It will be no surprise to Members here that I don’t agree with the Member’s recollection of history, but it isn’t just his understanding of the past that’s at fault here, it’s his understanding of the present as well. His idea that there are no unions involved in private companies in Wales—has he not heard of Ford or Tata or Toyota or many other private sector employers that I could mention? I have to say to him what the First Minister said to him yesterday: his interest in reasonable thresholds was much less to be seen during the referendum campaign, when he was not interested in introducing artificial thresholds into that piece of voting.

He asked me about the provisions in our Bill. Let me just give him one example of why we are so determined to act. The UK Government’s Bill places new barriers in the path of workplace representation. Now, why do we think that having proper access to time in order to represent your members is so important? It’s because you cannot have a social partnership model unless all the partners at the table have access to the time they need in order to discharge their responsibilities. It simply makes the likelihood of strikes greater, not less, if employers are unable to speak directly, in a timely fashion, on behalf of those people they represent. All our Bill does is to retain the status quo in that regard—the status quo that has been successful. His way of doing things would take us backwards.

Our aim is to make sure that the future of industrial relations in our great public services is properly sustained by a balanced set of relationships between the Welsh Government, employers and employees. I say again to Assembly Members: this is not a Bill simply supported by trade unions, it is supported by the great public service employers as well. They see the advantages of having proper representation for their workers, because that’s how they have the dialogue they need in order to address and resolve the collective issues that face them.