Concerns over working from home fines in Wales dismissed by Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford has dismissed concerns about fining people who fail to work from home as a "story without substance."

Anyone who cannot give a valid reason why they are travelling to an office will receive a £60 fine as Wales tries to limit the spread of the Omicron variant.

The new rules have now become law and employers could also be fined up to £10,000 if they repeatedly fail to allow people to work from home.

The law states "no person may leave the place where they are living, or remain away from that place, for the purposes of work or to provide voluntary or charitable services when it is reasonably practicable to do so from home."

Despite the new rules, people in Wales will still be able to leave home to visit pubs and restaurants and there is no limit on household mixing.

Mr Drakeford told a Welsh Government press conference on Wednesday that "the rules that we are introducing are exactly the rules that we had earlier in the pandemic.

"They are not some new set of rules, they are designed to protect workers, not to penalise them. No fines were issued at all when these rules were previously in place.

"They are there to make sure that if a worker feels that an employer is unreasonably expecting them to be in the workplace when they could work from home, they are able to point to the regulations and make it clear that they would be committing an offence were they to do so.

"It is to protect workers not to penalise them. When these rules were in place earlier in the pandemic they worked very well.

The new rules have caused controversy though with Plaid Cymru saying they should be scrapped.

The party's spokesperson for the economy, Luke Fletcher, has said “thinking that responsibility is shared between employer and worker is naïve, and anyone working in a minimum wage job can tell you where the power truly lies.

“The relationship between employers and their employees is not balanced, and yet we have a situation where employers could force their workers back on site – and the workers are the ones that could pick up the fine.

“The First Minister has claimed that these regulations replicate legislation previously agreed, but we now understand that this is a new duty placed on individuals.

“Members of the Senedd have not voted on these new regulations. If the Welsh Government is unable or unwilling to remove this part of the regulations, then Members of the Senedd must be given the earliest opportunity to strike down this provision.”

Meanwhile, Wales TUC is calling on the Welsh Government to repeal the legislation and remove the fines.

Its General secretary Shavanah Taj has said "A worker is not responsible for their place of work, their employer is...This sets a really worrying precedent that the responsibility is somehow shared, and is at best naive."

Kelly Andrews, a GMB senior organiser, has said her union thinks the rules "strike the wrong chord."

"We have major worries that this could lead to bad employers pressuring their workers to work away from home without a paper trail and place any financial risk on them.

"Those workers are also the most vulnerable and can least afford to take the financial hit...But the truth is, for a lot of families a £60 fine over Christmas will have a severe financial impact."

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