Thank you very much.

We move on to item 4, which is a statement by the Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee on the committee’s forward work programme including refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children. I call on John Griffiths to move the statement. John.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I am grateful for the opportunity afforded to committee chairs to make statements to the Chamber. It is a welcome opportunity, Dirprwy Lywydd, to raise the profile of issues important to the Welsh public.

I and members of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee have given careful thought to the priorities we wish to pursue through the fifth term of this Assembly and Members were unified in their belief that the committee’s work must be: outward facing, by providing genuine engagement with communities in every part of Wales, and in new and innovative ways; committed to being solution focused by bringing together expert knowledge and experience to provide solutions for public authorities to tackle some of Wales’s deepest inequalities; and dedicated to the effective scrutiny of the Welsh Government, with a view to improving public policy and legislation in Wales.

The committee is currently carrying out post-legislative scrutiny of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015. I am pleased with the progress of this work and hope it contributes to making the implementation of the Act a success. Our ability to revisit key legislation and policy decisions by Welsh Government, and critically analyse their progress, will be an essential role of our committee. In the new year, the committee intends to focus heavily on tackling poverty and reviewing progress to date of interventions, such as Communities First. I hope to bring further updates to this Chamber early in 2017.

The committee’s next inquiry will focus on one of the world’s most pressing issues. Last year, one in every 113 humans was either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. In all, there are more forcibly displaced people today than the populations of the United Kingdom, France or Italy. In 2016, with an intensifying conflict in Syria and huge uncertainty across countries in the region, there are now more displaced people in the world than at any other time in our history. There are millions dead, families torn apart by conflict and children left without parents. The constant news cycle of images and stories of people escaping war and persecution in Syria, Iraq and other countries are extremely distressing. It is a situation that has made me and many others in this Chamber, I know, despair.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I want this Assembly to make a small but significant contribution to this global issue. Earlier this month, the French Government took the decision to close the Calais Jungle camp, where around 7,000 people are currently living. This has rightly been welcomed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as more suitable accommodation and support is expected to be delivered. But the reality is that 700 unaccompanied children living in the Jungle, and countless other people, could be left vulnerable to trafficking and abuse.

Refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children coming to the United Kingdom will have specific needs for settling into their new lives and becoming a full part of our communities. I am mindful that while a substantial amount of responsibility for resettling these people is with the UK Government, there are still key interventions and support that can be provided by Welsh Government.

In Wales, there are currently 112 people here under the UK Government’s Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme. In Scotland, there are 862, and in Northern Ireland 155 have been resettled. To make sure displaced people are effectively supported in Wales, the committee’s inquiry will look at the areas where we can do things differently and better.

The committee will have a particular interest in the pace and effectiveness of the Welsh Government’s approach to resettling refugees through the UK Government’s Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme; the effectiveness of the Welsh Government’s refugee and asylum seeker delivery plan, particularly around funding, accountability, mental health support, advocacy, housing provision, access to rights, protection for children, and destitution; and how unaccompanied children are supported, particularly because the Welsh Refugee Council said that the refugee and asylum seeker delivery plan

‘overlooks the need for independent advocacy for children and young people beyond duties owed by the Social Services and Well-being Act 2014.’

The committee will also look at how well the Welsh Government’s community cohesion strategy is helping refugees and asylum seekers integrate into Welsh communities. The committee will be talking to recently resettled families in Wales and exploring good practice in the UK and internationally.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I am heartened by the First Minister’s call with the third sector for urgent action by the UK Government to help child refugees. This is particularly important with the imminent closure of the Jungle camp in Calais by the French Government.

In conclusion, I hope this inquiry will lead to improved experiences for refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children in Wales.I want the generations of displaced people to be proud to call Wales home.

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to make a contribution as a member of the committee. I welcome the important piece of work that the committee is to carry out on refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. We have almost 3,000 people in Wales seeking refuge, which represents 0.1 per cent of the population—a very small figure, but an important and vulnerable cohort of people who deserve our full support.

