12 2GM Saturday June 11 2022 | the times
News
Five Labour MPs who expressed
support for the forthcoming strikes
have received thousands of pounds in
donations from the RMT union, The
Times can reveal.
An analysis of the MPs’ register of
interests has found that MPs who spoke
out in favour of the walkouts have been
given donations from the union worth
about £20,000 since 2020.
Last night Paul Scully, the business
minister, said MPs need to be “really
clear about when their interests co-
incide with their donors’ ”. It comes
after shadow cabinet members Lisa
Nandy and Wes Streeting this week in-
dicated support for the striking staff
after Sir Keir Starmer insisted the in-
dustrial action “shouldn’t go ahead”.
About 50,000 RMT members plan to
shut down the rail and Tube network
this month in a “summer of discontent”
not seen since the 1926 General Strike.
Last night it was revealed that about
20,000 of the RMT workers who are set
to strike have had pay rises for two of
the past three years. RMT members at
Network Rail received a 3.2 per cent
and 2.1 per cent salary increase in 2019
and 2020 respectively. These were
linked to the RPI rate of inflation and
workers pocketed £650 bonuses in both
years, collectively worth £26 million.
Rebecca Long Bailey, MP for Salford
and Eccles, benefited from a donation
worth £3,000 from the RMT in 2020.
This week she wrote on Twitter:
“Cutting hundreds of station staff jobs
will make our railway less safe, secure
and accessible. Solidarity with
@RMTunion members today.”
Diane Abbott, MP for HackneyNorth and Stoke Newington, was pho-
tographed yesterday with striking
Unite members on a picket line at a bus
depot in Wakefield. Abbott, who re-
ceived a donation worth £2,000 from
the RMT in 2020, wrote: “It is a human
right to withdraw your labour.”
The former shadow chancellor John
McDonnell, MP for Hayes andHarlington, pledged support for the
strikes on BBC Radio 4’s World at One
yesterday. In 2020 he was given a dona-
tion worth £8,325 from the RMT.
Posting on Twitter a link to his inter-
view, he wrote: “I am backing the RMT
in their campaign to prevent thousands
of job cuts on our rail network and to
secure a fair pay deal to protect theirHigh energy The Dragonsquad busking crew in Glasgow before performances at Queen’s Park Arena this weekend. These form part of the Tramway Beyond Walls series of contemporary dance and visual art
WATTIE CHEUNGRail passengers face fare increases of
more than 11 per cent next year unless
the government changes its policy, an
industry watchdog has said.
The chief executive of Transport
Focus called on ministers to push back
the decision on setting fares for 2023
during the cost of living crisis.
Fare rises are pegged to the retail
prices index (RPI) inflation figure from
July and then ordinarily come into
force the following January. The
increases have been delayed until April
for the two years of the pandemic.
RPI inflation hit 11.1 per cent last
month, and analysts predict it will rise
even more by next month. However,
Strike-backing MPs took union cash
members against the cost of living crisis... I will be on the picket line.”
Ian Lavery, MP for Wansbeck, was
given a donation worth £5,000 from the
union in 2020. He wrote on Twitter this
week: “Solidarity with @RMTunion
members today. Always fighting for
fairer wages terms and conditions.”
Jo Stevens, MP for Cardiff Central,
was given a donation worth £2,000 by
the RMT in 2020. This week she
retweeted criticism from the TUC dep-
uty general secretary Paul Nowak
regarding a Downing Street source
calling the strike plans “selfish”.
Nowak said: “If I was in Downing
Street I think I’d be cautious about call-
ing anybody ‘selfish and irresponsible’
... least of all tens of thousands of
@RMTunion workers who haven’t had
a pay rise in three years and are worried
about impact of thousands of redun-
dancies on their industry.”
Scully said: “I think it’s typical that
the MPs that are in hock to the unions
are acting against the workers that the
unions purport to represent, as well as
the wider British public.”
A Labour spokesman said: “The
strikes shouldn’t go ahead. Nobody
wants action that is disruptive.”
