<p>Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 21 June 2016.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:59, 21 June 2016

I haven’t seen those comments. At the beginning, he seemed to be advocating Welsh independence, talking about small countries. I’m sure he’ll explain his position a little later. I don’t believe that, and I’ll explain why: the reason why people are angry at the moment is they feel their jobs aren’t secure. They remember the days when there were jobs available, when they had long-term contracts, when there were pensions at the end, when there was strong trade union recognition. Those rights were stripped away consistently over many, many years, and what we see now is too many people in jobs where the wages are lower, where there’s casualisation, where there are zero-hours contracts and where trade union recognition is denied to them. We see that, of course, encapsulated in the last few weeks with Mike Ashley—that’s the sort of future that we don’t want to see on these benches, not by any stretch of the imagination. That’s what drives people’s anger. But, the reality is that the levels of migration will remain much the same as they are for the next few years at least, whatever happens. It’s not a question of migrants causing the problem; it’s a question of the fact that the law isn’t strong enough, and trade union recognition isn’t strong enough to make sure that people have the secure jobs that they need. I’ve no doubt at all that those people who advocate that we should leave the EU are not going to suddenly turn round and say, ‘Let’s go back to the days when there was strong trade union recognition, when we had higher wages, when we had longer-term contracts, we didn’t have zero-hours contracts, when people had pensions at the end of their jobs.’ I don’t see any of that coming from the ‘leave’ campaign.