Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: Passenger Railway Services) Regulations 2023

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am delighted to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, back to the Labour Front Bench, as I am sure the whole House does. I agree with everything he said, except to make the point, as I did with the previous Labour Front Bench speech, that it appears to be more of an argument for my fatal amendment than for a regret amendment. I also very much agree with him about the need to change the way in which our railways are run. If we bring them back into public hands and run them for public good, not private profit, that would be a very good foundation for resetting our industrial relations in the operation of our railways.

I am not going to repeat all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I have one question for the Minister, raised by the TUC briefing and I have also seen it in other contexts. If there is a partial service running as required under the minimum service levels, we all know that there are likely to be significant overcrowding and safety issues. I am sure many Members of your Lordships’ House picked up this piece of paper and thought, “Well, I’d love some minimum service levels on the trains I ride on non-strike days”. We know how crowded trains can get when they are cancelled for other reasons. Can the Minister assure rail workers that they can continue to apply work-safe principles, and stop working if it is no longer safe for the trains to continue to run? It needs to be clear that they will not face legal consequences for making a safety decision. We do not want what are often not particularly well-paid or senior staff in a situation where they make decisions with the feeling that such consequences hang over their head. I beg to move.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, my criticism of the proposed legislation is a quite simple one: it will not work. I listened to the Minister who, I have to say, went through his brief faster than any train I have been on recently. It is not a new idea. It was considered by the Thatcher Government and rejected. It was considered by the Cameron Government and rejected. It will not work. The problem is that this has been put together by lawyers who have no concept of how the railway industry actually works, or how train crews are rostered and how people are laid down for their various duties. The rostering of train crews is done at local level. The management and the local district committee—the shop stewards, if you like—sit down at every timetable change in May and December to decide the future rosters. The trade union side will obviously not sit down and discuss rostering under this minimum service level. As for choosing the name “minimum service level”, what else have we had in the railway industry for some time but a minimum service level?

It is not just the Labour Party and the trade union movement that are against this. The Rail Safety and Standards Board has said that it has considerable reservations about rail safety in future. That is not an organisation that one would normally regard as particularly left wing in its outlook. What the Government are proposing will poison industrial relations within the railway industry for years to come.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. What happens if a minimum service level driver is rostered and declines to pass through a picket line at a particular depot? Will the Minister prosecute the driver or the trade union of which he is a member? The chance of conflict because of this barmy legislation cannot be emphasised too much. I said earlier—I do not wish to detain the House—that it is not just the Labour Party against it. I commend the Minister to read a paper prepared by Nicholas Finney OBE for the Centre for Policy Studies, that well-known left-wing organisation. He attacked the whole concept because, like me, he says it will not work. Maybe he will be regarded as a destructive member of British society. He is, or was, the chairman of the Wantage Conservative association, so if someone like him feels that this legislation is impractical, the Minister really ought to look again.

I am almost speechless at the stupidity of the Government bringing forward this legislation. I repeat that it will poison industrial relations within the railway industry for years to come, and I beseech the Minister even at this late hour to take some proper advice and not to make this into a lawyer’s dream.