Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. The Welsh Government is committed to using every lever available to us to improve working lives and workplaces across the country. We are resolute in our ambition to become a nation of fair work, working together to ensure decent and dignified work that brings broader benefits for our communities, our economy and our environment. The social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill is an important part of this. 

Consultation on our draft Bill closed shortly before the Senedd elections in May. The response was very positive, with 85 responses broadly endorsing our proposals and a summary analysis of responses was published on 13 July. The draft Bill included provisions to strengthen and promote consistency in social partnership in Wales. It will put social partnership on a more formal footing by creating a statutory social partnership council and place a new duty on specified public bodies in Wales to involve the recognised trade unions when carrying out certain functions.

The draft Bill included measures to allow us to achieve socially responsible public procurement. As my colleague the Minister for Finance and Local Government confirmed, we are working closely with the UK Government on public procurement reform and will use their legislation for the basic processes that underpin procurement. But we believe that decisions on the policy outcomes from procurement should be made in Wales. We will establish a statutory framework that will place our priorities of fair work, decarbonisation and well-being at the heart of our procurement. The legislation will improve the link between procurement processes and the delivery of better outcomes through stronger contract management provisions to improve transparency. This will highlight areas for improvement and allow the sharing of good practice. Our aim is to establish a system in which organisations can be held to account for ensuring that contract conditions support socially responsible practices throughout supply chains, particularly in large construction contracts and outsourcing services contracts.

Finally, the Bill will introduce a specific duty on Welsh Ministers to take action to promote and encourage fair work when we are undertaking activity to improve the delivery of public services or the economic, social, environmental or cultural well-being of Wales. In practical terms, the Bill's fair work duty will mean that Welsh Ministers will be under a legal obligation to take action that promotes and encourages fair work as defined by the Fair Work Commission's report. The Bill will strengthen how we approach fair work across Government, providing us with a common approach underpinned by legislation. Promoting and encouraging fair work will no longer be a policy choice, where 'do nothing' is a potential option for Ministers and officials, because we will be under a duty to take action.

The Bill will also introduce a duty on Welsh Ministers to report annually on the activities we have taken to promote and encourage fair work. These specific fair work provisions, alongside the social partnership and sustainable procurement duties in the Bill, will provide added impetus, certainty and clarity to the actions we take to advance fair work.

The social partnership and public procurement Bill will therefore make good on a central recommendation of the Fair Work Commission by providing a framework to use all of our influence and policy levers to advance fair work. However, it's not just about legislation alone. We are already demonstrating how we will interpret the fair work duty and put our commitment to fair work into practice to ensure a better deal for workers, something which we are committed to building on.

The social care forum is at the forefront of informing our approach to delivering our programme for government commitment to pay social care workers the real living wage. The coronavirus pandemic has shone a spotlight on those workers whom we depend on for so much, from caring for our nearest and dearest to going about our daily lives. In response to this, we are exploring how a social partnership approach in other sectors can help respond to challenges not solely in terms of pay and conditions but also the sustainability of those sectors as a whole, such as hospitality and retail. And we are continuing to work with others to safeguard against a regression on workers' rights. We're working with social partners and a range of stakeholders to raise knowledge and awareness of workers' rights and where to access support and advice. We're also working to build and communicate the business benefits of fair work, including promoting real living wage adoption and accreditation. The ongoing refresh and strengthening of the economic contract and the fair work pillar within it will be an essential tool in our ongoing conversations and engagement with business.

In all of this, we are seeking to promote that, by working together, both employers and workers have a collective interest in the shared benefits of fair work. Trade unions should be front and centre of this work; they are the best route for collective representation in the workplace and have a central part to play not simply in driving up terms and conditions but more broadly in unlocking our economy as whole. With this in mind, alongside the Bill, we are committed to continuing to make the social and economic case for trade union membership and trade unions within workplaces in Wales.

Over the course of devolution, social partnership has very much come to be seen as a Welsh way of working. The past 18 months have demonstrated beyond any doubt the value of working in social partnership to tackle the big issues facing Wales. The social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill is an ambitious and progressive piece of legislation that places these values at the heart of decision making in Government, in Welsh public services and in taking forward our commitment to a more equal Wales. Throughout the summer, we have worked with social partners and key stakeholders to refine the provisions and we remain on track to introduce the legislation in the first year of this Senedd term.

I look forward to bringing the social partnership and public procurement (Wales) Bill before the Senedd and working together to deliver these benefits for workers in Wales and for the delivery of public services. But this is an important agenda that cannot wait, and we will continue to use non-legislative opportunities to progress fair work in the meantime.