TORIES threw “scrutiny and democracy out of the window” as they rejected Lords amendments to the government’s “pernicious” anti-strikes Bill today.

It leaves striking workers set to lose employment rights and unions facing penalties of up to £1 million for failing to ensure workers comply with the widely condemned regulations.

The Home Secretary is also on course to get “unchecked” powers to impose minimum service levels which would limit how many workers could strike.

Peers had attempted to remove these elements to the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, but all three of their amendments were voted down following a Commons debate.

Shadow employment minister Justin Madders urged MPs to back the Lords pleas that workers sacked for striking in non-compliance to the regulations should still have a right to an employment tribunal. 

He described it as “the pernicious heart of this Bill that seeks to destroy the basic freedoms that the trade union and labour movement have fought to secure over the course of history.”

Mr Madders said: “From the Chartists to the founding of the TUC, to the unionists at Taff Vale and the formation of the labour presentation committee, the working people of this country have faced a long and arduous struggle to improve their working condition and  fundamental to that struggle has been the right to withdraw your labour.

“When Conservative members inevitably vote down this amendment, they are saying to their constituents... that their voice does not matter.”

He described the Bill’s sanctions as “essentially a full blown attack on the independence of unions and their members,” adding: “The Home Secretary should not have the power to impose minimum service levels.

“The Bill represents a Secretary of State with huge, unchecked powers throwing scrutiny and democracy out of the window.

“No minister should hold that power.”

A committee of MPs will now go back to the Lords with the reasons for refusal.

The TUC said Britain will become “an international outlier” if the Bill is passed, warning that the right to strike of one in five workers in Britain is at risk.

General secretary Paul Nowak said: “No-one should be sacked for trying to win a better deal at work.

“That’s why peers have done the right thing and voted to stop nurses, teachers, firefighters and other public-sector workers getting sacked for exercising their right to strike.”