I’m very pleased to take part in this debate today, and congratulations to the Members who have put it forward. I think this does give us an opportunity to celebrate the advances that are being made towards equality and to celebrate the individuals who’ve made this possible.

First of all, I want to say I think it is so important that we have gay and lesbian Assembly Members leading the debate today. Hannah said in her introduction, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ and I think that is such an important message. I think we are more credible as an Assembly now in having this debate being led in the way it is being led.

I wanted to use the time I had to mention two individual women who I know very well, who have made significant contributions to making Welsh life more tolerant and open-minded. The first is my constituent Janet Jeffries, who set up FFLAG—families and friends of LGBT people—after her son came out, and she has campaigned for many years for equality. She told me that her aim in all the work she’s done is to help parents and families to relate to their children with love and pride. At the time Janet set up FFLAG in 2001—sixteen years ago—it was a very different world, and many of the Members who have spoken today have referred to that. She said then that parents’ attitudes were fear of the discrimination that their children might face, their fear of AIDS, fear that they wouldn’t be able to get a job, and every day they were worried about issues they would have to face: gay couples were turned away from hotels, and there was none of the legislation that we’ve heard about today.

I’m also very proud that Labour did lead the way in passing many of the groundbreaking legislation, because politics does make things happen, and Labour certainly had led the way. I was very pleased to be in the House of Commons to vote for the age of consent to be equalised, to vote for the repeal of section 28, which, as many people have said here today, was the most pernicious bit of legislation I think that we can ever think about, and also very pleased to vote for the Civil Partnership Act in 2004 and the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, and, of course, the adoption Act.

At the time Janet was working, she said that it was commonplace for literature that they produced to be sent back from the printers. She said they sent a banner off to the printers for the organisation, and it was sent back because the word ‘gay’ was on it. You still hear of incidents like that, such as the bakers in Northern Ireland that refused to bake a cake with pro-gay marriage messages on it. But I think that is becoming much less often—it’s much more rare now. As Janet has told me, the world has changed now, but, of course, there’s still a long way to go, as we heard from the discussions in the church that have been taking place over the last couple of days. Janet was awarded a British empire medal in the new year’s honours list for her campaigning work, and I’m very proud to have her in my constituency, and wish her a speedy recovery from her illness.

The other woman I want to mention is Gloria Jenkins, who features in the exhibition Icons and Allies. She, with Janet, set up FFLAG, and she’s been a campaigning force in south Wales for many years. She was the co-chair of Stonewall Cymru and is one of the key people to establish it firmly as an organisation in Wales. I’ve known Gloria for many years, and my husband, Rhodri Morgan, at the time MP for Cardiff West, with Kevin Brennan, his assistant at the time, campaigned with Gloria and with her family and friends for Gloria’s daughter’s Canadian partner, Tammy, to be able to stay in the UK. This was a very high-profile campaign and it was successful, and Tammy was one of the first lesbians to be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK because of a meaningful same-sex relationship. So, that was what Gloria started to campaign on, and she has campaigned ever since. It was fantastic to see her there up in that Senedd reception today, and I want to congratulate her on all she’s done. So, I just wanted to use the opportunity to mention these two women who’ve been great allies and have worked really, really hard, making a tremendous contribution.

I’d just like, finally, to end on a policy level, echoing what many people have said in this debate and the previous debate. I want to give a plea for meaningful sex and relationship education to be given in schools. As the Terrence Higgins Trust says, good-quality, age-appropriate LGBT-inclusive sex education should be available in all schools in Wales.