open to consult nobody at all.
Subsection (5) of proposed new section 234F advocates that any
consultation requirements can be satisfied before the passing of
the Bill. How is that even logical? According to the Government,
adequate provision takes the form of consulting who they decide
they want to consult, and in the absence of any doubt, any past
consultation, past Government rhetoric or past announcements will
count as satisfying these non-consult requirements. That is
certainly a much easier pathway for the Government than having to
bother to undertake impact assessments, proper consultation and
parliamentary scrutiny in the form of a Joint Committee to review
these impact assessments. The reality is that, with Lords
amendment 2B, Parliament has a choice to take control or to cede
unlimited powers to a Secretary of State.
Turning to Lords amendment 4B, I refer to the Government’s
response to Lords amendment 4, which shows their real intent.
They have said that the reason for objecting to Lords amendment 4
is
“in order for the legislation to be effective, it is necessary
for there to be consequences for an employee who fails to comply
with a work notice.”
The Government rationale is clear that the legislation is
intended to be the “sack the workers, sack the nurses, sack the
doctors and sack the train drivers Bill”, plain and simple.
Forget the pretence that this legislation brings the UK into line
with other countries that the Government keep telling us have
minimum service levels legislation on the right to strike,
because this legislation brings the UK into line not with other
democracies, but with Russia and Hungary.
Lords amendment 4B provides some protection for
workers—protection from malicious employers and protection for
individual workers and, in particular, union representatives to
stop them being targeted by employers. Surely the Government must
agree with proposed new subsection (1) under Lords amendment 4B
that a person is not subject to a work notice if they have not
received it. This Government demand that people prove who they
are before they can exercise their right to vote, but at the same
time they seem to believe that a worker can be sacked for not
complying with a work notice they have not actually received. It
is preposterous. Proposed new subsection (2) confirms that the
employer has to prove that the work order was served and received
in compliance with subsection (1). Any decent employer would do
that anyway, but it makes sense for an employer to have to prove
that to ensure no unfair dismissal claims. Otherwise, I return to
the point that the sacking of workers is clearly a key outcome
and sanction that this Government intend.
No longer is there any need for illegal secret blacklisting,
because all employers now have to do is the sack awkward squads
for not complying with notices they did not receive. That is how
open to abuse the legislation is in its current form, and it is
outrageous that the Government are moving against Lords amendment
4B. They are bringing in legislation to make it easier to sack
workers when we do not have enough workers to fill vacancies. It
is truly perverse that the Government are sticking with such
draconian legislation to make it easier to sack key workers.
1.15pm
Lords amendments 5B, 5C and 5D attempt to provide some protection
for the unions. It is crystal clear that the Government are
trying to break the unions by making them agents of employers to
make employees comply with work notices. It is utterly bizarre
and outrageous. Unions are formed by worker members and are
intended to work on behalf of those members. They cannot and
should not be forced to work against the wishes of their own
members. Amendment 5B is a much slimmed-down version of Lords
amendments 5 to 7, which the Government rejected because they
want the legislation to have maximum impact in attacking workers
and union rights.
Lords amendment 5B also removes the outrageous aspects of
proposed new section 234E of the 1992 Act, which allows employers
to recover losses from a union, even if the union has taken the
reasonable steps under proposed new subsection (1). Thinking
about that subsection alone, unions can be forced to pressure
workers to comply with work notices, which is an infringement of
the aims of a union. Even if a union caves in and takes
reasonable steps, the employer can still sue the union for
losses. How can that be right if the union is complying with the
legislation?
In summary, the Lords amendments are intended to protect workers
from being targeted by work notices; to ensure that an employer
serves and proves receipt of a work notice so that workers cannot
be sacked for non-compliance with a notice they have not actually
received; to make sure that workers are not sacked for
non-compliance full stop, which is in line with international
norms; and, finally, to prevent unions from being forced to
undermine their agreed action on behalf of members. The
Government’s intent is clear, so I hope that the Lords stick to
these simple, basic protections. Yet again, this Government are
going to dismiss basic rights and freedoms out of hand. To call
themselves a party of workers is a complete and utter
shambles.
