6. What assessment has the First Minister made of the use of fire and rehire by companies in Wales? OQ57993

Fire and rehire is not consistent with Welsh social partnership values. Using the threat of dismissal to diminish employment terms and conditions is an abuse of employer power. We continue to call on the UK Government to legislate to end what the Prime Minister calls a 'completely unacceptable' practice.   

Can I thank the First Minister for that response? Can I ask him to go a stage further and will he condemn the use of fire and rehire, and agree that it has no place in Wales and certainly no place in Welsh public services? Will the Welsh Government refuse to contract with firms that engage in fire and rehire and ask the Welsh Government funded bodies to do likewise?

I certainly do condemn the use of fire and rehire. We supported, as a Welsh Government, the Barry Gardiner private Members' Bill that would have outlawed the practice and made it impossible for it to happen. Unfortunately, the UK Government ordered its Conservative Members of Parliament to oppose the Bill and make sure that it was talked out. Where is the employment Bill in today's Queen's Speech? That was promised in the Queen's Speech of 2019 and you will search in vain for any reference to it in today's Queen's Speech. It would have been an opportunity for the UK Government to do what it says it believes should happen in the fire and rehire context. Have they learnt nothing from the P&O experience, where, once again, the Prime Minister made a series of condemnatory remarks, only to find that there is no action of any sort that has followed? Here in Wales, we are absolutely as one with those MPs—and they weren't just Labour MPs either—in the House of Commons who supported the Barry Gardiner Bill, and who would have seen it onto the statute book so that this 'completely unacceptable' practice, as the Prime Minister calls it, could not take place.