5. What measures will the Cabinet Secretary take to help tackle domestic violence during the Six Nations rugby tournament and other major sporting events? OAQ(5)0102(CC)

I thank the Member for his question. The Welsh Government is committed to working with its partners to take every opportunity to tackle domestic violence. Our aim is a more coherent approach to publicity with sustained activity to as wide an audience as possible. As part of this approach, there will be an increased level of social media activity through the Live Fear Free campaign during the period of the six nations.

I welcome that response. As the Cabinet Secretary knows, there’s growing and damning empirical evidence and applied academic studies highlighting the increased domestic abuse and violence around major sporting events, not just the six nations but the Super Bowl final, the football World Cup and others. Hence, those efforts by the Welsh Government, by the Welsh Rugby Union, by players themselves and others to raise awareness of this deep cultural problem and putting forward measures to turn this around. When Wales played England in Cardiff during the six nations tournament in 2009, South Wales Police recorded a nearly 80 per cent increase in domestic abuse incidents compared to the previous weekend. In the 2012 tournament, there were over 4,300 calls to the all-Wales domestic abuse and sexual violence helpline. That was an increase of almost 10 per cent on the same period the previous year. And when Wales played England during the six nations that year South Wales Police recorded a 76 per cent increase in the numbers of domestic abuse incidents compared to the previous weekend. So, bringing this into the open, raising awareness of the increased threat of domestic abuse around the six nations and major sporting events is only the first stage. We’ve all got a role to play in highlighting this and rugby players themselves have spoken out previously, but what more can the Welsh Government, but also its partners, do to tackle the tough cultural and individual roots of this ongoing problem?

I thank the Member for his contribution. I think sporting events are one aspect of this. But what is absolutely clear is that there is a direct link between alcohol misuse and domestic violence, and that’s where the link is. Usually, this happens at sporting events, so it’s not exactly the rugby or the football, but it’s the cultural events around those that cause the problems. The reporting aspect of this is a positive one. The fact is that people are talking about this now and we are finding access and opportunities to deal with perpetrators and, more importantly, victims of domestic violence, and hopefully clamping down on that. But the Member’s questions was very specific to the six nation’s rugby tournament. I’m quite clear to my team that this message is a daily message, not for six weeks. This is about something we could talk about all of the time and making sure access to services is here and available in Wales.

Yesterday, when I knew I was coming in on this supplementary, I did a little question on Facebook to ask people what they thought of the fact that these campaigns have happened. Many people were aware, but there was quite a shocking amount of people who weren’t aware that these publicity campaigns even existed. I could find, via Women’s Aid, some analysis of what’s happened in the UK—England, predominantly—on these awareness campaigns, but nothing in relation to Wales. So, I’m not taking away from how important it is to carry out these campaigns, but I want to understand their effectiveness, I want to understand if they need to be more high profile and if they need to be happening over a longer period of time, because the message that came back to me yesterday was, yes, as you said, it can’t just be a one-time occasion, it has to be systematic and it has to be all year round.

And I said that in my previous response. I think there are peak times where sporting events have high pressure for service deliverers, and it’s important for us that we can get a message out to people to say there is a helpline number or a support mechanism in place. But it is something I’m very keen to look at, long term, and I’ve started a discussion with the police and crime commissioners across Wales to ensure that we can have a collective response here, across Wales, of a typical messaging programme that we can share all the year round. So, I’m hopeful that will give us some better outcomes in terms of delivery.

Some 10 years ago, my wife was a community midwife, and when I used to hear some of the stories that the community teams would have to pick up on the domestic violence front—from people they would have seen at the end of the week to what they were picking up at the beginning of the week, and the intervening thing that had happened was a major sporting event—it was truly horrific, to say the least. Hearing the opening remarks from the principal questioner here about the increase in percentages that have been identified with the six nations, but, indeed, many sporting events, the one underlying factor here is alcohol predominantly, and drugs, being an issue in driving people down this road of domestic violence. How confident are you, Minister—and I commend you for the work you’ve done on this particular aspect—how confident are you that community support teams, whether they be in health or social services, or in the charitable sector, are resilient enough to actually be able to be there to support people who do find themselves in this horrific predicament of domestic violence, and be able to offer a way out of what seems to be a downward spiral that ultimately can lead to catastrophic events within those families and, ultimately, suicide?

Domestic violence is an epidemic, and I’m not sure—. We’ve just uncovered the top of the iceberg of this, and service delivery is challenged. And I’ve asked my senior adviser, in terms of the domestic violence adviser, which is in the Act, to look at a sustainable funding model and to see if we can work with the sector to deliver better services, longer term. I would like to invest more finances into this proposal, because the more facilities we build, the more people will access those. What is true is that, when we signpost somebody through a helpline or through a connection through health visitors or otherwise, it is absolutely critical that we have a follow-up procedure to that. Rather than just telling people, ‘You’ve disclosed’, you’ve got to ensure that there’s a service pathway in place, and I’m very keen to make sure that happens. I’m confident at the moment we can deliver, and we do, but it will get even more challenging. The more people who present—and rightly so, that they present—we will be challenged in making sure that we can deliver for these people.