It will be important for the committee’s inquiry to cover a number of issues, and you’ve referred to some of them already, but, for me, I will list some important issues. I think it is important for us to discover what the Welsh response is to the refugee crisis in Syria. It is a situation that varies from one part of Wales to another. For example, are the refugee relocation figures fair, and are local authorities taking their fair share? That clearly needs to be addressed. We will also need to consider how effectively local authorities are working in achieving the targets that have been set. One does hear about huge discrepancies in terms of what was agreed and what was provided, and therefore, during our inquiry, we need to understand how the Welsh Government and local authorities have been able to respond to the crisis to date, and also how swiftly they’ll be able to respond to the relocation of refugees in future.

I hope that we’ll be able to look at how this work is monitored, and therefore the committee will need to consider how effective the Syrian refugee taskforce has been in supporting these relocation efforts. It will also be important, I think, for us to discover how the Welsh Government is influencing the UK Government and the European relocation policy in concentrating on best practice, what has worked well, but also discovering what doesn’t work effectively.

I think we also need to look at the response of public services to the relocation of refugees and those seeking asylum. Has this been properly co-ordinated and is there sufficient co-ordination in the response between social services, the health services, housing providers, education and so on? That’s an important part of our work, I think.

We also need to consider how recent policy and legislation can feed into the relocation of refugees and those seeking asylum, particularly the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and responsibilities therein.

Now, I understand that Wales doesn’t have an advocacy support service for children and young people who are refugees or are unaccompanied, and I think that this is something that this inquiry should consider also.

So, that’s a number of suggestions for further discussion, and I look forward to contributing to this important work during the next few weeks. Thank you.

Diolch yn fawr, Sian. May I thank the Member very much for her commitment to this piece of work, and I know that she has a great interest in it? I think it is very important that we take a view as to how joined up the services are in Wales, and how they can be joined up for refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children coming to Wales, and, indeed, how new legislation like the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 can help us achieve that joining-up and general improvement to services.

I very much recognise the points about advocacy. As I mentioned in my speech, the Welsh Refugee Council have highlighted that as an area that does require examination.

I think it was clear from the summer consultation exercise that the committee conducted that there is considerable support in Wales for this piece of work and a need for our committee to carry it out. So, I look forward to a high degree of interest and ongoing contribution from all those organisations in Wales with an interest. And it will be important that we look outward to what the UK Government is doing, what the picture is in Europe, and to make appropriate points, but, of course, our main focus will be on Welsh Government’s role and, indeed, local authorities, as the Member mentioned, because they’re absolutely crucial in terms of the powers and responsibilities that are devolved to Wales that can make a difference to the experience of these vulnerable groups.

Thanks very much for your statement. I’m in a strange situation as this is the first time since I’ve been in the Assembly when I’ve not a member of this committee or its equivalent predecessors, although many of the issues you raise have been subject to work by those predecessor committees. I hope, therefore, that you will—and I’m sure you’ll confirm that you are—looking at the legacy work of the last committee particularly, but some of the legacy work carried forward that’s relevant to the work you’re doing from predecessor committees also.

You indicate that you’ve focused already for some time on the post-legislative scrutiny of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015. I hope you will, or would encourage you to, include within that—I’m sure you’ll confirm that you have—the matter that, as you’ll recall, had things on a tightrope at the end, which was the essential need for healthy relationships education. We were promised action to address that in the regulations and codes and the strategy following. There was some concern at the recent cross-party group on violence against women and children that insufficient rigour perhaps had been given to that. Similarly, concerns were raised there by a number of experts, including the national adviser, that the draft national strategy on violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence up to 2020-21 caused concern in a number of matters, not least the need to adopt the internationally recognised definition of violence against women. So, it would be appreciated, certainly by the people attending the cross-party group, if the committee listens to their concerted evidence in that respect.

