Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Alan Brown Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 21st June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

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.

[Alan Brown (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?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

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.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will make a little progress, but I will make sure that both the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) 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.

[Alan Brown]

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?

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

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.

[Alan Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

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.

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[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alan Brown]

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 Baroness Mone, 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.

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[Kevin Hollinrake]

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 (Alan Brown), 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 (John McDonnell) 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 (Richard Burgon) 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.

[Alan Brown]

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?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

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 (Chris Stephens) 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.