In my contribution today I want to talk about the implications for women of leaving the EU. I want to start off with European structural funds. European structural funds are worth £2 billion to Wales between 2014 and 2020. The Treasury has guaranteed that all projects started before the UK leaves the EU will be fully funded until their completion, but we don’t know what is going to happen after that. We don’t know what regional policy will be after we leave. Obviously, we are having discussions here in Wales to try to influence what that will be, but we don’t know. But, we do know that it will have a big impact on women.

Gender equality has always been a core objective of the European Union. Since the UK joined in 1973, membership has helped ensure improvements in pay equality, protection from discrimination, childcare, parental leave and care for pregnant women and new mothers. Also, international co-operation across the European Union has helped tackle female genital mutilation, because we need collaborative working on issues such as female genital mutilation. As we know, it happens in Wales. We know it happens in Cardiff. A recent committee in Cardiff identified cases where female genital mutilation had taken place. So, it’s essential that we work collaboratively on this issue.

There’s also international co-operation on human trafficking. We know that women are far more likely to be trafficked into the sex trade. In fact, the EU says that 30,146 people were registered as victims of human trafficking across the 28-nation EU in the three years to 2013; 80 per cent of the victims were women; 69 per cent of all those trafficked were victims of sexual exploitation; and more than 1,000 child victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation. So, we need to be in a situation where we can work collaboratively on those issues. When we do leave the EU, we have got to ensure that we still have those collaborative ways of working, because it is vital for women who are in these vulnerable situations that we do.

Leaving the EU will mean the loss of targeted funding for gender equality. In 2012, 28 per cent of the EU’s aid budget included gender equality or women’s empowerment as a key objective. This is what has been written into all the EU’s work, all its policy—a recognition of the inequalities that there are. When we leave the EU, we’ve got to ensure that we do not lose all that good work that has been achieved. In addition, any economic downturn will hit women hardest. All the evidence has shown that when the going gets hard, it’s women who are hit hardest. That’s certainly what’s happened with the Tory cuts. A 2015 report from the LSE showed that 78.9 per cent of welfare cuts fell on women, especially single parents, and black and minority ethnic women are also disproportionately affected. [Interruption.]

The Fawcett Society has called for a woman to be on the Brexit negotiating team, in view of the all-male make-up of the current trio, which is made up, of course, of David Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson. I think we do need a woman there to try to negotiate. I mean, these negotiations are so important for women. Whatever happens post Brexit, we must ensure that the hard-won gains for women are not lost and that the cross-cutting themes that are embedded in the European structural funds, for example, are not lost.

The Women and Equalities Select Committee in Westminster has made recommendations post Brexit, one of which is that there should be a clause on equality in the great reform Bill, and I think that that is a very sensible suggestion. They’ve also suggested that Parliament and the courts should declare whether new laws are compatible with equality principles. Again, I think that is a very important recommendation, because we are moving into a situation where we will have no guarantee that we will have equality written into legislation, into any future regional policy, into co-operation between countries. So, I think we’ve got to use all we can to do that, because there’s no doubt that the European Union, and our membership of the European Union, has been a huge advantage to women and has helped us make great steps forward.