You refer to focusing heavily on tackling poverty programmes. Perhaps you could confirm whether you are not only looking at the legacy but carrying forward the series of inquiries the previous committee was carrying out but hadn’t completed—I think we’d got to stage 2 out of a three-stage process—and whether you’re going to carry that through on the same basis or not.

I welcome the fact that your next inquiry will focus on refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children. You refer to the 112 people here under the UK Government’s Syrian vulnerable person relocation scheme, against Scotland’s 862 and 155 in Northern Ireland. It does seem that those other two nations have taken, thus far, a greater share of the affected population. Hopefully, you will look at that. But, in terms of those figures, could you also comment on the figures I was given by Oxfam Cymru last week that, in fact, the Syrian refugee resettlement programme has already brought 257 people to Wales, with a further 103 expected before the end of this year, with 21 local authorities of the 22 already having accepted some persons from that programme?

By the end of 2015, 65.3 million people will have been forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, a small proportion of whom have sought sanctuary in Wales. I’m actually hosting and sponsoring a Sanctuary in the Senedd event with the Welsh Refugee Council on 7 December, when Members can meet asylum seekers and refugees from across Wales. So, I’m unashamedly putting a plug in for that now and encouraging Members to come along and meet, learn and hear first-hand about people’s experiences and the role that Wales has played and can play in the future.

Obviously, references have been made to the horribly named Jungle camp in Calais and the fact that that’s closing down. The Children’s Commissioner for England has previously said that about 300 children there, from countries like Syria and Afghanistan, will come to the UK. We know that, last week, British and French officials began registering unaccompanied children in the camp who are hoping to join relatives in Britain. Do you have any indication if those figures are accurate or can you perhaps drill down to try and establish the number? If it is 300, or more, what proportion will be in Wales?

Similarly, the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has said the UK Government is, to quote, ‘moving quickly’. She wants as many children as possible brought to the UK before the camp is shut. But the charity Safe Passage UK, which is working with the UK Government, says it’s not yet been shown any operational plans setting out how the children will be transferred. Again, could you look at the operational plans as they develop, not only with the UK Government but with the Welsh Government, in terms of the settlement here? I won’t say much more, except to ask—

Are you winding up, please? Winding up, Mark, please.

Yes. The final question therefore relates to—. I’m sure you’ll confirm you will be keeping an overview of the disparate delivery so far in Wales. I have represented people, with a number of councils, and there has been a different approach, but above all, the key points raised are, for example, in Wrexham—which has already agreed to accept—the need for language support and, in Flintshire, for full language and curriculum support, supporting integration of families into local communities, as well as the hard-end issues around issues such as housing and health. Again, I hope you’ll confirm that you’ll be looking at those. Thank you.

Can I thank Mark Isherwood for his contribution to this statement and his questions? We will, indeed, as a committee, look at the legacy report of the previous committee, which we’ve already done, but we’ll certainly look at that in respect of the matters that the Member mentions. With regard to the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, we have, just today actually, been engaged in scrutiny of the Cabinet Secretary and, indeed, the national adviser, and many of our questions focused on healthy relationships and how we get the school educational offer right. We’ve also written to Kirsty Williams and have had a response in that regard, which we will follow up. Much of it, of course, revolves around Donaldson and the curriculum review, and the place of healthy relationship education within that, and whether or not it’s on a statutory basis and consistent across Wales in terms of quality and availability. So, I’m sure those are matters that will feature in our committee’s report. We also touched on the importance of having internationally recognised definitions, and I know that’s something that the Cabinet Secretary is considering very carefully in terms of the national strategy and general policy.

Can I also say that, in terms of previous inquiries around poverty, indeed there is some unfinished business, I think particularly with regard to the committee’s identification of welfare benefits and in-work poverty as areas that could fruitfully be the subject of future work? So, obviously, the committee, in taking forward further inquiries and further work on poverty, will look at that unfinished business, as it were, as well as the work it generally wants to do around poverty, and I’m sure it will be guided by the previous work of the committee.

