8. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership: Fair Work: Annual progress update

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:05 pm on 29 March 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 5:05, 29 March 2022

Sticking with P&O, step forward the company that actually employs people with different working conditions in the shipping industry; as far as I'm aware, they're all using offshore places to register their companies, and they're all paying really appalling wages, and the conditions that they house these people in are really quite dreadful. But there's very little that Welsh Government can do, not even collaborating with the UK Government. This is an international problem that has to be dealt with by the United Nations.

Sticking with what we can do something about, you mentioned that one of the levers the Welsh Government has to support individuals and organisations is to upskill them, so they can access fair work. So, I wanted to look at the areas of the economy where we know there are recruitment and retention challenges. The Welsh Government is investing a large sum of money in extending the real living wage to social care and childcare, as well as obviously investing many millions in the optimised retrofit programme. How and who are you upskilling people who are under-represented in those sectors, whether they're ethnic minorities or more men in childcare, more women as insulation fitters in the construction industry?