2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:18 pm on 23 January 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:18, 23 January 2018

Thank you for that. It's absolutely splendid to see that Iceland has indeed legislated to get equal pay. Of course, we've had an equal pay Act in the United Kingdom for quite some time, and we know that that hasn't led to the equality of pay that we'd like to have seen. In Wales, we've introduced legislation to help address the gender pay gap in the public sector. Of course, unfortunately, we don't have the power to do that in the private sector. The UK Government has introduced regulations on gender pay gap reporting for large employers in the private and voluntary sectors across Great Britain—250 employees or above, I understand—and we are actually exploring ways in which we can get a voluntary agreement here, in social partnership with our businesses, to see if we can extend that lower down the structures in Wales, because a large number of the companies in Wales are, of course, SMEs. Myself and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance have been looking at ways to do that using our procurement powers as well, for quite some time.

Chwarae Teg's initiative is indeed a very interesting one. I chair the fair work board, and we are looking at ways in which we can introduce such examples. We will be shortly making recommendations about a fair work commission in Wales, and I know that Chwarae Teg's proposals will be looked at very seriously there as a way of extending the service. I'd also like to recommend programmes like the Agile Nation 2 project, which Chwarae Teg runs. I've been, myself, to see the effect on the women who undertake those programmes. I believe the average pay rise for the women who've gone through that programme is about £3,000, which is amazing, and it shows you what you can do when you increase people's powers to understand what their rights can be in the workplace. But there's no doubt that it's a continuing problem. It's a very important thing that we're doing to make sure that the public sector here in Wales leads the way, both by example and by our spending power, to see what else we can do in Wales while the UK Government fails to act.