With regard to numbers, whether it’s the Syrian refugees and the UK Government’s most recent scheme, or, indeed, the situation at Calais, the committee, I think, will be very keen to get as accurate a picture as possible of those figures, and that will be part of the committee’s work.

Finally, when we considered this inquiry in committee this morning, we did consider the event on 7 December of the Welsh Refugee Council, and I think we’re clear that that will be a useful opportunity for the committee to engage with those present around this piece of work.

Can I thank you, John, for your statement, and give a very warm welcome to the work that you are going to be undertaking on supporting refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children? Torfaen local authority has been punching above its weight in terms of taking Syrian refugees, and I’m very proud of the record of that council and also very proud that, yesterday, the council unanimously agreed to take to cabinet a paper to become one of the first authorities in Wales to take unaccompanied children. So, I think that is something that we can all be proud of and commend.

It has already been highlighted, though, that there is variation between local authorities in terms of engagement with these schemes, and I wanted to ask how you see the committee’s role in terms of bringing pressure to bear, both on Welsh Government and on local authorities, to improve the engagement with those schemes across Wales. I was also particularly pleased to see the reference to advocacy in your statement. The children’s committee is going to be conducting a short inquiry on advocacy, because there are still some issues that we’re concerned about with delivery across Wales, and I think it would be useful if the two committees could co-operate on that.

You referred to Communities First; again, I’m really pleased that you’re going to be looking at Communities First. You’ll have heard me say when the Minister made his announcement recently that, in Torfaen, our record of delivery on Communities First has been excellent, including on the kind of hard outputs like employability. I wondered if you could say a bit more about how you intend to scrutinise the Government’s decision to phase out Communities First. I think it is absolutely essential that we retain the excellent parts of that programme going forward, and I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government for his assurance on that earlier. I would also be interested to know how you intend to engage with the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children about the consultation. We’re still awaiting details of the consultation with external and internal stakeholders, and I’d be interested to know what input the committee is going to have into that.

I thank Lynne Neagle very much for her warm welcome for this piece of work and her support for it. I’d be very keen to work with the children’s committee, Lynne, on advocacy particularly. I think, in this Assembly, there’s a lot more thought and consideration as to how the committees can work together generally, and perhaps this could be an important example of how we achieve that. I very much agree that what we need is local authorities in Wales to come forward to show the right sort of commitment to understand the massive moral case, to play their part in taking unaccompanied children, but also, of course, refugees and asylum seekers. So, when a good example is set, such as in Torfaen, then that’s something that I hope other local authorities in Wales will sit up and take notice of. It’s very good to hear about that cabinet paper that’s going forward also.

I think what we have to do in our work is to make clear which local authorities are stepping up to the plate, as it were, and in doing that, I think that will bring a deal of pressure to bear on other local authorities that are not showing similar commitment and action. I think action, obviously, is the important thing, because all local authorities in Wales have signed up to playing a part in taking people under the various schemes, but what we haven’t seen up to now is a great deal of action. So, we do need a greater pace and a greater number of adults and children benefitting from the verbal commitment that local authorities have given.

In terms of Communities First, it will be a matter for the committee, obviously, but I think we will be looking to scrutinise the Cabinet Secretary once the statement is made early next year, following the consultation, and also, earlier than that, around our budget scrutiny, and particularly how, as you say, the most important projects—the real progress that’s been made through Communities First—how those areas of activity will be maintained and supported, going forward into the future. I think most Members’ general experience of Communities First is that, yes, it has been variable and patchy, but, yes, it has worked particularly well in some parts of Wales and there is some particularly valuable work that does need to be retained. So, I think that would be our focus.

I’m not a member of the committee, but I’m very interested in this issue and I’d like to congratulate you for taking on this particular inquiry, because I think it’s absolutely vitally important. Obviously, because of all the recent news of unaccompanied children arriving in the UK, I think that is one of the issues that’s foremost in our minds.

