Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Grant Shapps Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Grant Shapps)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

While I am sure that the House would like me to enter back into some of the key arguments at this hour, I think I will for the purposes of brevity stick to the main principle at stake here, which is quite simply this: in many democratic countries throughout the world, and particularly among our European neighbours, we find that strikes are often banned entirely in what we would refer to as the blue light services. Yet in this country, the only blue light service to have strikes banned was the police in 1919 by a Liberal Prime Minister. I know of not a single member of the police who has ever lost their job as a result of that sensible restricted right to strike.

We are not proposing a Bill that would prevent people from being able to strike in other blue light services or in other areas. We are not doing what we have done with the police or with the Army in this country. We are not doing what they have done in other European nations or in countries across the world, including Canada, Australia and large parts of America. We are not doing any of those things because we respect the right to withdraw labour. Rather, through this legislation, which I note was receiving large majorities in the House this evening, we are simply proposing to protect people’s lives and to protect people’s livelihoods.

I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, how is it that Members in this House can look at their constituents and say to them that they should not have the right to an ambulance if they have a heart attack, a stroke or a serious illness? Why should that be left to a matter of chance, depending on their postcode as to whether those vital services turn up? Furthermore, after years of disruption through covid, why should our children have to miss school? Why should it be that people who work for themselves and rely on their own ingenuity to get their jobs and to take home money be denied over months and months the opportunity to get to work? We move this Third Reading this evening because we care about people in our workforce and their livelihoods and about our constituents and their ability to access vital services. That is why I commend this Bill to the House.