Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservatives' spokesperson, Russell George. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, how many households who were previously in scope for an upgrade under the Superfast Cymru programme, and expected to receive an upgrade by the end of December, have been let down?  

Well, that's not how I would put it. As I said, we've got the target for 690,000 premises to have been included in the first project. As I said, in response to an earlier question, I'm not yet in a position to be able to say categorically that that target was met. I hope to be able to do that within the next few months. We obviously monitor this very carefully. BT Openreach don't get paid until they have gone through the vigorous testing process and then we will know whether they've met the target. We know how many premises there are in Wales. So, by a process of elimination, we know how many are not then included, and those are the people that we will be looking at for the successor projects. But I don't hold the information in quite the way that you suggest. 

Well, you answered a question, but it wasn't the one I asked, okay. I asked how— 

I don't hold that information in that way, I'm afraid. 

I did ask how many people have been let down and you should know the answer to that, because you will know that many people were checking last year, and they were told that their property was in scope by 31 December. Now, on checking, they receive a different message saying that they're exploring solutions. So, it shouldn't be that difficult to work out how many people have been let down and work out what that number is.

I have to say, from a communications point of view, the Superfast Cymru project has been an absolute disaster. I have to say that there are plenty of examples of you writing letters to people, or them writing to you, asking, 'When am I going to be in scope?' You then write back and say it's going to be by a certain date. They don't get it, they write back to you, you write back and say, 'Sorry about that, it's now going to be this date.' They don't get it by that date, they write back to you, you write back again and say, 'Sorry about that, it's now going to be by 31 December 2017.' In January, they don't get it, they write back to you, then you write back and say, 'Sorry, the project's ended.' Well, that really is not good enough and that's what's been happening. So, can I ask you, what lessons have you learnt from this contract for designing the next, especially when it comes to communications?

I share the Member's frustration, as he well knows. I've been doing my tour of Wales and I've heard a lot from members of the public who are very frustrated by the scheduling letters that they get. I don't want to indulge in semantics, because it just irritates people, but obviously we don't promise it. We're talking about scheduled works and there are a number of complex engineering reasons why sometimes that doesn't work.

The reason I don't know everybody who was in that schedule and then didn't make the deadline is because I only know the people who have written to me and there may well be others who I'm not aware of. So, I could give you a subsection, but we don't hold the numbers in that way. I'm not trying to get out of it; we just don't hold the numbers in that way. What I will be able to tell you is how many people were in and, therefore, how many people are left. It's the people who are left that we most want to concentrate on. As I said in response to Angela Burns earlier, this isn't about the money, except that obviously we don't want to pay for something we haven't had; this is about using the money to get people connected. 

I completely accept the issue around comms. There were complex reasons for that, which are to do with the fact that we did this on the basis of postcodes, and not all postcodes and people are connected at the same time, and there are complex reasons for that, which I won't go into, but which have led to this really very frustrating position.

When I make the announcements about the next phase, you'll see that we're actually targeting individual premises. We won't have this issue about a pool of people, some of whom get connected and others of whom won't. We'll have a range of responses to that to make sure that we are fairly confident about where we can get, and that we're having good conversations with people where we think that there may be more technical difficulties. 

I'm grateful for you acknowledging the communications issues that have taken place. The open market review, which, of course, you conducted, identifies the premises for the next scheme. Those premises that were part of the Superfast Cymru scheme and have been let down would not be included in that analysis because, of course, they were told that they would get an upgrade by the end of last year. So, that's a factual statement; tell me if that's correct, in your view. But can I ask, and I've asked this a number of times, and I'll ask again: can you provide a cast iron guarantee today that those premises will be automatically transferred into the new scheme and prioritised? 

No, I can't, because until I know what the engineering difficulty or other difficulty was that prevented them from being included, I'm not able to give you a cast iron guarantee that we will be able to overcome those difficulties. I can tell you that they're absolutely the top priority for us—people who've been in that situation—and we're working very hard to make sure that we can overcome those, but there are a large number of reasons why. So, for example, we know that we have a large number of premises stuck behind wayleave difficulties. So, I'm not in a position to be able to say that we are able to sort out the wayleave difficulties in time to be sure that we can connect people, but I can tell you that we're working very hard to do so. 