I was very dismayed this morning—other Members may have heard it—on the Radio 4 programme, when there was a debate going on about whether the unaccompanied children who were arriving were over 18 or not, and there were talks of dental scans and bone scans to try to identify whether they were children or not. It just seemed to me that we know that these young people who are arriving are traumatised, we know that they have lost family and it seems to me that this is an incredibly awful way to start the debate of them coming. So, I wondered if the committee was going to look at some of the attitudes that there are around—whether there was any way of looking at people’s views of refugees. Because, I suppose, when you think of a child refugee, people think of a small child, and we that know most of them are teenagers—teenage boys. I was just very shocked at that, so I hope the committee will take that on board. Bearing in mind that many of these children and young people will be traumatised, they will need access to counselling and post-traumatic stress treatment, and I hope the committee will be looking into that as well.

Yesterday, I was at the Radio Wales and BBC World Service programme over in the Pierhead—I think others were there—and one of the speakers who came from Syria six years ago made the point that people who come from Syria, his fellow countrymen and women, aren’t unskilled, on the whole. They are mainly doctors, teachers, architects and engineers—they were the professions that he listed—and they’re very keen to work, because when you don’t work, very often you do lose your sense of self-esteem and you do lose the sense that you are contributing to the community. Also, he did say, if you work in a community and that community extends the hand of friendship to you, you’re loyal to that community in the future, because of what it’s done to you.

So, in terms of the Syrian resettlement scheme, I wondered if the committee could look at what opportunities for work there would be available, because we do know that, under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, refugees will be allowed to work for five years, but that is not actually true of other refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. Over the years, I’ve met many, many asylum seekers, as the rest of us have, who are—well, the meaning of their life is gone, because they are unable to work. So, I think many of the people who come in on the Syrian scheme will actually have a lot of attention and support, but I wonder if the committee could bear in mind as well that there are other asylum seekers who are here who do not have that type of support that the Syrian scheme will have, which I applaud, and we want to do all we can to help them. But there are other people there, and there are people who are destitute who are asylum seekers and who are seeking jobs in this country and who are actually on the streets in Cardiff. There was a sleep-out last weekend to note the fact that there are homeless, destitute people on the streets in Cardiff.

Finally, the last point I wanted to make was: I know that we talk about the resources that are needed to be put into the communities to help refugees settle and integrate, and I do believe that very strongly—we need to do that—but I also think that we must recognise the strengths that those families bring. I’m particularly thinking in terms of schools, because in Cathays High School in my constituency, where a lot of asylum-seeking children and economic migrants, as we call them, are, there are 63 different languages spoken and children from many different communities, including Somali, Czech, Slovak, Roma, Bangladeshi, Pakistani—you can go on listing where they come from. All the staff and the school say that they bring enormous energy to the school, they really enrich the school, the parents are so keen for the children to succeed because many of them have gone to many great lengths to get to this country, and I think, as part of your report, it would be good to see some of that enormous enrichment that it’s brought to this country.

I thank Julie Morgan very much for her ideas as to the sort of work that the committee could carry out as part of this inquiry. It’s really useful to have those ideas coming forward today as part of this statement. I’m sure the committee will be very interested to look at all those areas of work.

Can I say that I, too, caught some of the debate today in terms of how you determine the age of young people coming here as part of some of these resettlement schemes? I know that many in the medical profession have serious concerns around medical ethics in terms of carrying out scans, for example, that might have possible health consequences when there isn’t a medical reason for that procedure to take place. So, I think there are some serious issues and, of course, in terms of human dignity, I think that many of us would have strong views as to what should and what shouldn’t take place. So, I’m sure that these, as topical matters, will be matters that the committee will be concerned with. It is about attitudes, isn’t it? If we are to give the warm welcome that should be on offer in Wales to asylum seekers, refugees and unaccompanied children, then we do need to get the right messages across and try and create the right atmosphere in Wales and within our communities. To some extent, I think we do hope for responsible media coverage, which, unfortunately, is by no means always the case.

