Part of 2. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:44 pm on 29 March 2022.
Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, Jack Sargeant has made those points very powerfully indeed. The UK Government, this UK Government, promised in a Queen's Speech in 2019 that it would bring an employment Bill in front of the House of Commons. Where has that Bill been? Nowhere to be seen, of course. And had it been brought forward, maybe there would have been a chance to have addressed what UK Government Ministers are describing as an exploitation of a loophole in the law. Two thousand and nineteen, Llywydd. Here we are in 2022, and no sign of that promised Bill, and that tells you, as Jack Sargeant says, everything you need to know about the attitude of this current Conservative Government to workers' rights. I was privileged to meet Barry Gardiner, the Member of Parliament who brought forward the private Member's Bill to outlaw fire and rehire. The Prime Minister described the practice of fire and rehire as unacceptable, yet he allowed Conservative backbenchers in the House of Commons to talk out that private Member's Bill when it could have done so much good and certainly would have made a difference in the case of P&O. Now, the Prime Minister has claimed that P&O will be prosecuted under section 194 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but there's no sign of that happening either. The lack of action is deafening, as Jack Sargeant says. What we hear from Conservative Ministers are the lamest of excuses in the face of a deliberate flouting of the law by P&O. It was breathtaking that Peter Hebblethwaite was willing to turn up at a House of Commons select committee and acknowledge the fact that there was 'absolutely no doubt'—that's what he said—
'that we were required to consult with the unions.'
Well, there was no doubt because that's what the law of the land required them to do. He then went on to say, ‘We chose not to do that—we chose deliberately to break the law of the land.’ Where is the action that this Government needs to take in Westminster to address that sort of deliberate flouting of the law and to protect the workers who were on the receiving end of it?