Member

My Amendment 315 would disapply the change in the Employment Rights Act 2025 for passenger railway services to ensure you had to have at least 50% of eligible union members participating in a strike ballot and at least 40% of those eligible members supporting industrial action. The reason for that, as my noble friend said, is that many people depend on passenger rail services to get to work to earn a living, to get to educational opportunities and to get to medical appointments—all the essential things that people need to do in life. Strikes on passenger rail services are incredibly disruptive and this is about making sure that you cannot have a dispute without significant support for it. Otherwise, a relatively small number of people voting for a strike can carry a ballot and, with relatively low support, you could have a strike causing enormous inconvenience and economic damage. This amendment simply tries to preserve that higher bar to have a strike; it does not say that you cannot have a strike but simply that you need a higher level of support to have one.