We will be doing work around community cohesion and looking at how we can integrate people as effectively as possible. I think that does come down to attitudes and messages, and the atmosphere that prevails. So, I think those will be interesting matters for the committee to look at. I very much agree that, not just people coming from Syria, but many others too, bring valuable skills, professional qualifications and experience, which are very valuable and will be very valuable in Wales, and could fill some important gaps in terms of provision of public services and adequate numbers of qualified professionals and experienced professionals to carry out those jobs. So, again, I think that will be a significant part of that work.

As the Member stated—it’s my experience as well in Newport, as a multi-ethnic area, that schools with high levels of children from a variety of diverse communities do bring a lot of energy, a lot of commitment to education, and a lot of drive to succeed to those schools, for their benefit, but also for the benefit of the other pupils and the whole school.

Thank you. I have got three more speakers, but I think it’s a subject that people are interested in. So, if they can all promise me that they can be brief, we can have everybody. So, Gareth Bennett.

Thanks. Thanks, Chairman, for your statement. It is a welcome development that the committee is looking closely at the issue of refugees. A lot of the work, though, will inevitably involve hearing from groups who are involved with refugees, groups trying to help them to integrate with society as a whole, groups providing services for refugees, and some of these groups also call for us to take on more refugees.

As you stated, Chairman, we do need to be outward facing and, in considering refugees, we do need to take into account their impact on the wider community. We need to look at the likely cost and resource impact of resettling refugees here in Wales. How will it impact on local councils financially? How will it impact in terms of the housing list? How will it impact on the health and education services? So, along with hearing in detail from the providers of refugee services in Wales, the Assembly must also—at the same time, I feel—consider these wider implications.

I thank Gareth Bennett for that contribution. The committee will look at the wider community issues around community cohesion, as I mentioned in my response to Julie Morgan. In my statement, I identified that as a significant part of the committee’s work. We do need to hear from others beyond those groups that provide the services and have a particular role in helping to resettle and supporting asylum seekers, refugees and unaccompanied children. Of course, funding is important. There are many issues around the level of funding that the UK Government provides to local authorities, for example, and I think that that has been an important part of the information that local authorities have sought in advance of taking part in the various schemes. So, I think that all those matters will be significant to the work of the committee in carrying out this inquiry.

Thank you for your statement, John. I’m slightly thrown now by Mark Isherwood’s figures earlier on, but in your speech you mentioned that we had 112 refugees from Syria resettled in Wales, which means that that doesn’t seem to have changed since August, if that’s still the case, and it still means that 13 councils haven’t resettled any Syrian refugees at all. I’d certainly like to know whether your inquiry into this is going to drill down to find out why, after two and a half years, 13 councils still haven’t taken anybody. On the back of that, congratulations to Torfaen. Swansea and Neath Port Talbot have also got modest numbers of Syrian refugees resettled. Is your inquiry going to assess the quality of support and the outcomes for the refugees who have been resettled here? The First Minister, a couple of weeks ago, said that he would be talking to the WLGA personally about the new children’s resettlement schemes. I was wondering whether the First Minister was likely to be asked to come and give direct evidence on the back of those talks.

On a separate issue: language. In fact, I regret chickening out on moving this amendment now, but whether languages in some of the communities in Wales—and I don’t mean the Welsh language now—still prove a major source of isolation for particular groups of people, including women in particular and older people who might have moved into communities and not had access to languages other than those that they speak themselves; whether there’s any work that could be done there to find out how much of a barrier to integration language can be. Sorry; you probably know where I’m going with that.

Then, thirdly and completely differently, I wonder whether it would be possible for the committee to look at reviewing the effectiveness of disability awareness raising in Wales across all sectors, not just the public sector, and perhaps pinning down who should be taking lead responsibility for that. I’d like to include autism awareness and dementia awareness in there as well. I appreciate that that’s different from disability awareness, but we speak about this a lot and I’m wondering whether, at some point, we could get an Assembly report, as opposed to Government figures on this, to show how well it’s going. Thank you.