(Leeds East) (Lab)
I will briefly touch on the reasons why I think it is important
that this elected Chamber does the right thing and rejects the
Government’s opposition to the message from the other place. I
will focus on two amendments—Lords amendments 4B and 5B—that go
to the heart of this matter and the heart of this pernicious
Bill. They relate to the protection of employees and protections
for unions.
The context for this Bill, as have said before, is that we have a
Government who are increasingly desperate, draconian and
authoritarian. We have seen that in the restrictions on the right
to peaceful protest and on people’s ability to cast a vote at
elections, and now we see it with this draconian attack on trade
unions. How can anybody in this place believe that it is in any
way acceptable for workers to be sacked if they fail to cross a
picket line in a strike that has been lawfully called and
conducted, even under the restrictive and onerous requirements we
have in this country? How can that be viewed as acceptable in any
way?
I will conclude on the protection for unions. I do not want to
detain the House for long, because a few people want to speak and
there is limited time. Lords amendment 5B is fundamentally
necessary because the Bill is an unprecedented attack on the role
of trade unions in our society and our democracy. The Minister
should not need to have it explained to him that trade unions in
our society are independent bodies representing workers. Trade
unions in our democracy are not meant to be agents of a
Government. They are not meant to be agents of an employer. They
are not there to ensure that the bidding of a Conservative
Government or a big corporation is done. Unless Lords amendment
5B is backed, unions will be required to take steps to persuade
their members to cross picket lines and go to work during lawful
disputes, or they will face gargantuan fines.
That is truly chilling. It changes the role of trade unions in
our society. That is no small matter; it goes to the very core of
what the trade union movement in this country has been about for
hundreds of years. Failure to support Lords amendment 5B is a
failure to stand up for a basic democratic principle.
Conservative Members can snigger about it, but there was a time
when even Conservative MPs understood the independence of trade
unions.
Let us be clear: the Bill allows the Secretary of State or an
employer to set minimum service levels and to issue work notices
requiring workers to break a picket line and go into work, and
unless we back Lords amendment 5B, the Bill will require trade
unions to help the Government and the bosses to achieve that aim.
It is draconian and anti-democratic. It should be opposed by
everybody in the House, whether or not they are a socialist, a
trade unionist, a Conservative Member, a Labour Member or a
Member of whatever party. It should be opposed by anybody who
believes that trade unions in our democracy are there to
represent the will of the workers and their members, not that of
the Conservative Government or the boss of a company. It is basic
democratic stuff that takes us back hundreds of years. The
legislation needs to be resisted if we in this place have any
respect whatsoever for our democracy and the democratic role of
our independent trade unions, which are there to support the
workers, not to support the Government or bosses against their
will.
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
All I can say about legislation like this is that the Government
should be careful what they wish for. This is possibly the most
significant piece of trade union legislation introduced in this
country for a century—right back to Taff Vale—because it strikes
at the basic human right to strike. Because it is so significant,
wise people in the House of Lords—I rarely say that—have tabled
Lords amendment 2B. All they are saying to the Government is,
“This is such a significant piece of legislation that you really
do need to consult on its detail and implementation.” Without
that detailed consultation, I think that a whole range of
problems will be exhibited.
I will give one example from my constituency, which I have raised
before. How can there be a minimum level of service for air
traffic controllers? It does not exist. Therefore, in effect, the
legislation means that constituents who are air traffic
controllers will not have the right to strike any more. If that
is what the Government want, they should be honest and explicit
about that.
Again, the Government should be careful what they wish for.
Individuals who are trade unionists will see the Bill as the
withdrawal of their right to strike, because at any time an
employer will be able to say to that individual, “You have got to
work.” If that individual says, “Well, I want to go on strike,”
they could be sacked, and they would have no protections left in
law. That is an attack on the basic right to strike. What will
those individuals do? Large numbers of them will not comply. Then
what happens? It will escalate into an even more significant
dispute.
The legislation also says to a trade union, completely contrary
to three centuries of history, “You will be required to
discipline your members for not working.” That basically means
that the Government will cause conflict within that particular
union, or across the trade union movement overall. Maybe that is
what the Government are all about.
