Thank you, Presiding Officer. I feel privileged to again take on this important agenda to end violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence. I am proud to have been the Minister responsible for the early development of the Bill, which was successfully taken forward by my colleagues Lesley Griffiths and Leighton Andrews.

In June of 2014, Welsh Government was awarded White Ribbon accreditation and there are several White Ribbon ambassadors within the Cabinet, and I am proud to have been one for many years. The purpose of the Act is to improve prevention, protection and support for people affected by gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence, and we’re making good progress on the implementation. To improve early intervention, it’s vital that the public sector workforce can identify abuse and get help and support to victims.

In March, we published the national training framework. It sets out training requirements for all roles within the Welsh public service, including awareness-raising training for all staff, helping professionals to deal with disclosures of abuse, and ensuring that consistent training is available for specialist professionals. A key part of the framework is the e-learning package published last September. The e-learning will raise the awareness of about 0.25 million Welsh public service workers over the next two years.

We have also introduced ‘ask and act’. This requires professionals like health visitors and housing officers to identify symptoms of abuse and to ask clients if they are being abused. They are required to offer referrals, interventions and specialist support depending on what they need. This is a five-year project funded by Welsh Government and is being piloted in two parts of Wales. We have received extremely positive feedback on this project.

To really help us prevent violence against women in the future, we have to focus on children, to make sure they understand what constitutes a healthy relationship and how to recognise the symptoms of unhealthy relationships. So far we have published a whole education approach to good practice guide, produced by Welsh Women’s Aid, and an awareness-raising guide for school governors published in March 2016. We’ve also held a joint national education conference.

Statutory guidance on education will make local authorities designate a member of staff for the purpose of championing violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence matters in schools and other settings. Our aim is to publish this by the end of the year. We have also commissioned Welsh Women’s Aid to develop a package of best practice materials in relation to these matters, for use in education settings across Wales. These will also be published shortly.

Public services need to work together to protect people experiencing violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence from suffering any further harm, and protect any family member and children.

In 2015-16 we increased the budget for tackling violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence to £5.4 million and this remains unchanged for 2016-17. We have also taken significant steps to reduce the incidence, and to protect victims, of female genital mutilation, forced marriage and honour based violence.

For the future, we know that a big part of tackling violence against women will be to tackle perpetrators. We are working with the National Probation Service and the national adviser on guidance on perpetrators. We are also working with victims and survivors to help us shape our ongoing approach.

We continue to support the Live Fear Free website, which provides a comprehensive resource for victims, survivors, families and friends and professionals. The website supports the work of the helpline in providing advice and signposting.

The Welsh Government has produced several high-profile campaigns to raise awareness and change attitudes in the last year. This includes the award-winning Cross the Line campaign, which deals with emotional abuse. This campaign received both silver and gold awards at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations awards last October. I intend to build on the success in 2016-17.

We’ve also made significant progress but there is more to do. We will consult on the national strategy, including measures of performance and progress, which will inform a framework for regional delivery of services. And I look forward to working with the national adviser, Rhian Bowen-Davies, who I met last week, public and third sector organisations, with victims and survivors to continue the excellent work done so far in delivering our activities to tackle violence against women.