Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:57 pm on 7 June 2022.
Diolch. Can I thank the Member for his contribution and the commitment from Plaid Cymru to actually work with us? This Bill proposes to harness the power of public procurement and the broader benefits it can bring, because the measures outlined in the Bill seek to leverage the power of the public purse to pursue, and deliver more importantly, outcomes that are beneficial, more broadly, to our communities, to our economy and to our environment. The way we carry out our procurement and commissioning, and the rigour with which we actually manage that—those commercial arrangements in particular, and the supply chains—have a direct impact on fair work, but also other well-being outcomes in Wales and further afield. This legislation provides the opportunity to go further in delivering those well-being goals for procurement, and that's why we've chosen to include those broader well-being goals as part of the legislation as well as simply fair work.
Those procurement duties about contributing to environmental, social, economic and cultural well-being—. Apart from the contract management duties, the Bill contains no further details about expectations in these categories, and I think that's why there is a real opportunity here to work together in developing statutory guidance that sets out how public bodies should set out those socially responsible procurement objectives and what should be included in that procurement, such as in annual reports and, importantly, to get that data to include the data that we need to be collecting and reporting in order to actually better meet those objectives that the Member and colleagues on the Plaid Cymru benches have, as you said, been raising since 2012. We've been developing this Bill for almost as long as that, it feels, some of the time.
I never thought that I would be stood somewhere saying that procurement is very exciting, but, actually, it does—. You smile knowingly there. This is a framework piece of legislation, but it does bring with it huge opportunities in terms of actually demonstrating what we can do here in Wales, in terms of where we place that social value when it comes to procurement and what we can deliver not just for fair work but, like you say, those broader benefits, whether that's for environmental benefits or, actually, in terms of our communities and actually making sure that we are investing in the Welsh economy and our communities right across the country.
On the broader points around social partnership generally, we've tried to define, alongside the legislation, what we actually mean by social partnership, and that is working together with a common agenda to provide mutual gains for the benefit of all parties, but alongside the legislation—. The legislation is significant, but it is one part of that process, and alongside this legislation we are conducting a review of social partnership working right across Government and beyond, to give us greater clarity and consistency, and also to recognise the capacity of partners to be part of this process, to make sure that we better engage and better link across it. We've obviously been working very closely with partners such as the Wales TUC and also partners from the employer representatives as well, to make sure that that is done in a way that brings those broader benefits we want to see, and I'd very much welcome conversations with colleagues in the Chamber about actually how we can do that and to be part of that as we move things forward alongside this significant legislation.