I thank the Member again for a number of ideas that could help inform the work of the committee and add value to the work of the committee. In terms of disability awareness raising, we had a summer exercise in terms of asking organisations within Wales for ideas for our forward work programme. That wasn’t one that was particularly prominent, but I’m sure the committee, in going forward over the fullness of this Assembly term, will consider those matters, along with many others.

In terms of numbers, I would hope that we will be able to provide a greater degree of accuracy around numbers. There will be some instances where it’s easier than others. Some information, I think, is not easily available. Obviously, if people achieve refugee status, then they may travel from Wales to other parts of the UK or beyond, and it may be quite difficult to track that, but it will be easier, I think, in terms of asylum seekers who are a part of particular accommodation arrangements and also with unaccompanied children.

With local authorities, as I said earlier, hopefully, through the work of the committee, pressure will be applied to those local authorities that have been less forthcoming in helping to resettle refugees, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children. I would hope that we do see a greater degree of commitment, but, more importantly, more action from those that have been relatively reluctant up to now.

Yes, it is a matter of the quality of support and services, and we will be looking very carefully at that. When it comes to language, I think schemes such as the provision of English as a second language are very, very important, and we would want to look at what availability is like across Wales, whether it’s sufficient to meet demand and what sustainability there is in those services during these times of great funding difficulty.

Whether we would call the First Minister to give evidence or not would be a matter for the committee as we go forward. We’re currently considering witnesses.

Thank you. Finally, Joyce Watson.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you, Chair, for your statement. Not to lengthen the debate too much, I want to focus in particular on the report that we will eventually come up with about asylum seekers, refugees and specifically unaccompanied children. I would ask that, within our stages of going through the report, we look at the children we’ve seen from the care report by ECPAT, which particularly focuses on asylum-seeking children being taking into care, because they’re unaccompanied minors, and then going missing from that care provision simply because they haven’t been looked after in maybe quite the way that they should have, and some of the practices that go alongside unaccompanied minors hadn’t been thought about.

I’m going to be quite specific when I say that it is very often the case—and I hope it will never be the case in Wales—that unaccompanied minors do end up being trafficked. They end up being trafficked because people haven’t quite grasped the fact that they are under extreme pressure and that many of them, in the very first place, have arrived where they are due to being trafficked in the very first place. So, we do really need to be very, very aware of that.

Moving on with the same theme, it is the case, and it would be worth us examining this, that we have the new anti-slavery Bill that is coming through from the UK. There are trial projects in Wales that we could certainly look at when we look at the role of child trafficking guardians, and anything that we can learn from that, that might be useful to work along those lines in this instance.

I do have to say—and I don’t expect a comment, but I have to say it—that waking up this morning and listening to David Davies, the MP for Monmouth, suggesting what he did suggest this morning about checking individuals in a very personal, intrusive manner really did appal me, and I just wanted to put that on the record.

I thank Joyce Watson very much for her views and thoughts. I did say earlier, actually, that I do very much agree with the sentiments that express great concern around the comments of David Davies in terms of age checks and how they might be carried out. It’s very undignified and, as I say, it gives rise to many concerns around medical ethics, as well as many other concerns. In terms of the care system and the report, I think that will be an interesting aspect of the work that the committee could carry out because, obviously, these children are very vulnerable and they do require a substantial amount of committee concentration and focus.

We hear now that, at Calais, as part of the demolition of that site, it is entirely possible—in fact, it has proven to be the case in the past—that many children simply disappear and go missing. There are huge concerns around trafficking and exploitation in general for those children. The sooner that countries agree to take those children, and the sooner they are settled into safe and secure circumstances, the better. I am sure that the committee will want to pay careful attention to how Wales can play its part in that more positive possibility for those children, rather than the dangers they obviously face. Again, with the anti-slavery Bill and the child trafficking guardians, I think that, too, could be a significant part of the committee’s work.

Thank you very much, Chair.