Contributions
1,819 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARD Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) BillMy hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester is absolutely right about the reason for requiring minimum standards.16 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionWith permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on industrial action and minimum service levels. Nurses, paramedics and transport workers are called key workers for…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionI pay tribute to those in the NHS: there is a very good reason why, when the public sector in this country got a zero pay rise last year because of covid, over 1 million people in…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionI want to pick up the hon. Lady on those figures, because the NHS itself says that it does not recognise those numbers. When we have a strike such as the one on Wednesday by…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionI pay tribute to the Army, who did fantastic work. The Army has a no-strike clause already, along with the police. Once this primary power has been taken, it will be for…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionThe hon. Lady is right in the sense that we have seen huge backlogs because of covid. We are hiring a lot more nurses as a result—thousands more since 2019. We are also funding…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionIt is worth reminding the House that my hon. Friend is an acknowledged expert in employment law. I am grateful for her thoughts and clarification that the International Labour…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionThe hon. Gentleman raises a good point, which I am pleased to answer. When strikes are taking place tomorrow and we are not able to get a simple answer to the question of what the…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionOf course, one reason that we have employed tens of thousands more nurses and doctors is to help to relieve the pressure post covid. We all understand that, given what happened…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionMy right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We are trying to correct a problem that is very current. Ambulance workers and the unions have not provided a national level of…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionOf course we want to see healthcare workers paid, and I meant the words that I used at the top of the statement. Hon. Members will remember that my father was ill during covid, so…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionMy hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and it brings me on to an important consideration, which is the disparity between the public sector settlements on offer and the average…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionAs I have mentioned a couple of times at the Dispatch Box, the hon. Gentleman will need to explain his position to his friends and colleagues in countries as radical as France and…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionIt is almost as if covid and the pressures on the NHS never occurred, according to the Opposition. I am pretty sure I heard this straight. It is almost as if Putin did not invade…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is worth the House reflecting on the fact that the police were banned from striking in 1919, and that agreement has been in place for more…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionThe hon. Gentleman tries to push the argument that somehow this legislation will take us out of step with other European countries, and I have already explained that it is we who…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionMy hon. Friend is right. These so-called forever strikes, which have continued for month after month on the railways, are particularly hurting rural communities. It is easy…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionI appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is an enthusiastic supporter of everything that the unions do, and they are an enthusiastic supporter of the hon. Gentleman. [ Interruption. ]…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionI do not know whether I am correcting myself or the hon. and learned Lady, but I was not saying—I did not mean to say, at least—that striking workers pushed up interest rates. It…10 Jan 2023HANSARD Industrial ActionAs the hon. Lady will know, various different unions have been invited in, there have been discussions across the different sectors and we are doing everything we can to encourage…10 Jan 2023