There is an issue around the way that the UK Government deals with some of this, which the Member will be very much aware of, and that's to do with how we regard broadband. And I'm afraid it's still regarded as a luxury, despite the conversations about the universal service obligation. Because it's not a utility, we don't have the right to cross people's land and we don't have the right to insist that they allow wayleaves, and so on, and that is causing difficulties in a large number of areas. That's one of the reasons—not the only one—why I cannot give that cast iron guarantee. Would that I could, but we don't have the powers to enable me to do that. I can, though, say that we are very aware of the problems that the Member is mentioning, and everybody else is mentioning, and we are working very hard to make sure that we get to as many of those people as we possibly can. 

UKIP spokesperson—David Rowlands. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Following on with theme explored by some earlier AMs with their questions, does the leader of the house think that the intervention agencies dealing with domestic abuse in Wales are robust enough to deal with this pernicious crime? 

As I said in response to a number of other Members, there are a number of initiatives that are really interesting across Wales. They're all tied up with a number of complex initiatives around data sharing and protocols, but I did visit the multi-agency safeguarding hub in Cardiff central police station very recently, and was very impressed by how the agencies there had come together to overcome some of the technical difficulties, right down to actually having a social worker sitting beside police officers, where they had separate systems on two different screens so that they could make instant decisions, and so on. It's a very impressive arrangement, and if the Member hasn't visited, I would highly recommend a visit to be able to see the good work that can be done. 

I thank the leader of the house for her answer, but latest figures show that reported incidents of domestic crime rose in the police areas of Dyfed-Powys, Gwent and north Wales by 23 per cent, and a massive 48 per cent in the South Wales Police area. Whilst much of these rises may well be attributed to police recognition and growing confidence in reporting such crime, does the leader of the house not feel that these are a troubling set of statistics? 

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Yes, of course, all the statistics on domestic violence are troubling, and it's a scourge in our society, and we have to have a range of options for preventing this and for tackling both the victims and their perpetrators and their various issues. For the first time in Wales, we've got standards for relevant authorities set on training related to violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence. The national training framework raises the profile of these issues, and upskills the public service to respond more effectively to those experiencing violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence. Over 70,000 people in Wales have accessed the training under the national training framework, so that's 70,000 more professionals who are more knowledgeable, more aware and more confident in responding to those experiencing this sort of violence. So, we're working very hard to make sure that we raise standards for professionals right across Wales. I've already mentioned some of the other things we're doing around multi-agency work, and so on, but the Member raises a very important point and we're working very hard to make sure that we get all aspects of that agenda correct here in Wales.    

Again, I thank the leader of the house for that comprehensive answer, but Welsh Women's Aid, one of the excellent agencies—I'm sure you alluded to it earlier on—dealing with domestic crime, and part of whose remit is the provision of refuges for victims, are hugely concerned with cuts to funding, citing the fact that 388 survivors of domestic abuse could not be accommodated in 2016. These refuges are often a critical element in giving victims of domestic abuse the courage to leave the abusive partner. So, how can a cut in funding for these agencies and property provision be in any way justified? The figures above show a growing desire with victims to seek intervention. Surely, leader of the house, we should be increasing funding for refuge provision not cutting it. 

And I couldn't agree more. What we've done is we've looked to see how we can manage our own decreasing budget in this area—as a result of the austerity policies of the current UK Government—in order to best make use of that. We're doing that by increasing the flexibility of our local service partners to use their grant in more imaginative ways and to collaborate better on a regional scale. We fund the regional co-ordinators specifically to enable them to do that. I absolutely understand the concerns of the organisations, including Welsh Women's Aid, that provide the refuges. We're going to be working very hard with local partners to make sure we get the very best out of the funding that's available to us.

