The next item is the statement by the leader of the house on the centenary of women's suffrage. I call on the leader of the house to make the statement—Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. Today marks the significant, 100-year anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which was passed on 6 February 1918. This Act enabled all men and some women over the age of 30 to vote for the first time. It is worth noting, however, that it wasn’t until 10 years later, with the passing of the Equal Franchise Act 1928, giving women the right to vote at age 21, that women could vote on the same terms as men. So, on 2 July this year, we can mark the ninetieth anniversary of that Act. I am also mindful that this centenary overlaps with the Welsh Government's Cymru'n Cofio: Wales Remembers 1914–1918 programme, which marks the centenary commemoration of the first world war in Wales. The contribution of women at the time to the war effort was paramount and part of the impetus in establishing the Representation of the People Act in 1918.

A number of other significant, related anniversaries will take place during 2018, providing the basis for a year of celebration. As well as today’s anniversary, Members may want to note some other key dates this year: 30 April marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Life Peerages Act 1958, which allowed women to sit in the House of Lords; 21 November will be the hundredth anniversary of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, allowing women to stand for election to the House of Commons; and, finally, 14 December 2018 is the hundredth anniversary of women voting for the first time, in the general election of December 1918. These and other notable anniversaries will make this truly a year of celebration. In addition, International Women’s Day on 8 March will be closely linked to the centenary, as well as to the very appropriate international theme of 'press for progress'.

The Welsh Government has committed nearly £300,000 to mark the centenary of women’s suffrage with a range of activities focused around the themes of 'celebrate, educate and participate'. I would like to set out our plans and I will provide Members with a link to a website where further details of these and other activities across the UK can be found.

The Welsh Government has sponsored Women’s Equality Network Wales to deliver a project to celebrate the top 100 Welsh women. The list will span education, science, sport, the arts, business and politics and will cover both historical and contemporary women. Welsh women are almost invisible in our history and this positive campaign aims to change that. In the autumn, the public will be able to vote to choose the Welsh women who they believe have been most inspirational. Two statues will be commissioned as a result of this project. We hope this will lead to more statues and other permanent memorials of real women throughout Wales. We will encourage community involvement to facilitate this. 

We will also fund the commissioning of purple plaques for as many of the original 100 nominees as possible. On International Women’s Day last year, I was proud to be part of the Assembly Labour women's group, which launched the purple plaque campaign. Our aim is to give remarkable Welsh women the recognition they deserve by installing a purple plaque at their former home or workplace. There are currently 216 blue plaques in Wales commemorating notable figures and historic events and organisations, and just 11 of those are for women. Purple plaques were chosen to reflect the suffragette movement and I believe it's time we recognised the impact women have had on our cultural, political and scientific life here in Wales. 

Today, I'm also launching a one-off grant scheme for third sector and community organisations to undertake innovative activity relating to the three key themes of 'celebrate, educate and participate' to mark the centenary. The scheme will enable local communities to get involved with the centenary celebrations, highlighting local contributions from around Wales to mark the history of women’s suffrage. I’d also like to encourage activity that celebrates and encourages women from other under-represented groups, including BAME women, disabled women and LGBT+ women. I want to emphasise the importance of empowering women from these communities, who may face higher levels of discrimination and lower levels of opportunity. Applications for grants of between £500 and £20,000 will be invited. We have more information about the grant scheme and the application process on the Welsh Government website, and I'll be supplying Members with the link. 

More will be happening throughout the year, including our participation in activities being organised across the UK. For example, a suffrage banner relay is being organised with all the devolved administrations. The banner will be coming to Wales in May and we will be arranging a programme of events around that. I encourage Members to support both the national programme and local events in your own constituencies as the year goes on.

The centenary and the activities related to it will look forwards as well as back. Our aim in highlighting notable Welsh women both past and present is to raise awareness of their achievements and provide lasting memorials for a significant number of them, telling their stories in the context of their local communities. They provide powerful role models for the women and girls of today, for whom there are different challenges, as well as new opportunities.

It is right to celebrate the progress we have made in the past 100 years. It's also right to remember the struggle and sacrifice that has been the price of this progress. We need to maintain our momentum to strengthen democracy further, increase the number of women in decision-making roles, and continue to challenge inequality and unfair discrimination. Diolch.

Could I thank the leader of the house for her statement, please? There's a lot in that to welcome and to celebrate. But I think it is worth mentioning that, while we're celebrating this, we are actually marking a milestone rather than the end of the journey. It took another 10 years for the Baldwin Government to introduce equal suffrage, after all, but we've got a long way to go, I think, on equal participation. 

