Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. I’d like to thank the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee for their considered report on refugees and asylum seekers in Wales. I’m also grateful for the time and effort given by those working in public services and refugee support organisations to ensure this process was as comprehensive as possible.

The Welsh Government is committed to ensuring refugees and asylum seekers who have fled war, violence and persecution are able to fulfil their potential. Wales has a proud history of providing sanctuary for refugees from across the world, and this tradition will continue. We will continue our focus on supporting refugees by developing an updated refugee and asylum seeker delivery plan, taking full account of the committee’s report and the recommendations. John Griffiths, the Chair, who ably chaired the committee, asked the question, ‘When will this happen?’ We will consult on the draft plan in the autumn, including the refugees and asylum seekers in that process.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we cannot ignore the fact that much of the responsibility relating to asylum policy is reserved to the UK Government, and this means the solutions to some important and challenging problems raised by the committee must be implemented by the UK Government. We will work with them to achieve this, for example, by discussing possible solutions to improve conditions here in Wales, and this includes the standard of asylum accommodation, an independent complaints process, the availability of increased funding for transport, health screening reminders and ways to avoid destitution for asylum seekers and new refugees. Indeed, Bethan Jenkins, we have had much correspondence regarding the state of the some of the accommodation, which was absolutely shocking in terms of people being expected to live in it.

We’re also taking action ourselves and investing in significant support for refugees and asylum seekers here in Wales, and this includes approximately £1 million over the next three years, under the Asylum Rights programme, and this work, led by the Welsh Refugee Council and their partners, will provide quality advice and support for refugees and asylum seekers in a wide range of circumstances. I’ve also provided funding for the resettlement of vulnerable children under the Dubs scheme, and I, like Julie Morgan, am also disappointed about the closure of that scheme by the UK Government. This will support the capacity building in social services departments to ensure they can respond to the needs of these children, and these children are children, as Suzy Davies pointed out.

The Welsh Government also provides funding for the Refugee Well Housing Project, supporting individuals who have been granted refugee status to integrate into Welsh society. Additional funding has recently been invested in training mental health clinicians in treating PTSD in child and adult refugees and asylum seekers. The committee produced a number of recommendations relating to the devolved matters, and I will pick those up now.

I recognise the committee’s concern about the emergence of a two-tier system since the introduction of the Syrian refugee programme. We will do everything we can to minimise this, working to ensure all refugees are eligible to access integrated schemes in Wales, although we are constrained, again, by the UK Government funding conditions. We have to work within those constraints, but we will do what we can to help there.

We’ve already expanded the remit of the Wales refugee and asylum seekers taskforce and operations board, and we’ll be careful to ensure that any schemes and guidance we produce, including the delivery plan and community cohesion plan, meet the circumstances of all refugee groups as far as possible.

We recognise that the provision, also, of English for speakers of other languages is critical for the integration of refugees and asylum seekers, and we will update the ESOL policy by March 2018, and work with the Wales Strategic Migration Partnership’s ESOL co-ordination, to map formal and informal provision and identify barriers and the solutions, indeed, to accessing learning.