Thank you. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian. 

Thank you very much. As you are responsible for issues of equality, can you explain how you ensure that all departments within the Welsh Government, and the bodies that you fund, do take equality issues seriously?

I'm having a series of bilaterals across all colleagues in the Government, which began when I took up this post only a few weeks ago, though it seems a bit longer. That's the purpose of the bilaterals: to make sure that the equality agenda, which clearly touches every part of Welsh Government—both Welsh Government as an employer, Welsh Government as an organisation and Welsh Government as a government—are properly incorporated into all of the work that we do. 

You will have seen over the weekend that the British Medical Association Cymru has expressed concerns about the behaviour of officials and health boards in relation to the development of sexual identity services for Wales, which was part of the first budget deal between your party and mine. A recent report by Stonewall has found that 36 per cent of transgender people in Wales haven’t been able to access the healthcare that they need—a figure that’s higher than in England in Scotland—and that half of trans people say that health staff don’t understand their specific medical needs. So, how concerned are you about these attitudes and alleged behaviours within the health service, and what steps will you take, along with the Cabinet Secretary for health, in order to eradicate discrimination against trans people within the health boards?

That's a very important point that the Member makes. As I said, the Cabinet Secretary and I are due to have our bilateral on these issues. I will say—and I'm going to steal my own thunder a little bit here—that next week I'll be launching the This is Me campaign, which is designed entirely to talk about gender stereotyping and treating individuals as individuals. It's a very hard-hitting campaign to make people see the person inside the skin that they see on the outside on a range of issues, including transgender. I think, when the Member sees it, she'll see what we're trying to do with it.

This is all about, as I said before, gender stereotyping. It's the root cause of a large number of the issues that Members have raised today and it's something we absolutely must tackle from the earliest point in people's lives. I have a major soapbox, which the Deputy Presiding Officer is watching me take out at the moment and knows I can go on for about an hour and a half on the subject—for example, on the Let Toys be Toys agenda and the way that people are shaped in their gender actualities really early on for no apparent reason whatsoever. The whole campaign will be designed around letting people be people, letting people be who they are and what they want to be without fear of discrimination or maltreatment. So, I will be having those bilaterals across the Government and we will be launching a hard-hitting public campaign next week.  

Thank you very much. I’m pleased to hear every word of that. Of course, we are now talking about how decisions by public bodies can have an impact on services for trans people, but there are also examples of decisions having a negative effect on other groups, which perhaps wouldn't have happened if we had more diversity among senior management in the public sector. You will be aware that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has noted this clearly, having identified that there hadn't been a general improvement in representation in senior roles and that women and people from ethnic minorities continue to be less likely to be in senior positions. Despite the fact that the number of women in senior positions has improved in some sectors, such as education, it has deteriorated in others, such as the health service and the police. So, what are you going to do in order to improve diversity within public bodies in Wales, particularly the health service, in order to ensure that we don't find ourselves in situations where officials and managers are preventing the development of services for minority groups. And more generally, do you support equal representation in terms of gender on public bodies in Wales?

So, the very simple answer to that last question is 'yes'. In fact, I've just commissioned a piece of work jointly with my officials in Chwarae Teg to see how we can make sure there is good gender representation—half and half, not 40 per cent—on all public boards sponsored by the Welsh Government in this Assembly term. I'm hoping to be able to report back when they've done that small piece of work to get that agenda running. The reason that's important is because those are the governing bodies of many of the organisations you've just talked about, and we know that having better gender equality, better diversity, on those boards, drives some of the behaviours that we want.

The Member's rightly identified that agenda. It will be part of the bilaterals that I'm having with all colleagues, including my health colleague, but there is a huge issue about making sure that the leadership of organisations properly reflects the population that it serves, including for gender but for other diversity issues as well, and that that drives the behaviour of the organisation. So, I share that aim with a very large number of my Cabinet colleagues, and we will be pushing that agenda very forcibly into the future.