MIKE HEDGES MS ASKS FIRST MINISTER TO CONDEMN THE USE OF FIRE AND REHIRE BY COMPANIES IN WALES

MIKE HEDGES MS ASKS FIRST MINISTER TO CONDEMN THE USE OF FIRE AND REHIRE BY COMPANIES IN WALES

Speaking from his Senedd office, Local Swansea East MS, Mike Hedges said…  ‘The use of Fire and Rehire practices by companies operating in Wales should be condemned out of hand; it is an abuse of trust between employer and employee if this were to happen. People who work hard to help companies to achieve goals and provide services deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I will continue to call for no Welsh Government funding or contracts to be placed with companies who operate these terrible practices.’

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

Mark Drakeford MS14:18:08

First Minister of Wales

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.   63

Mike Hedges MS14:18:31

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?64

Mark Drakeford MS14:15:52

First Minister of Wales

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.