8. United Kingdom Independence Party Debate: Home Working

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:26 pm on 8 May 2019.

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Photo of Gareth Bennett Gareth Bennett UKIP 5:26, 8 May 2019

Thanks, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thanks to the participants in what was an interesting debate. Thanks to Russell George, who said that the Conservative group broadly supported the aims of today's motion. And as I said in my opening remarks, I understood the logic of their amendments and we were supportive of their amendments. Now, Russell did raise some of the potential difficulties of homeworking that we should be mindful of. They were points that were also taken up by Michelle, and more fulsomely, I would say, in Michelle's case; she certainly was not so enthusiastic.

Now, we have to appreciate there are potential downsides, of course. Issues that have been mentioned, even by advocates of more homeworking, have included potential social isolation and lack of camaraderie of employees and feeling out of the loop. Conflict with other workers was a point that Russell raised specifically, and Michelle also—well, she mentioned a number of things. Now, these are all very valid issues, and we do have to be mindful of them, but the point of the motion today was that people should be enabled to work at home if they want to do so. It wasn't about people being forced to work from home. And I did make that clear in the opening remarks and I'd like to reassert those points.

Now, the Government response—thank you for your broad support, and I accept that you feel the need to amend it for the reasons that the Minister gave. Now, we do accept that Superfast Cymru has been a good programme. There are considerable difficulties with the physical geography of Wales, and providing a very good broadband speed and a reliable broadband speed is, of course, probably the major issue that will allow us to move forward with more homeworking. Lots of general things from the Government to do with equalities and fair work practices, which, of course, are good objectives, but we would like some more commitment, if possible, to the actual specifics of working from home in future. So, hopefully, we will get that and we can move forward with this and develop some specific measures to improve homeworking, but thanks for participating and diolch yn fawr iawn.