17 July 2024
King’s Speech – Support for Transport and Offshore Workers
The RMT is Britain’s specialist transport union, with more than 80,000 members working in the transport and offshore energy industries. RMT is the largest union on the country’s railways and we organise workers in the buses, taxis, road transport and offshore oil and gas sectors. We welcome the election of a Labour Government and look forward to supporting and engaging on the legislation agenda for this Parliament covering the industries where our members work and on key proposals to improve workers’ rights.
This briefing focuses on the Government’s plans for legislation on rail and road transport, offshore energy and employment rights. The union is also encouraged by the Government’s proposals for infrastructure investment, planning reform and skills.
Key Legislation
• Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
• Railways Bill
• Better Buses Bill
• Employment Rights Bill
• GB Energy Bill
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
RMT organise workers from all grades in the railway industry. We welcome the government’s intention to legislate through the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill.
Section 25 of the 1993 Railways Act, which privatized Britain’s railways, placed a prohibition on any public sector operator bidding for a contract to run a franchise. This has meant that a franchise could only be handed to the Operator of Last Resort on a temporary basis and the government would be expected to run a tender for a private sector operator sooner or later. Repealing this prohibition means that the government can appoint the public sector operator as the first option when a franchise expires or is ended early for under-performance. It will deliver early savings as the dividend payments made by private sector operators will be eliminated.
It also provides an essential basis for the government’s wider reform agenda, enabling integration of the railways under public ownership and delivering further savings in the process.
Railways Bill
RMT also welcomes the government’s Railways Bill legislation to create Great British Railways. GBR will bring track and train together in a unified, simplified system, responsible for planning the management of the network and the delivery of passenger services. Combined with the commitments to bring private sector contracts into GBR as they expire or are broken and to integrate them into a single body and single employer, combining services and infrastructure, this is a historic move which decisively turns the page on 30 years of privatised passenger rail.
RMT believes this legislation will save public money, eliminating the waste that arises from fragmentation, enabling more to be spent on frontline services, support greater operational efficiency and innovation, benefiting passengers and create a more positive industrial relations environment.
We will be providing more detailed briefings as the Bill makes its way through Parliament, including on devolution, open access and freight, and look forward to supporting the Government to deliver this legislation for passengers and rail workers.
RMT welcomes the measures to support the promote critical national infrastructure such as rail in the High Speed Rail (Crewe to Manchester) Bill and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. We support measures to upgrade rail connectivity in the north of England, simplify planning processes and limit compensation to landowners. We continue to support the case for HS2’s second phase. Investing in national infrastructure like rail will be essential for driving up productivity and economic growth as well as meeting national targets for mode shift, rail freight and decarbonisation.
Better Buses Bill
RMT organise thousands of bus workers in England (outside London) and we welcome the Labour Government’s plans, set out in the Better Buses Bill, to give local transport authorities far greater control of their local bus services through public ownership or franchising. The bus sector has experienced decades of decline since it was deregulated and privatised in the 1980s by the Tories, with thousands of services cut and bus worker jobs lost. The Tories’ ideological ban on new municipal bus companies has left local authorities beholden to the commercial interests of private bus operators and unable to design their own bus networks to meet their communities’ needs.
RMT welcome’s Labour’s recognition of the vital role that local bus services play for communities. Reliable and comprehensive bus services reduce social isolation and enable people to connect with education, employment, healthcare and their local economy.
Enabling local authorities to deliver the bus services their communities require will also support far greater integration with the rail network and modal shifts. RMT looks forward to working with Labour around to achieve its goals for the bus sector.
Employment Rights Bill
RMT strongly welcome the Labour Government’s intention to legislate, at pace, to repair
the damage caused to workers’ rights, industrial relations and wage growth, in line with the commitment to implement, in full, Labour’s New Deal for Workers.
Actions such as stamping out zero-hour contracts, introducing employment rights from day one, linking calculation of the National Minimum Wage to the cost of living, banning fire and re-hire, establishing Fair Pay Agreements and a Fair Work Agency, closing the gender pay gap, improving trade unions’ workplace access rights and scrapping anti-trade union legislation are all welcome. These and other measures being consulted on will provide workers and their unions with the basic employment rights they need to make work pay and to put economic growth on a sustainable footing.
This agenda of change and structural support for working people is particularly welcomed by our members in the shipping industry, after the P&O Ferries scandal.
We support this Bill and look forward to engaging constructively during its passage through Parliament.
GB Energy Bill
The priority of creating 650,000 decent jobs and lowering energy bills is welcome. The decision to base GB Energy in Scotland, where over 93,000 workers, including RMT members, are currently employed in roles connected to the offshore oil and gas sector, is a sound one.
We support the commitment to public investment in renewable energy technologies such as floating wind, tidal and hydrogen, as well as carbon capture and storage. Allied to the wider legislative agenda, particularly the National Wealth Fund Bill, Crown Estate Bill and the Employment Rights Bill, we welcome the Government’s policy direction.
The offshore energy sector has a deep supply chain, with real opportunities to boost employment, training and skills in our cities and coastal communities, as well as delivering a stable and just transition for those currently working in the North Sea oil and gas sector. We look forward to engaging constructively on this legislation.