3. Will the Commission make a statement on the payment of the real living wage to Senedd employees and contractors? OQ56689

The Living Wage Foundation rate for the United Kingdom, excluding London is currently £9.50 per hour. The minimum entry pay for Commission employees is currently £10.50 per hour. The previous Commission agreed that, with effect from April 2020, all Commission contract staff should be paid in line with the minimum entry pay for Commission staff. Therefore, the minimum pay for all contractors is also £10.50 per hour.

I welcome that answer, and I pay tribute and acknowledge the work of other Members in the fifth Senedd who pushed this agenda very, very hard indeed there, because of the importance of our democratic heart here of Wales as a nation, leading by example.

I wonder if I could ask whether there is more now that we can and should do to lead by example, either in omissions that we might not currently be aware of that we can cast our mind to, or alternatively, by actually sharing the experience of an institution like this with others in how we do actually promote the real living wage, not simply to the employees, but further afield, deep down beyond the organisation to everybody who touches this organisation?

Yes, indeed, and I think we can be proud as an employer that we do now employ all our staff and our contracted staff above the real living wage, and I pay tribute in particular here to Joyce Watson who has championed this in the last Senedd, and in the Commission. And, I think that, hopefully, we can think about how our example here of working with our contractors to ensure that the real living wage, above the real living wage, is paid to contract employees shows that, by discussion, we can get to a place where nobody working for us, with us here in the Senedd, is at a disadvantage, whether they are directly employed, employed by Members of the Senedd, or employed by our contractors.