Government plans to tighten laws on strikes

After three years of dawdling, the government is suddenly ramping up its plans to tighten the laws on strikes that affect public services, in ways that would be hugely controversial, amounting to the biggest restriction on trade unions since the 1980s.

In their 2019 manifesto, the Conservatives said we will require a minimum service during transport strikes. Rail workers deserve a fair deal, but it is not fair to let the trade unions undermine the livelihoods of others. Covid was behind the fact that for almost three years nothing happened. In October of this year, Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan published a minimum service levels bill. The crisis triggered by the mini-budget was at its peak in the dying days of the Liz Truss administration, and the first reading of the bill passed almost unnoticed.

Yesterday morning, Mark Harper, the current transport secretary, told MPs that he could not say when the legislation would progress, and he implied that it wasn't a top priority for him anyway.

A couple of hours later, Rishi Sunak told PMQs he was planning tough legislation and No 10 said nurses and ambulance drivers could be banned from going on strike, which would be a significant extension of what was originally planned.

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has been giving interviews this morning, and she confirmed health staff could have their right to strike if plans are considered by the government. There are some areas where strikes are not allowed as part of the contract. For example, the police and military can't go on strike. There are some people as a matter of public safety, so you can't go on a strike. What we're looking at is, are there other areas that we should include in that? Health would be one to look at and other areas of critical infrastructure.

When Keegan was asked if teachers should be included in a new public services anti-strike law of this kind, she said she did not know and had not looked at the issue.

I'm going to post more from her interviews soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30 am: Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, takes questions in the Commons.

Keir Starmer speaks at Labour's business conference 2022 at 10.30 am. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is speaking.

I try to monitor the comments below the line BTL but it is impossible to read all of them. If you have a direct question, include Andrew somewhere and I'm more likely to find it. I do try to answer any questions and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line ATL, although I can't promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to draw my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.