Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 4:48 pm on 11 October 2016.
Who can disagree with the powerful testimony that the leader of the opposition has given us? I’ve no reason to disbelieve what has been said. In an atmosphere of desperation, predators will thrive, and it seems that that is the case in Calais.
Last week, I met with the Welsh Local Government Association’s responsible elected member for refugees, Dyfed Edwards, the leader of Gwynedd, and we did work through some of these issues, including unaccompanied children. It’s true to say that few refugees have come to Wales thus far, but the two of us did talk about how we can help local authorities to resettle adult refugees as well as unaccompanied children. Of course, we agreed to work together as well in order to make sure that, where we feel that funds should come from a non-devolved source, those funds do come from Whitehall. But, certainly, it was a good meeting and it emphasised, once again, that ourselves and the WLGA very much want to ensure that children have a safe haven in Wales and are able to move away permanently from the sort of exploitation that she’s relayed to us.