Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:35 pm on 22 November 2016.
Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I’m very pleased that you were able to go to Mbale to see for yourself, first-hand, the very good work of the Wales for Africa programme there, and, indeed, to help strengthen the links. I was fortunate to visit there myself a few years ago as environment Minister, and I’m familiar with the great work of PONT and all those volunteers from Pontypridd who have helped with health, education, economy and community development there, working closely with the local people and agencies on the ground. I also saw the Size of Wales programme, and all that great tree planting, and some very good fair trade projects. So, I wanted to ask, really, Cabinet Secretary: given that Wales has a very good story to tell around fair trade—the first fair trade nation in the world back in 2008, with all those civil society groups achieving that status supported by Welsh Government, 90 fair trade communities, towns, churches and universities across Wales now, and the highest proportion of fair trade schools of any country within the UK—given that strength, and having gone to Mbale and seen a coffee co-op there, the Gumutindo coffee co-op, doing great things with the fair trade premium—. I stayed with one of the farmers and heard that they’d been able to send their son to university, the first time that a member of their family had gone to university, and they’d been able to do that with the fair trade premium. Given that importance, Cabinet Secretary, I wonder if you would agree with me that, with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, hopefully, we’ll be able to see more public bodies in Wales driving that progress with fair trade. We see marketing of the coffee from Mbale in Cardiff at the Fair Do’s shop, for example. We see Cathays High School now with fair trade uniforms, and, indeed, the Cwm Taf university health board using fair trade products more in their own cafes. So, the examples are there. Would you agree that we should drive that progress now through the well-being of future generations Act into the future?