Member

Amendment 316, which my noble friend alluded to, is about GBR remaining a separate company from its subsidiaries for the purposes of industrial relations legislation. There are two very important reasons for that. One is to prevent rail unions being able to have a national rail strike and cause enormous inconvenience not just for passengers but for freight operators and those requiring access to the network. The second thing, which I think, certainly under this Government, would be more likely but not necessarily the Minister’s doing, is that, because of the power handed to trade unions to be able to have a national rail strike, in practice their bargaining strength would be increased. We would see larger pay rises going to those trade unions, not merited by any improvement in productivity and entirely paid for with a nationalised rail industry by the taxpayer. I do not think that that will be acceptable.