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Shapps threatens to impose railway reforms as London transport strike begins – business live


Transport secretary threatens imposition of rail reforms

Transport secretary Grant Shapps arrives in Downing Street to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting in July.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps arrives in Downing Street to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting in July. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/REX/Shutterstock

Railway reforms will be imposed if workers do not agree to new deals, the transport secretary Grant Shapps has said.

The Conservative party has repeatedly targeted unions with criticism, in a move that the Trades Union Congress has argued it is deliberately “picking a fight” for electoral purposes.

Shapps is likely to remain transport secretary until at least 5 September, when a new Conservative party leader – likely to be Liz Truss if recent polls are correct – will be in place. There is little sign that there would be a change of attitude under a new leader.

Asked on Monday by Sky News if compulsory redundancies were on the table for rail workers, Grant Shapps said (the Press Association reports):

The deal that is on the table actually means largely no compulsory redundancies at all.

If [the unions] are not prepared to put that deal to your membership we will never know whether members would accept it.

What I do know and I can say for sure is if we can’t get this settled in the way that we are proposing, which is ‘please put the deal to your membership’ then we will have to move to what is called a section 188; it is a process of actually requiring these changes to go into place so it becomes mandated. That is the direction that this is moving in now.

Shapps claimed that outdated work practices needed to be updated – a characterisation of the industry that is disputed by the unions, who argue that employers are trying to use modernisation as an excuse to reduce members’ real pay and conditions. Shapps said: “If we can’t get those modernisations in place we will have to impose those modernisations but we would much rather do it through these offers actually being put to their members.”

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London strikes start; surprise increase in retail sales in Great Britain

Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of business, economics and financial markets.

Travel in the UK’s capital will be severely disrupted on Friday as workers strike over pay and conditions.

Members of the RMT and Unite unions working on the tube and overground rail will strike. Unite members on bus routes in the capital run by London United are also striking in a separate dispute over pay.

RMT boss Mick Lynch, who has been probably the most prominent advocate for strikes in the media, has joined workers on a picket line this morning:

Separately, retail sales in Great Britain rose unexpectedly in July, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Retail sales volumes rose by 0.3% in July, following a fall of 0.2% in June (which was revised down from a fall of 0.1%), the ONS said.

The bump was not expected by economists, who had predicted a 0.2% decline in July, with inflation above 10% expected to eat into consumers’ spending power.

Yet the overall picture of a consumer economy that is slowing remains: sales volumes were 2.3% above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) February 2020 levels, but down 3.3% over the past year.

We will have more detail for you soon.





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