Diolch, Llywydd. As we've heard from my colleague, Luke Fletcher, the UK Government's anti-strike legislation is a draconian swipe against workers seeking a fair wage for their services. What is also apparent is that this measure has worrying implications for the legislative agenda of this Senedd. Over the past few years, we've become well accustomed to the centralising tendencies of the Westminster Government as well as their thinly veiled contempt for devolution. Brexit has seemingly fuelled a form of muscular unionism that frequently rides roughshod over devolved areas of competence. This is exemplified by the introduction of measures such as the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the retained EU law Bill. As the First Minister alluded to earlier in the year, breaches of the Sewel convention, once unheard of in the context of devolved-UK Government relations, have become commonplace in recent years. Meanwhile, the use of section 83 powers to block the Scottish Government's gender recognition reform Bill underlines the sheer fallacy of the union as a partnership of equals.

Now, it appears that anti-strike legislation will conflict with an area of work that the Senedd has been working on, namely the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, and in particular its aim to make Wales a fair work nation. As Members will be aware, the Fair Work Commission was established as a precursor to the development of the Bill. One of its primary recommendations was the need to embed fair work practices within the legislative framework. Fair work practices were defined by the commission as a state of affairs

'where workers are fairly rewarded, heard and represented, secure and able to progress in a healthy, inclusive environment where rights are respected.'

On the basis that the Bill will contain a statutory social partnership duty on public bodies to seek consensus or compromise with trade unions, overseen by the social partnership council, which will include trade union representation, it's difficult to envisage how these fair work goals can be compatible in any way with the anti-strike Bill legislation, which is designed to seek antagonism and coercion over consensus and compromise. As I've already alluded to, the supremacy of Westminster and the disregard of this Tory Government for devolution mean the fair work agenda here in Wales is in considerable jeopardy.

Whilst we acknowledge the fact that matters of employment law in Wales are almost fully reserved to Westminster, there are some steps that could be taken to futureproof the fair work agenda from Westminster's recklessness. For example, the Scottish Government recently established a fair work and trade union modernisation fund, which is used to embed practices of fair work in industrial relations. With the implementation of the social partnership Bill, this approach should be replicated in Wales to ensure that the ambition of providing trade unions with a stronger voice in the development of economic and industrial policies is consolidated on a long-term, practical basis. This would also go some way to revitalising union presence within our private sector and amongst young workers. There is a clear discrepancy at present between union membership in the public and private sectors in Wales—just over 60 per cent in the case of the former, and just under 20 per cent in the case of the latter. Furthermore, only just over 30 per cent of workers in Wales aged 25 to 34 are members of a union, compared to 45.4 per cent of workers aged 50 and above. Clearly, there's a need to address these imbalances if the objectives of the fair work agenda are to benefit the whole of Wales.

Finally, the Welsh Government should consider introducing an accreditation scheme, whereby a public-facing fair work Wales standard would incentivise employers to participate and uphold the objectives of the fair work agenda. Diolch yn fawr.