More teachers for Wales if Starmer is PM, says Vaughan Gething

Welsh Labour’s leader also unveiled plans for a new scheme to get businesses and unions to work together to improve employment rights.

Mr Gething says the Fair Work Fund – Gwaith Teg in Welsh – will pay for projects to tackle unfair practice and bullying in the workplace.

It will be financed through the replacement for the money which used to come to Wales from the European Union and be distributed by the Welsh government.

The first minister said the policy will be “a priority” if Labour wins the general election.

The scheme will “supplement” Sir Keir’s Starmer’s “New Deal for Working People” plan and “create good fair work for all”.

Welsh Labour said unions and businesses “will be invited” to work with the Labour Welsh government to design the fund.

Sir Keir has faced criticism from the Unite union, which says he has watered down his workers’ rights offer in a “New Deal for Working People”.

In his plan, he pledges to end fire and re-hire, a practice where businesses dismiss workers and then hire them back on worse deals.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said the deal “had more holes in it that Swiss cheese”, however, Sir Keir said it was “the biggest levelling up of working peoples’ rights for a generation”.

Additional reporting by Shelley Phelps.