Plaid Cymru supports the principles of the Trade Union (Wales) Bill, and we also welcome the desire to introduce an amendment on the use of agency workers, although we do agree that it would, perhaps, have been better for it to have been included from the outset, as the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee has stated.

This Bill, of course, will disapply aspects of the UK Government’s Trade Union Act 2016, and that Act was enacted in March of this year, undermining the rights of workers. Any attempt to safeguard those rights are to be welcomed, but ultimately, we in Wales need to have the full powers to defend and protect workers’ rights and to develop a fair way of collaborating between workers and the employers—a way that would reflect our values as a nation.

The Trade Union Act of 2016 is an unnecessary attack on workers’ rights. It will be far more difficult for workers to get pay rises, to stop job losses or to negotiate better working conditions in the workplace as a result of this Act. The Act makes it more difficult for unions to do their day-to-day work in dealing with problems in the workplace before they develop into disputes, and the Act actually limits protest, and that is a real problem for a crucial part of our democracy. It is difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion that the Conservative Government is determined to weaken trade unions in order to attack workers’ rights, pay and working conditions.

Bargaining between the employer and the employee works, because both sides have power. That is why most negotiations end not in a strike, but in agreement or resolution, and such an approach helps union members and those who aren’t union members in the same way. That helps to maintain public services. Treating workers with dignity and respect leads to a workforce that is willing to put the public first, from the patients in our hospitals and those receiving care to those collecting our rubbish and dealing with our recycling. Treating the workforce with respect makes business sense. But the Trade Union Act 2016 has shifted the power, and it is now far too heavily biased in one direction.

This is the latest attempt by the Conservatives, in their long history of attacking workers’ rights—rights that are at even greater risk following the decision to leave the European Union. Over the 1980s and early 1990s, a number of pieces of legislation were passed, drawn up by the Conservative Government, attacking the trade unions and workers’ rights. These include the Employment Act 1980, the Employment Act 1982 and the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993. Now, Labour, between 1997 and 2010, had an opportunity to undo the work of the Conservatives, but that opportunity was not taken. In its manifesto for the general election in 1997, the Labour Party stated that key elements of trade union legislation of the 1980s would remain in place. So, the prohibition on picketing and most restrictions on ballots remain in place. It is true to say that an attempt was made, but a very weak attempt, to strengthen rights through the Employment Relations Act 1999 and the ensuing Act in 2004. But in terms of many of the important rights that were withdrawn from workers during the 1980s and early 1990s, when Labour had the opportunity to put them back in place, their efforts were weak, to say the least. There was no real attempt to roll back the damage done. There was no real attempt to safeguard workers from the ill-doings of the Conservatives.

The Welsh Government has to rush this Bill through now. Once the Wales Act is in place and enacted, then industrial relations will be specifically reserved to Westminster. The attempt of the Welsh Government to use the benefits of conferred powers will be scrapped by the UK Government, and that is the fundamental weakness of the Wales Act, and why we need another Wales Act as a matter of urgency. It’s political motives that are at work here, with the Conservatives in Westminster attempting to ensure a uniform and cruel policy across Wales, England and Scotland, ignoring the devolved competence of the Assembly as it currently stands, ignoring the fact that we are not uniform nations. That is, there is a power grab happening here.

The Wales Act is a mechanism to roll powers back from this National Assembly, reducing the scope of what we can do for the benefit of our people here in Wales. There is a very real risk that the Conservatives are planning to grab more powers back to the centre as a result of leaving the European Union—