Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Beth Winter Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anna Firth]

I wish to finish my speech.

The Bill will ensure that when people call 999, they can get an ambulance. It will ensure that a fire engine will come if there is a fire. It will ensure that my constituents can send their children to school and travel to work on public transport. This is pragmatic legislation that will bring the UK in line with other countries, such as France and Spain, which already have such legislation in place. I will be supporting the Government’s very sensible Bill, which will protect all my constituents. I urge Opposition Members to do the same, even if that means that their union paymasters do not cough up ahead of the next election.

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I speak for millions of trade unionists, public sector workers, key workers and people up and down the country when I say that this Bill is disgraceful, draconian, unconstitutional, undemocratic and a clear attack on workers’ rights.

This afternoon, I will limit my main comments to an amendment of mine that seeks to exclude Wales from the application of the Bill. I also wish to associate myself with a number of other amendments, including those tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and my hon. Friends the Members for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) and for Ilford South (Sam Tarry).

When I opposed the Bill on Second Reading two weeks ago, I said that it is clear that it will

“overrule the powers and policies of the devolved Governments”.—[Official Report, 16 January 2023; Vol. 726, c. 123.]

This legislation before the Commons has been introduced without any discussion with the Welsh Government. It has been introduced despite it conflicting with the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill before the Senedd. A different approach is being taken in Wales, and I urge Government Members to take note of how things have been done differently—and successfully—in Wales. It is an approach that fosters collaboration and co-operation between Government, employers and workers, and it is encapsulated in the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, which places partnership working on a statutory footing. It really does work. It is this partnership approach that meant that the Welsh Government and Transport for Wales were able to negotiate a pay settlement recently that was accepted by the RMT.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The hon. Member is giving a powerful speech. What we are seeing in Wales is co-operation and co-working in action, and service is being improved because of it, which, of course, is what good Government and good relations with unions is all about.

[Beth Winter]

I agree with the right hon. Member.

A joint statement by Wales TUC and the Welsh Government called on the UK Government to cease their controversial approach and learn lessons from the collaborative, social partnership approach adopted in Wales. It said that the UK Government should allow the rail companies and RMT to negotiate a deal that is fair and acceptable to Network Rail employees and employees of the UK train operating companies. That is the approach guiding the Welsh Government and the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill before us today is in complete conflict with that legislation. Clearly, there has been no opportunity for the Welsh Government to timetable a legislative consent motion in the Senedd. If they had done so, they would have recorded that the Senedd would withhold consent for this piece of legislation.

The Welsh Government’s view is clear. First Minister Mark Drakeford has stated:

“The Welsh Labour Government does not believe that the response to strikes should be to bring forward such restrictive and backward-looking laws, that trample over the devolution settlement.”

Counsel General Mick Antoniw has said in the Senedd:

“The way to resolve industrial disputes is by negotiation and agreement.”

The Wales TUC has also been very clear. Its general secretary, Shavanah Taj, has said that

“this Bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations”,

and has urged all Welsh MPs to reject the Bill.

That is why I have tabled four amendments, each of which seeks to prevent the application of this legislation from taking effect in Wales. I have sought to amend clause 3 by asserting that Senedd Cymru can still pass legislation counter to this Bill. In amendment 77, I have sought to remove the application of the Bill to Wales. In amendments 88 and 97 I seek to remove the powers in the Bill to repeal primary legislation passed in the Senedd, as the Government are seeking to do on agency workers involved in strikes. In amendment 98, I seek to ensure that Welsh workers employed in Wales by English firms are not impacted by this legislation.

I also support a raft of other amendments, as I said earlier, including Opposition amendment 1, which would mitigate some of the most authoritarian elements of the Bill and preserve existing protections against unfair dismissal, including for an employee who participates in a strike contrary to a work notice under the Bill. I also associate myself with amendments setting out the importance of meeting conditions set by the ILO, as already discussed. There must be negotiation between the social partners rather than the imposing of minimum service levels, as this Bill will do.