Contribution
My Lords, I will speak to each of the three amendments in this group, starting with Amendment 254. A significant part of the reason for the minimum services, as my noble friend has just laid out, was to recognise that certain issues were affecting daily life.
It is worth while considering the timing of aspects of this, not long after the end of the Covid lockdowns, and recognising the economic challenges that our country faced. In combination with people’s need to access urgent medical support, bearing in mind that a number of activities had been cancelled many times already, the impact of seeing further strikes—cancelling a basic level of operation for patients—was starting to become potentially very difficult for the country to manage and for patients in getting better.
Other sectors were also discussed, and transport is a good example. I expect that none of the train operating companies used this, partly because many of them found different ways to keep trains running on a basic level—good examples of that would be Greater Anglia or South Western Railway. Greater Anglia will soon become a nationalised rail operator, so I would be very interested to know—I appreciate that the Minister may not have an answer today—what the practice will be in the future as a consequence of this. At the time, the operating company Abellio was able potentially to have gone to this piece of legislation to keep trains running, although it did not have to. Will nationalised rail companies be allowed to continue to keep services running so that users can get to work, or wherever they need to go, even though there are other people on strike? My expectation, candidly, is that no nationalised company will in any way go against any trade union strike. I cannot see a Labour Government Minister using that, so by repealing this legislation the Government will have lost a lever on behalf of many of the users of public services, or services put forward for public use, across the country.
At one point there was a discussion about schools. A similar issue had arisen with children during Covid, through no fault of their own and no fault of the teachers. Schools were kept open, by and large, physically for certain workers but also online. Undoubtedly, there was a challenge for education but also, frankly, the inconvenience to working parents when schools go on strike is particularly harmful and is disruptive to those families and the wider economy. But it was decided not to do that. We reverted back to making sure, in the spirit of the Act’s intentions, that we would keep it to what were deemed to be absolutely key public services. Otherwise, there would have been significant detriment to the wider public.
Amendment 258, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, on a review into the impact on small businesses, would be very helpful. Huge changes are being put in place after nine years of a piece of legislation that from the economy’s perspective has worked reasonably well. I appreciate that the trade unions may not have liked it—and I recall it being voted against, back when this was being debated in the House a decade ago—but it is vital to the wider economy that we get our companies growing.
It seems to change every time, but I think that overall the number one mission of this Government is growth and the economy. Yet they are starting to do things, through this Bill and other situations, that seem to be driven by ideology rather than pragmatism and practicality. As a consequence, the basics and the consequences of some of this legislation, or the repealing of existing legislation, need to be considered in proper economic depth. I would love this to have happened with an updated impact assessment for us to consider before we conclude the Bill. By the way, I am grateful to the Minister for making sure that the letter the Secretary of State sent me has been placed in the Library so that every Peer can see it, but it worries me that that issue will not be considered further.
Amendment 256 links with the idea of a certification officer. I will come to series of amendments on that soon, so I am not sure how much of a certification officer role will be left. When it applies its thoughts on how it goes about the enforcement of the laws to which it is subject—and which it is also doing on behalf of trade union members—it should consider our role in the world and, in particular, how that contributes to make sure that we have a growing economy. I am sure all Members of your Lordships’ House would agree that we need it to grow.