10. Will the Minister provide an update on attempts to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools? OAQ(5)0027(EDU)

Thank you, Hannah. I want to make it clear that I will not tolerate any bullying in the Welsh education system. I expect schools and education services to make it clear that all forms of bullying are entirely unacceptable and to tackle any incidents vigorously, ensuring that pupils are properly supported.

Thank you. I welcome your commitment in this area, Cabinet Secretary, and the time you’ve also taken to meet with me and my colleague, Jeremy Miles, to discuss this. One of the things we spoke about in those meetings was the examples of best practice happening in schools across Wales. Will you commit, Cabinet Secretary, to visit some of these schools to see the best practice in action?

Thank you, Hannah. I was very grateful to both you and Jeremy for leading on this agenda and coming to see me prior to the summer recess to talk about the importance of this agenda. As a result of that meeting, I am establishing an expert task group to better support me and officials in how we can support schools in this agenda. What we are aware of, from research, is that many schools feel—and teachers often feel—that they don’t have the knowledge or the understanding of how best to address some of these situations. So, we will be asking the expert group to help us to develop new resources that will be available for teachers to tackle bullying in all of its forms to be able to give them confidence. We will continue to look to do what we can to support schools and individual teachers to ensure that they are best equipped to support their pupils and to ensure that our schools are bullying-free zones.

Cabinet Secretary, Lindsay Whittle, my colleague in the previous Assembly, who I know you know well, did a campaign to raise awareness of bullying issues in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in south-east Wales, and notified that there was a high level of bullying in schools in relation to that agenda. I was wondering if you had noted that research that he had done and taken much time to complete, and whether you had looked at the whole scope of Wales in relation to how you can tackle this and looked to him for his research to base that potential future work on.

Thank you, Bethan. It’s remiss of me—I wasn’t aware of the existence of Lindsay’s work, but I know that Lindsay approached all his work during his time in this Assembly with great enthusiasm and assiduousness, and so I’d be very pleased to see it. Perhaps you will be good enough to facilitate getting that research to me, because I’d be very pleased to look at it. As well as meeting with Hannah Blythyn and Jeremy Miles, I’m due to meet with Stonewall Cymru, meeting with Show Racism the Red Card—we’re working with them—meeting with the adviser to the Welsh Government on domestic violence; we’re meeting with as many experts as we can to be able to draw on their knowledge and expertise, so that we can pool that knowledge and good practice to ensure that bullying in all its forms, whether it is reflective of somebody’s sexuality, their race, their religion—that we can support schools and individuals, so that children going to Welsh schools feel safe and secure. If we can’t do that for them, we can’t expect them to learn. So our first thing must be to ensure that our environments are safe and secure.

I think it’s 13 years since I first attended a Stonewall Cymru—we used to call it homophobic bullying then, without the additional relevant terms now used. I think you were probably present at it too, 13 years ago. I was recently, however, contacted by the parents of a young man who was suffering homophobic bullying—I won’t name the local authority—but although the local authority and teachers claimed to have awareness to respond, that was not exhibited. It was only after he contacted me, and I referred them to Stonewall Cymru, that they then discovered the access to independent advocacy. What action can you take, all these years later, to ensure that schools and local authorities know that they should be advising such young people of their right to independent advocacy at the beginning of the process?

Thank you, Mark, for bringing that incident to my attention. If you would like to supply me with full details of the case, I’d be more than happy to look at it, and to ask my officials to look at whether everything that was done in that particular instance was what should have been done. If you’d be good enough to send it to me, I’d be very grateful indeed. We are about to carry out a refresh of the Welsh Government’s existing anti-bullying strategy, to look to see whether we can refine it, better target it, and to make sure it’s up to date. I will be making a statement to the Chamber when that work is complete.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.