2. Will the Leader of the House provide an update on the Welsh Government’s position on establishing a domestic violence offender register? OAQ51618

I have asked officials for advice in relation to a domestic violence offender register. The UK Government is not planning to introduce a stalker and perpetrator register but is looking to improve multi-agency public protection arrangements and domestic violence disclosure scheme arrangements instead.

Thank you, leader of the house. In September last year, I was encouraged by Carl Sargeant's response to me regarding the creation of a domestic violence offender register. Carl was a passionate campaigner and champion for ending violence against women. The statistics on domestic abuse are stark: it's estimated that more than 75 per cent of us know someone who's a victim of domestic violence, one in five women are stalked, one in four are sexually assaulted or raped, one in four are suffering domestic abuse, 10 women a week are committing suicide as a result of abuse, and two UK women a week are murdered by abusers. 

Since I last raised this issue in the Chamber, the first annual report required by the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 has been published, and an objective identified in this Act is an increased focus on holding perpetrators to account. What assessment have you made about the benefits of a domestic violence offender register and what other mechanisms could play a crucial role to ensure information is shared between organisations and individuals to prevent and safeguard against convicted domestic violence offenders reoffending?

That's a very good question. There is no specific register for stalkers and domestic violence perpetrators in Wales at the moment, as the Member is well aware. The domestic violence disclosure scheme, also known as Clare's law, allows the police to share information about a person's previous violent offending where this may help prevent domestic violence or prevent someone from being involved in that sort of situation. We've got some really good services and processes in place in Wales, and we continue to work to raise service standards for victims and for survivors. But we are also looking at the Welsh Government's Strengthening Leadership series for public services, and we've published an awareness raising video, What is stalking?, which highlights actions to minimise risk and to support and protect staff and clients with whom an organisation is working.

There's a number of other things that we can also look at. I very recently, in the last week or so, visited the MASH in Cardiff central police station, which is the  multi-agency safeguarding hub—an arrangement between all of the agencies working across Cardiff and south-east Wales, looking to share information and data on exactly this. I had a really good meeting there about how that's worked and how effective it's been and how it's reduced offending, and it's helped survivors as well. And the whole agency set-up there is—if you haven't managed to visit it, I highly recommend it, and for anyone else in the Chamber who hasn't seen it. We had a long and interesting discussion about how we might roll some of that out across the rest of Wales, which will be ongoing, and, as I said, I have asked officials for advice as to where we are in terms of both legislative competence and the efficacy of introducing such a register.

Well, clearly, measures such as these, and pre-custodial perpetrator programmes, can contribute to the early intervention and prevention agenda. Welsh Women's Aid have emphasised the importance of financial investment in prevention and early intervention by health boards and public health regional leads, given the cost to the NHS of picking up the pieces after domestic abuse and sexual violence has happened. However, they raised concerns with me in December that, whereas they received from the Welsh Government department for health and social services over £355,000 in 2016-17, towards specialist violence against women, domestic abuse, and sexual violence services, that figure had fallen to just over £34,000 in 2017-18, where they understand the Welsh Government has instead passed the funding to regional health boards for allocation, but they say this hasn't happened, and the funding's been lost to the specialist sector.

How, therefore, do you respond to the concern expressed to you in the letter from the Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee on 11 January, stating that the Welsh Government's response to their 2016 report on the implementation of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 said that guidance would be published in relation to local strategies in July 2017, but this does not appear to have been published? And finally to post-legislative scrutiny, which indicates that Cardiff and Vale's well-being strategy doesn't contain mention of domestic or sexual abuse and how to tackle it, nor does Betsi Cadwaladr's strategy for the future, and Hywel Dda's strategy plan only mentions domestic abuse in relation to homelessness, and makes no mention of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, nor how the health board plans to implement its aims.

Well, we're doing an enormous amount of work in this area, with Welsh Women's Aid, and I've had a very helpful meeting very recently with Eleri Butler to go through a large number of issues around this agenda. It's very important, of course, as the Member highlights, that we work across the piece in Welsh Government, and we have a number of cross-Government initiatives in this area. We are working very closely with both health and with housing, and with local authorities, to make sure that we have a regional and seamless approach to these services. In the process of reviewing some of those regional arrangements, we have regional co-ordinators in place, for example, across local authorities, who are doing really good work on the ground in co-ordinating services. I have a number of meetings—I've either just had, or have arranged meetings—with a number of the sectors, to make sure that we do have better co-ordination across the piece in this regard.

What we really need to do is make sure that we build on some of the excellent services and processes we have, but we continue to work really hard to raise standards for both victims and survivors, and in concentrating on those two issues, we don't lose sight of the fact that we need to work right at the beginning of life, with the whole issue around gender and gender stereotyping, and some of the issues that arise very early on in our lives. Because there is an undoubted connection between sexual violence, domestic violence and gender stereotyping, and all of the problems that we have culturally in that regard. But the Member's highlighted a number of issues across Government, and I can assure him that we are working very hard; the Cabinet Secretary and I will be meeting very shortly to discuss this, and a number of other issues in this area.

I was just wondering, you mentioned you were meeting with the Cabinet Secretary, but what other Ministers you are engaging with. I'm wondering specifically on detecting early intervention, and signals of behaviour in somebody who would abuse an animal, for example. I've raised this before with the environment Cabinet Secretary, because there is research to show that, if they abuse an animal, they can then go on to abuse adults and humans in future. So, will you be giving evidence to the task and finish group that the Cabinet Secretary has put forward via the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to try and work with that sector on alleviating the problems that they are finding with abused animals, which could then subsequently help people such as the police and organisations that help women and others who are suffering from domestic abuse to really get to grips with stopping these events happening, before it gets to a very serious attack or a serious incident of domestic abuse?

Yes, I think Bethan Jenkins makes an excellent series of points there. As I was saying in response to Mark Isherwood, one of the things we've got to look at is just that the trends in somebody's life—. I've been working very closely with all of our Cabinet Secretary colleagues, because this agenda cuts right across the Welsh Government's work, to make sure that we address in that holistic way those sorts of behaviours and so, for example, we pick things up in schools, we pick things up through the youth protection engagement framework and we pick things up from a number of agencies that all share information correctly in order to be able to get both the prevention agenda and then the protection and survival agenda to work more harmoniously. So, I have a series of bilateral meetings arranged. I'm not sure that I'm actually down to give evidence in the way that she suggests, but perhaps if you write to me I can make sure that I am.