Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to open this debate on promoting greater equality, focusing in particular on the progress made in partnership with other public bodies and that of the third sector. We recently published the annual report on equality for 2015-2016, which provides an update on how the Welsh Government has met its equality duties. This year, the annual report on equality was published alongside the Welsh Ministers’ interim report on equality 2016. This additional report gives an overview of the progress made by public sector authorities in Wales towards compliance with the public sector equality duty. These combined reports capture a range of cross-cutting and collaborative steps to promote equality of opportunity in Wales, and reflect past achievements and look forward towards the challenges ahead.

This annual report on equality covers the final year of the strategic equality plan of 2012-16, and this was a challenging period for Wales, where the impact of welfare reform being felt by many people across the country—we know that inequality is more likely to grow during times of economic uncertainty. Nevertheless, over the past four years, we have introduced some truly groundbreaking policies and legislation, including the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, the tackling hate crime and incidents framework, the framework for action on independent living and the children’s rights scheme. These examples were all developed to improve different aspects of life in Wales and support people in greatest need or facing particular challenges. They are continuing to make Wales a fairer nation, and clearly demonstrate our commitment to advancing equality.

The other thing these examples have in common is that they were all developed following engagement with people across Wales, including the third sector, and this commitment to engage communities continues to be the central and strategic direction of the Welsh Government. Under the Welsh specific equalities duty, we are required to review and refresh our equality objectives every four years. This ensures we are continuing to address the areas of inequality that impact on the people of Wales. In March 2016, we published our equality objectives for the next four years, and these objectives are based extensively on engagement and consultation with protected groups and stakeholders. This engagement provided the opportunity for them to shape the development of the equality objectives.

Our stakeholders strongly support retaining the core subject matters of the previous equality objectives, as they address long-term challenges that require focus and sustained action. Our new objectives will, therefore, build on the actions we’ve undertaken as part of the first strategic equality plan. The strategic equality plan of 2016-2020 contains the actions we are taking to drive forward our equality objectives. Our plan will help to continue to mainstream equality and diversity across all ministerial portfolios, tackling the areas of inequality that matter most to the people of Wales. As I mentioned during the recent Plenary debate on the Equality and Human Rights Commission annual report, our equality objectives are strongly linked with the seven key challenges identified in the commission’s ‘Is Wales Fairer?’ It was pleasing to discover that public authorities are also setting equality objectives based on those challenges. The EHRC review highlighted we have in making Wales a fairer and more equal nation. We strongly encourage public, private and third sector organisations to work together and take a joint approach to tackling inequality.

The Welsh Government continues to bring together groups representing people with protected characteristics through our various ministerial forums and stakeholder groups, and these include the disability equality forum, the faith communities forum, and the Wales race forum. These meetings keep us informed of the key issues and barriers facing people in Wales. Our decisions are heavily influenced by our engagement with third sector organisations, and we remain extremely grateful to those stakeholders, and we value their support and their dedication to making Wales a fairer, more equal nation.

Llywydd, this support is reciprocal, the Welsh Government is assisting third sector organisations with the equality and inclusion funding programme for 2017-20, and the programme consists of equality grants to support organisations that represent the equality for race, gender, disability and gender reassignment and sexual orientation. It also covers inclusion projects supporting Gypsy, Roma and Travellers, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and tackling hate crime. The funding will support the important work of the third sector in contributing to the Welsh Government’s delivery on the SEP. The Welsh Government will continue to provide leadership and cross-Government action to promote equality. We value the role of others in taking forward our policy and legislation, including its implementation.

Llywydd, we fully recognise that collaborative working with public, private and third sector organisations is vital when tackling inequalities in Wales, so let us build on the progress made, and remain committed to removing those barriers that prevent people from reaching their full potential. Thank you.