I thank the Member for her contribution. She should be aware that this is the second time that I’ve been in this portfolio and I have worked with many groups to increase the opportunities we have, working with Government to make sure we tackle these issues. I welcome the opportunity to work with the Member in a more constructive way in the future too. I think it would help though if the Member were to look in more detail at some of the issues that she raises with me today. Of course, I did mention to the Member that, in 2015-16, we increased the budget for tackling violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence to £5.4 million. That remains unchanged for 2016-17. The Member is right to raise the issue of local authority intervention, but there are so many other players too, and the issue around the Supporting People grant around refuges particularly—we work with Supporting People, which issues a significant amount of money to third sector organisations and indeed to housing associations too, who are also partners in this. I’ve already spoken to three of the four police and crime commissioners across Wales, who I know are also very keen to join with us in tackling some of the issues that the Member raises.

It is also perhaps unfortunate language that the Member uses in terms of the defence of reasonable chastisement. This Government will legislate on the defence of reasonable chastisement in this term of Government, and I will be taking that legislation through. I look forward to the Member’s support as we move forward. There are many complex items in dealing with these issues, and some of the priorities that my team have already started working on, which I will be pursuing with colleagues across Government, are things like adverse childhood experiences, ACEs for short, which have a massive impact on the way people grow up and the effects of that. We’re also seeing some great programmes already running in pilot form across Wales—the IRIS programme, which started its life in Bristol, is now being rolled out across many of the Cardiff GP surgeries, where we are seeing first-time referrals increasing dramatically, day by day, which seems tragic, but actually it’s great news that we’re seeing people have the ability and confidence to be supported in this tragic position they find themselves in. We’ve got IDVA health-led services being rolled out across Wales, and also the issue around a perpetrators’ programme that’s run in Essex and Sussex, and the south Wales police and crime commissioner is looking at the ‘Drive’ programme, which should be, again, something we should think about—how do we make sure these programmes are consistent across the whole of Wales?