Labour needs to reassure the public it
has a plan, leading article, page 29
Workers rediscover their militant
tendencies, Business, pages 48-
Ben Ellery
Rail union members have been
accused of subjecting school
students to “callous treatment” by
carrying out industrial action during
the national exam period.
Jenny Brown, head teacher of the
City of London School for Girls in
the Barbican, central London, warns
that pupils in the capital face a
“double whammy” of rail and Tube
strikes in coming weeks.
In a letter to The Times, she says
the strikers are “concerned about
‘unfair’ pay” but asks whether they
have “considered the unfairness of
the Tube and rail strikes on
thousands of students”.Walkouts are planned on the rail
and Tube network on June 21, when
exams include A-level maths,
religious studies and German, as
well as GCSE history; and on rail
services on June 23, when exams
include A-level chemistry and GCSE
physics.
Brown said: “Pupils across the
country, already nervous about the
first public exams any of them have
faced after two years of the
pandemic, have the added anxiety of
missing the exam.” She added that
pupils “will be left with the
unenviable choice of embarking on a
lengthy and stressful journey early
in the morning or bunking up
somewhere local the night before.Neither is conducive to optimal
preparation and performance.
“Rail unions complain they have
been treated as ‘cannon fodder’, but
they seem to be meting out similarly
callous treatment to students, who
have done nothing to deserve this.”
The school standards minister
Robin Walker said transport workers
had a “public duty” to ensure pupils
could get to school. He added: “I
would strongly urge that they don’t
disrupt the exam period. That has a
long-term impact on children’s lives.”
Students who miss their exams could
still be given a grade that takes
“circumstances beyond their control”
into consideration.
Letters, page 28Rail walkouts threaten school exams
Katie GibbonsTrain passengers facing 11% rise in cost of season tickets
the Office for Budget Responsibility
forecasts that RPI will fall later this
year, dropping to 5.1 per cent in the
second quarter of next year.
Fares rose by 3.8 per cent in April,
which the Department for Transport
could bill as less than inflation when
announced last December, as the RPI
had risen to 7.1 per cent.
Anthony Smith, chief executive of
Transport Focus, the independent
watchdog, said: “The government is not
tied to the July figure and they’re not
tied to when they make an announce-
ment. It’s a political decision.”
He added that the prospect of a
summer of strikes would increase the
burden on the government not to hit
passengers with news of fare increases.
The increases apply to regulatedfares, which are set by the government
and account for about half of all tickets
sold, including season tickets, off-peak
returns and anytime fares in urban
areas. Other fares typically rise by a
similar amount.
Boris Johnson has asked ministers to
present ideas for reducing household
bills that would not cost public money.
A freeze on rail fares, or a change in
how increases are calculated, has yet to
be discussed. Last night a government
source said no decision had been made
on fares for next year.
Smith said: “My sense is they will
leave a decision as late as possible given
the uncertainty around the economy
with inflation as well as strikes and
various discontents looming.
“This kind of titanic clash of a cost ofliving crisis meeting a cost of running
the railway crisis is a very tricky one to
unpick.”
More than 40,000 members of the
RMT union are set to stage 24-hour
strikes on June 21, 23 and 25 in a dispute
over proposed job losses and pay. The
walkouts are expected to shut the vast
majority of the network.
The rail industry is under huge pres-
sure to cut costs from the government,
which has bankrolled operations to the
tune of £16 billion since the pandemic.
Downing Street is adamant the rail-
ways must start to support themselves
again and adapt to new travel patterns,
with passenger numbers at about 75 per
cent of pre-pandemic levels.
The Department for Transport said:
“We do not comment on speculation.”Ben Clatworthy
Transport Correspondent
Fare increases
Annual season ticket after 11.1% riseBrighton to London
£5,302 £5,891 £Gloucester to Birmingham
£4,638 £5,153 £Edinburgh to Glasgow
£4,430 £4,922 £
Woking to London
£3,662 £4,068 £
Welwyn Garden City to London
£3,300 £3,666 £Price After rise Increase