Young Workers

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 22 March 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:21, 22 March 2022

Well, Llywydd, I congratulate Jack Sargeant on the work that he's carried out himself with young people, and the points he makes have surely been given even more urgency in this last week by the actions of employers at P&O. There'll be people from his constituency, there in the north-east of Wales, who have earned their living in Liverpool, where P&O operate. I heard the former Conservative Minister Ros Altmann on the radio this morning calling for further action against the company, particularly a refusal to allow the parent company to become involved in the freeports plans of the UK Government. There's a practical way in which a Government could demonstrate its determination that the sorts of responses that you heard from Jack Sargeant there are not replicated elsewhere. We certainly call on the UK Government to use its reserved powers in employment rights to make sure that people's rights, young people's rights are properly respected in the workforce. And joining a trade union is the single most effective action that a young person can take to make sure that they have the help and the support that they would need, were they to face the sorts of circumstances that Jack Sargeant has outlined this afternoon.