Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Debate between Angela Rayner and John McDonnell

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Her point links to what I was trying to express earlier: the Government fail to recognise that every time they suggest in some way that our paramedics, nurses and other key workers do not provide a minimum service and do not take seriously the impact of challenging in the way they have been forced to. They protect the very people they are there to support. The Government have misjudged how people feel about that, because not only have they caused offence to those workers who protect us day in, day out, but they have failed to recognise that every single one of our key workers who does that has friends and family who know that they do that. This is why the public get very upset with the Government when they suggest that somehow our paramedics, nurses and other key workers do not provide those standards. I agree with my hon. Friend: if the Government were able to get out more and see what happens on the ground, they would have a clearer understanding of why this legislation will not work and fix the problems. The public understand that and the Minister should take note.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

If we walk through this legislation and its eventual implementation, we see that it will result in either a worker being sacked or a worker being sacked and a trade union being fined. Can my right hon. Friend think of anything that could greater exacerbate the current industrial-relations climate than those sorts of threats?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. That is exactly what this Government are walking into and I think it will exacerbate the situation. The Government have been exacerbating the situation not just by bringing forward this legislation—most of the public can see what they are trying to do—but through the tone with which they have carried out, or failed to carry out, negotiations to avert the industrial action we have seen. Nurses are taking industrial action for the first time ever. Rather than get round the table and sort the mess out that they have created after 13 years in government, the Government try to demonise those very workers. The public do not thank them for that.