I welcome the statement and the general framework that the First Minister has set out. I’d be interested to hear from the First Minister, in developing this model of social partnership, what other models across Europe or even further afield the Government has looked at. Of course, we classically are very familiar with the model of social partnership in Germany, for example, and in Scandinavia, in Ireland too—until the financial crisis at least. What’s interesting, I think, about those examples, is that they all contributed towards economic prosperity. There is some sort of sub-context in the criticism of social partnership that it somehow leads to inefficiency. Well, the opposite is true in those cases. To what extent would the Welsh Government consider commissioning research that would look at this question at an individual company level in terms of the productivity and economic success of individual companies that do recognise unions as opposed to those who don’t? Because there is some broader academic evidence that would suggest that, and I do think it would be useful, as we build this framework for Wales, for us to demonstrate that there is an evidence base to the argument that it is beneficial at the bottom-line level for companies, because it does create a workforce that is motivated—there is more investment in training, there is less absence from the workplace, and so on and so forth.

And just one brief question on the timetable: does the Government intend to introduce this legislation and this framework within this term? And, finally, one of the fairer criticisms, perhaps, made of the social partnership model in recent times is that is there a risk, in focusing on employers, unions and Government, that you fall into a corporatist trap and that you exclude other elements of society that perhaps aren’t reflected in those structures? Is there scope to ensure that this partnership is all-inclusive and that it does look at the question of social inequality and injustice in its broader context—the broadest context, in fact—not just in the workplace?