Sketching Out a New Future: A Policy Focus

What does the near future of sustainability and fair work policy look like for Wales?

Sketching Out a New Future: A Policy Focus

Every month in Cynnal Cymru’s excellent newsletter (subscribe here), we explore a different question or topic through the lens of our core organisational aims of a fair and just society, an inclusive low-carbon economy, and healthy, restored ecosystems. 

Last month, we thought about how to handle complexity within times of change in our job roles or the wider sustainability conversation. This month, we’re thinking about what it means to craft and build a new future together. We’re a few weeks out from an election that saw the Conservatives leave office for the first time in 14 years, with Labour winning a majority of 172 seats. Labour’s campaign slogan was simple: Change. 

The public policy landscape has started to shift already, with 40 pieces of legislation introduced by the new government (and an additional two carried over from the previous parliamentary session). 

Unsurprisingly for an organisation called Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales, we have a core focus on sustainability. We also want to ensure that action on climate change leads to a better society, and doesn’t leave workers behind – that’s where our Fair Economy team comes in. For an organisation that has this focus on sustainability and a fair economy (such as fair working practices), there is plenty for us to sink our teeth into. 

Sustainability

One of the new government’s flagship policies has been the creation of a new organisation called GB Energy – a new, publicly-owned green power company. The UK Government intends to invest over £8bn in this organisation over the next five years – a major spending commitment. 

It’s still early days for GB Energy, and there’s more to learn about how it will operate as it comes into life. However, it seems that a core remit will be co-investing in emerging renewable energy technology and scaling up investment in more established technologies. Essentially, it will aim to unlock private sector investment in renewables by de-risking and clearing the way for this investment. 

Chris Stark – former Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee – has also been appointed to lead a new ‘Mission Control’ that will aim to break down barriers and accelerate progress on clean energy projects.  

UK Labour appears to lean on some of the work of economist Professor Mariana Mazzucato. Labour’s ‘five missions to rebuild Britain’, chime with Mazzucato’s 2021 book ‘Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism’. This book was inspired by the space race, which, in the US, took a ‘missions-based’ systems-engineering approach to coordination of the public and private sectors to put human beings on the moon. 

Sound familiar? This appears to very much be the approach of the new UK Labour government with regards to its ‘National Missions’, ‘Mission Control’, and the public-private approach of GB Energy. 

This plan is not without controversy. Many will question the need for private sector involvement, with the inevitable siphoning off of proceeds into private profit, particularly where the public purse is de-risking projects – although the government would counter that private expertise and buy-in is necessary. 

There is a particular sensitivity in Wales, too. GB Energy has already announced a partnership with the Crown Estate in England and Wales. The Crown Estate owns a substantial amount of Britain’s land, including the majority of the seabed, and public money will be used to lease this land to develop windfarms. 

There have been calls for the Crown Estate to be devolved to Wales, a position long supported by the Welsh Government. However, the UK Government does not have this as a proposal in its legislative agenda.    

Fair Work: Policy Highlight

There is news on the fair work front, too. The King’s Speech included a new Employment Rights Bill. The UK Government has said this Bill will enhance a long list of working rights: 

  • Banning ‘exploitative’ zero-hours contracts 
  • Ending ‘Fire and Rehire’ and ‘Fire and Replace’ 
  • Making parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal available from the first day of employment (whilst retaining the option of probationary periods) 
  • Removing the lower earnings limit for Statutory Sick Pay 
  • Flexible working the default from day-one for all workers 
  • Making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work (except in specific circumstances) 
  • A new Fair Work Agency to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights 
  • A new Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector, with potential expansion to other sectors 
  • Removal of some restrictions on trade union activity 
  • Simplifying the process of statutory recognition for trade unions 
  • Introducing a regulated route to ensure workers and union members have a reasonable right to access a union within workplaces 

This appears to be a strong set of proposals to strengthen workers’ rights in the UK. However, the detail will be crucial – for example, the ‘teeth’ that the new Fair Work Agency is given, the exemptions for employers around new rights such as protecting new mothers, and how broad the definition of ‘exploitative’ zero hours contracts is. 

The Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector will be particularly interesting, and is under-remarked on. ‘Fair Pay Agreements’ are essentially an industry-wide employment agreement, where government brings together trade unions and employers to agree minimum pay rates and conditions across the sector. 

The UK model of collective bargaining currently focuses largely on the firm level. Research has found that this model poses a significant challenge to trade unions, which have to secure agreements workplace-by-workplace. It also found that no country which operates on this model has collective bargaining coverage of over 35%, with collective bargaining coverage only remaining high and stable in countries where multi-employer or sectoral agreements – such as these Fair Pay Agreements – are negotiated.  

That the UK Government is now proposing to bring sectoral agreements into the social care sector, potentially as a ‘proof of concept’ for other low-paid sectors, is significant. If rolled out successfully and more extensively, this could be the start of a quiet revolution in the UK’s industrial relations settlement.  

Given Cynnal Cymru’s longstanding work on the real Living Wage (we’re the Living Wage Foundation’s Accreditation Partner for Wales and host Living Wage Wales in-house), there’s a particularly interesting commitment to deliver a ‘genuine living wage’. The Low Pay Commission, which suggests the minimum wage rate (or National Living Wage as it’s now called) will now have to consider the cost of living when making its recommendation. 

For our part, the real Living Wage is set directly according to the cost of living, based on a basket of household goods and services. That’s a different remit to the one of the new Low Pay Commission, so we’ll be keeping an eye on any differences in the two rates. 

What does this mean for our future? 

There is so much we could say around policy that relates to fair work and sustainability, and the impacts these changes could mean for our foundational economy too.  

There is clearly a huge amount of change being undertaken that speaks to the things we care about at Cynnal Cymru, encompassed by our vision of a fair and just society, an inclusive low-carbon economy, and healthy, restored ecosystems. . 

We know that legislation can’t deliver everything and it doesn’t work on its own. We also believe in the power of partners, citizens and action-focused advocacy to bring about the transformative change that we need.

If you want to stay up to date on policy news related to fair work and sustainability, subscribe to our newsletter or become a member and receive regular advice and support. You can also learn about how to become a Living Wage employer here.  

Harry Thompson is Senior Programme and Policy Lead: Fair Work and Economy and manages the Fair Work and Living Wage team, which work towards Cynnal Cymru’s strategic goal of a fair and just society.

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