15:03 Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)

This motion—in fact, this whole approach—is all part of the Tory culture war to cripple unions, undermine strikes, ban disruptive protests and end pickets with temporary agency staff, and it highlights yet again why the Tories are unfit to govern. Rail has a bright future. In Scotland, after decades of underinvestment and gradual decline, electrification and decarbonisation have been a core part of the Government agenda for every party that has been the Administration, whether Labour, Liberal or SNP. Sadly, we have not had a Conservative Government in Scotland yet.

It was ironic. Electrification and decarbonisation are a key part of the drive towards a net zero society and a more balanced and sustainable economy, but that modernisation has to be accompanied by a modern, mature industrial relations strategy. That maturity and modernity was demonstrated by ScotRail and the trade unions in Scotland this month in coming to an agreement that benefits staff and the network, and the contrast with the utterances of the Secretary of State and his team could not be clearer.

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15:47 Rachael Maskell (Labour)

Many things that the Secretary of State put out were not included in the statement. I could think of a fifth, a sixth and a seventh thing that could be on the table: the long-term stability needed across the rail industry; long-term planning around industrial relations and workforce, in order to get smoothing so as not to have to go down the road of redundancy, let alone compulsory redundancy. There are so many issues. The Government are concerned about the fall in patronage, yet they have not put forward a patronage plan to increase rail travel across the board, which is absolutely essential with the climate crisis that we are facing.

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16:31 Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)

I sincerely hope that the rail unions will reconsider their actions and that the Labour party will encourage them to do so. They will clearly impact the weakest in society most. It is so disappointing, but not surprising, that those on the Labour Benches are doing nothing to discourage their paymasters from these excessive and premature actions, which will frustrate levelling up, frustrate climate change improvements, frustrate students and frustrate people recovering from life after covid. Do they really want to be responsible for that?

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16:44 Tan Dhesi (Labour)

We could have a rail network with affordable, reliable services where more people want to travel by rail, helping us to address the climate emergency. Instead, the Government are focused on punishing rail passengers, punishing key workers on our railways, and presiding over the managed decline of our railways with £1 billion-worth of cuts imposed from the top. A decade-plus of Tory government has driven our transport systems into the ground, and the pandemic has catalysed that process to crisis point.

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