9. What assessment has the First Minister made of the impact of the Trade Union Act 2016 since it came into force in March this year? OAQ(5)0565(FM)

Our assessment of the Trade Union Act remains: that it is divisive, damaging and risks undermining public services and the economy.

I thank you for that answer and I share your opinion. Do you agree that by forcing public sector employers to publish information on facility time—that is, the time taken off from work to allow union representatives to carry out their duties when helping employees—that by doing this, the Trade Union Act 2016 blatantly discriminates against public sector workers and serves to weaken their rights and their working conditions? And what, First Minister, is the Welsh Government doing to help protect workers’ rights across Wales?

We, of course, have taken forward legislation in this Assembly to do just that in the areas that we believe are devolved. It is a bureaucratic imposition on public sector employers that they have to do this. It’s not something that the private sector is required to do. But also, it seems to indicate that, somehow, the current UK Government sees public sector workers as somehow not as good as those in the private sector. That’s the insinuation: that, somehow, they’re spending all their time in facility time and not actually doing any real work. That’s not the case at all. We know that huge amounts of work go into the public sector, from so many hundreds of thousands of people up and down the length and breadth of Wales, and that is why this legislation was so unnecessary.