When the legislation was brought forward, I thought that the
motivation for it was one of two things. The first possibility
was that the Government were panicking because of the scale of
industrial action taking place, not realising that the vast
majority of those industrial disputes would, as always, be
settled by negotiation. That is what has happened with most of
them. If it was not panic, it was something more sinister. It was
Ministers thinking, “Why waste this opportunity? Why not bring
forward the legislation that we have wanted for generations to
undermine the right to strike?”. If that was the Government’s
motivation, I tell them that they cannot implement legislation,
no matter how hard they try, if it goes against the grain of our
history, which is to respect workers’ rights, because those have
been fought for over generations.
The Bill will exacerbate the industrial relations climate in this
country. The Government should at least accept the Lords
amendments, because they go some way towards establishing a piece
of legislation that may be seen as implementable through
consultation and through the protection of rights. If they go
ahead like this, I can see nothing but further conflict. That
will undermine the commitment across the House to try to develop
a growth economy again, rather than one held back by disputes,
some of which have been engineered in recent times because of the
cost of living crisis.
I, too, refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’
Financial Interests. In opening the debate, the Minister skirted
round amendment 4B and just said that the Government were opposed
to it. A number of us intervened at the time, but I really do
think that he needs to consider the Government’s position
carefully, particularly on that amendment, because it gets to the
heart of the Bill and why so many of us are expressing concerns
about the attacks on natural justice and on human rights.
Lords amendment 4B asks that employees receive a work notice in
good time. It seems fairly uncontroversial that a work notice
should be issued to a worker in good time if they are to attend
their work. If we do not accept the amendment, we will end up
with a scenario where someone returns to work after a day of
industrial action and is told they are being dismissed with no
evidence whatsoever that they have been given a work notice. Of
course, the Government do not want to give the responsibility for
the work notice to the employer, so the employer will have no
obligation at all to serve an employee with a work notice, but
they could dismiss them the very next day after industrial
action.
Let me emphasise that the employee would have no recourse to an
employment tribunal. Surely it is a fundamental human right, and
fundamental to natural justice, that if a worker is dismissed,
they have recourse to a tribunal to challenge that decision.
That, to me, seems fairly self-evident and obvious, but the
Government are allowing a situation where rogue employers will be
able to dismiss a worker for taking part in industrial action
with no recourse to a tribunal, and they will not need to
evidence the fact that that worker was served with a work
notice.
The Government find themselves in a preposterous situation by
opposing Lords amendment 4B, so I hope that the Minister will be
able to answer some of these questions. Is it really the
Government’s position, as I have outlined, that it is okay for an
employer to dismiss those on strike and that they will not need
to provide evidence that the employee was obliged to go into
work? It is ludicrous.
While the Government clearly do not want workers to have access
to justice through the employment tribunal, of course those
workers’ human rights will have been infringed, so will they not
have access to other courts to challenge this egregious
legislation?
Hopefully the Minister will answer that question.
The Minister did say in answer to my intervention that it happens
in other countries. Yes, it happens in Russia and Hungary. Are
Government Members really going to justify the Bill by saying,
“It happens in other countries like Hungary and Russia”? Is that
the Government’s example? Let me name another country—Italy,
where workers can be disciplined but short of dismissal. But the
Government do not want to follow the Italian model; they want to
be in line with Hungary and Russia. It is incredible that the
Government have found themselves in that position.
1.30pm
I hope that the Lords hold firm if the amendments are rejected.
Amendment 4B is a fundamental principle of natural justice, and I
hope the Minister will explain why he is against that principle
for workers in this country.
I thank Members for their contributions. It is fair to say that
we will have to agree to disagree. We believe that this
legislation is a proportionate response that gives the Government
the power to ensure a safe level of service in areas such as
health, transport and border security, so that people’s lives are
not put at risk and they can work, access healthcare and safely
go about their daily lives.
I will touch on one or two points raised by right hon. and hon.
