Grant Shapps rejects government’s own assessment that anti-strike bill could lead to more strikes – live

Transport secretary plays down impact assessment saying new legislation would make more industrial action more likely

And here are some more lines from Grant Shapps’s interviews this morning about the strikes (minimum service levels) bill.

Shapps said that he hoped many of the powers in the bill would not actually be used. As the government explained in its briefing last week, the government will set minimum service levels for fire, ambulance and rail services. But in the other sectors (other areas of health, education, nuclear decommissioning and border security), although the government will legislate to give itself the power to impose minimum service levels, it will in the first instance try to negotiate voluntary agreements for these with unions. Shapps told the Today programme:

What I’m going to do in this legislation is take the primary power, if parliament grants it, but then in secondary – so this is a further stage of consultation if you like – allow each different area of public service to consult and decide how to actually implement this and over what period of time.

The ideal outcome would be to have the power but never need to use it, because I think anyone listening to this knows it’s reasonable to ask and expect, for example, the ambulance unions to agree to some sort of national level in return for what we fully support which is the right to strike.

He dismissed claims that the bill could increase the chances of nurses being sacked for going on strike. He told Times Radio:

This sort of talk that somebody will be sacked is no more true than it would be under any employment contract and that’s always the case when people have to stick to the law.

He stressed that the government was not banning strikes in the emergency services (even though this is what some people were calling for when the bill was being drafted).

Well, impact assessments do the job of, if you like, having a look all around and seeing, what would be the risks, what are the opportunities and so they often say these things.