Grant Shapps threatens to impose new working terms on striking rail staff

Transport secretary steps up battle with unions, saying ‘that is the direction this is moving in now’

New working terms will be imposed on striking rail staff if they refuse to accept deals on the table, the transport secretary has threatened.

Grant Shapps stepped up his battle with the rail unions by revealing plans to use a section 188 order to end the disputes, saying: “That is the direction that this is moving in now.”

But one union rejected his claim that an 8 per cent pay rise is on offer, insisting the privatised rail firms have offered just 2 per cent – alongside job losses and pension cuts.

“Everything Grant Shapps does seems to be aimed at ramping up this dispute rather than resolving it,” said Luke Chester, from the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) said.

The clash escalated as tube, rail and bus strikes caused severe disruption across London as thousands of workers walked out over pay, pensions and job fears.

Mainline train services were disrupted on Friday – the knock-on effect of Thursday’s RMT strike – ahead of a further walkout on Saturday that will allow just 20 per cent of services to run.

Mr Shapps argues outdated working practices need to be updated – a claim the unions view as a smokescreen to slash jobs and cut rail workers’ real pay and conditions.

“The deal that is on the table actually means largely no compulsory redundancies at all,” he told Sky News.

“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.”

Although Mr Shapps – who backs Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership race – is unlikely to remain as transport secretary if the favourite Liz Truss wins the race, she has echoed his hardline stance.

The foreign secretary has unveiled her own planned crackdown on labour laws, including minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure to keep trains, buses and other services running.

New laws would be introduced in parliament within a month of her taking office, Ms Truss said – also raising ballot thresholds to make it harder for strike action to take place in all workplaces.

A cooling-off period would also be introduced to prevent unions arranging strikes as many times as they like in the six-month period after a ballot.