Members. I have a great deal of time for the shadow Minister, the
hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (), though perhaps we do not
agree so much in this debate. He asked who we govern on behalf
of, and he listed very important people in our society—our
nurses, train drivers and border security officers. But is he
properly representing the many other stakeholders in this debate,
such as pub landlords, restauranteurs, hoteliers and people
seeking urgent medical treatment or trying to get to work or to
see family? There have been 600,000 cancelled appointments as a
result of the strikes of recent months and £3.2 billion of
economic detriment—much of that to our restaurateurs, hoteliers
and pub owners. It is important that their voices are heard,
too.
I hear what the Minister is saying, but that is an argument to
ban strikes altogether. Is that not what he is doing?
We have been clear that there is a balance between people being
able to seek industrial action and being able to go about their
daily lives. That is the balance that we are trying to strike. He
asked if we fear scrutiny; not at all. What we fear is delay.
That is what the Opposition parties are trying to bring about:
delay in wrecking amendments.
(Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Will the Minister expand on the point made by my hon. Friend the
Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston () and give us a list of the
people whom he thinks should be able to go on strike? Who are the
ones he approves of?
Any person who is legislated for in these measures should be able
to go on strike, subject to minimum service levels. It is quite
clear, and we have been consistent all the way through.
In response to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (), our objection to the
amendments is the delay that they will cause. We want to ensure
that people can go about their daily lives. The right hon. Member
for Hayes and Harlington () raised some points about
reasonable steps. Unions will not somehow have to compel people
to go to work; we are asking them to undertake reasonable steps
to ensure that people comply with a work notice. In fact, we were
willing to set out in the Bill what those reasonable steps would
be, but the right hon. Gentleman’s counterparts in the other
place rejected such measures.
The hon. Member for Leeds East () talked about the
independence of unions; of course we respect that. It is true
that if a union fails to take reasonable steps, the strike would
be unprotected, as it would if the trade union failed to meet
other existing requirements in the Trade Union and Labour
Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, such as balancing
requirements. This is not a departure from the existing
position.
The Minister keeps talking about wrecking amendments, but how is
obliging an employer to ensure that an employee has received a
work notice a wrecking amendment?
I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to other points in Lords
amendment 4B: proposed new section 234CA(4) of the 1992 Act is a
wrecking amendment because it says there is no contractual
obligation for someone to comply with a work notice. That drives
a coach and horses through the Bill.
The hon. Member for Glasgow South West () talked about how other
jurisdictions deal with requiring people to go to work under a
work notice. He may be aware that in France, people can be
subject to criminal charges if they do not comply with a work
notice. These are proportionate measures. We must make the view
of the elected House as clear as possible, and avoid any further
delay to fulfilling our duty to protect the lives and livelihoods
of those we represent.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment
2B.
[Division 261
The House divided:
Ayes
283
Noes
205
Question accordingly agreed to.
Held on 21 June 2023 at
1.35pm](/Commons/2023-06-21/division/7A794732-1A5A-46B3-84FE-AA0893CBD805/CommonsChamber?outputType=Names)
Lords amendment 2B disagreed to.
1.48pm
More than one hour having elapsed since the commencement of
proceedings onthe Lords amendments, the proceedings were
interrupted (Programme Order, 22 May).
The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary for the
disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing
Order No. 83F).
Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with
Lords amendment 4B.—(.)
[Division 262
The House divided:
Ayes
277
Noes
209
Question accordingly agreed to.
Held on 21 June 2023 at
1.48pm](/Commons/2023-06-21/division/821AE7F8-3878-4C01-AF69-D63137541CF0/CommonsChamber?outputType=Names)
Lords amendment 4B disagreed to.
Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with
Lords amendments 5B, 5C and 5D.—(.)
[Division 263
The House divided:
Ayes
280
Noes
214
Question accordingly agreed to.
Held on 21 June 2023 at
2.00pm](/Commons/2023-06-21/division/97B66C7C-23DF-4C43-9071-33622B78EB80/CommonsChamber?outputType=Names)
Lords amendments 5B, 5C and 5D disagreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No.
83H(2)), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be
assigned to the Lords for disagreeing with their amendment 2B, 4B
and 5B, 5C and 5D.
That , , , , , and be members of the
Committee;
That be the Chair of the
Committee;
That three be the quorum of the Committee.
That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(.)
Question agreed to.
Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and
communicated to the Lords.
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