The arrival of Nancy Astor—I've got to mention her—in Parliament was of course one of those milestones, and Conservatives have been happy that some of our women representatives have been amongst the first to achieve high office: our two Prime Ministers—I think everybody knows about them, but, of course, they were no strangers to prejudice on their journey—but we've also got people like Betty Harvie Anderson, who was the first woman Deputy Speaker, Janet Young, who was the first Leader of the House who was a woman, Cheryl Gillan, the first woman Secretary of State for Wales, Liz Truss, first woman Lord Chancellor, and, of course, Nusrat Ghani—I'm sure all of us will welcome this—the first woman Muslim Minister to speak at the despatch box in Westminster. They're all role models to women of all political persuasions, just as women of other political persuasions have been a role model to me.

Now, we're all doing better at getting women to stand at all levels here in Wales, and while perhaps getting our first Welsh Conservative woman MP may not be your priority, leader of the house—it'll be a great purple plaque when it happens—I'm sure we do share this aim, which is that universal suffrage doesn't mean as much as it should unless we move towards more universal interest in politics, and this is what my questions are about.

We need more women taking an interest and then believing it's worthwhile voting in the first place, but then of course standing and reflecting back to communities that politics is a serious purpose and it needs an active and diverse—and you referred to the diversity plans in your statement—citizenry to participate and help prioritise what we should be voting about in the first place. So, alongside the action on barriers that we often discuss—caring responsibilities, poverty and so on—I think we need to work on societal attitude and placing greater value on the strengths and interests still primarily associated with women, but which benefit us all. In acknowledging the money made by all Governments in the UK today, especially Welsh Government, could I ask you, in working through the three themes that you mentioned, whether Welsh Government will be offering active support to the Ask Her to Stand cross-party campaign? Because there's plenty of research, I think, now to show that, in the workplace and in candidate applications across party, men are more willing than women to put themselves forward for consideration when they don't fulfil all elements of a job spec or even a candidacy requirement. Occasionally, maybe all you need is someone just to plant that seed and to ask. So, will you be restricting the support you're offering to Wales-only projects, or are you happy for that money to be used for leverage for cross-border projects, or even cross-country projects, really, because what we're celebrating today here is being watched elsewhere?

Will you also be looking to support work that supports that societal change of attitude about what constitutes a strength in our politicians? RECLAIM in my region, for example, has been doing some wonderful work with year 7 and 8 girls—they're not even teenagers—about confidence and leadership; David Rees will know about them as well. Because I would say that a more diverse political class with a range of strengths will give life to new ideas, and I hope that you will be able to help support the removal of intimidation and aggression that's corrupting public discourse at the moment—political discourse—and there is quite a lot of work out there starting. 

And then, finally, women's suffrage, of course, is not universal. There's one canton in Switzerland that didn't allow women to vote in local elections until 1991—1991—but that's actually not—. [Interruption.] I'm talking about countries where having the vote is not the same as having power to make a real difference to women's lives. Just a few examples here, if you will permit me, Llywydd: so, we've got Iraq, a constitution that states that a quarter of parliamentary seats and Government positions must go to women, but as of 2015 had no domestic violence laws. Malaysia: you've got YouGov research finding that the majority of people in that country agree that it is still likely to cause problems if a woman earns more money than her husband. Algeria: 32 per cent of the seats are held by women in national Parliaments, but the same study that reaffirmed that reported that Algeria is still more likely to say it's unattractive for women to express strong opinions in public. 

I just want to be sure that, as we work to encourage more people in Wales to take part in democracy, participate in it, particularly women, obviously we need to make sure we don't allow claims of women's suffrage to disguise the problems that sometimes it should be helping to solve. Thank you.  

I completely agree with everything the Member has said, which I don't often do across the party, but in this instance I do completely agree. We don't have any preconceived ideas, really, of what we're expecting to come forward, and any project that comes forward and asks for support will be looked at on its merits and sustainability and so on. And it's not just about—. It is the three aims of this, so it is the 'celebrate, educate, participate' bits. And the participation, I hope I made clear, is not just political participation; it's participation in all walks of life across everything in our country and beyond. 

I completely agree with the Member around all of the things about encouraging people to come forward and giving them support around some of the things that happen in public life, particularly to women, and this whole issue around how people look and so on being more important than what you say or what your intellectual ability is, or whatever, is a matter dear to my heart. 

We've also been, today, celebrating, actually, Internet Safety Day, for example, and there's a huge issue with social media around getting young women to stand and some of the abuse that many women in public life have to face. So, it's very important that, as part of this celebration, we actually set forward—and I think I said right at the end of my statement—some of the difficulties that today's women face that perhaps they didn't face in the past that we also need to support them to do. 

So, I completely agree with everything you said. We do want to support as many women to come forward into these roles from as diverse a range of backgrounds and positions as possible, because the whole point of this is to get equality across the piece, and you can't do that unless you have the whole range. But I do think that the thing I would like to emphasise very much is this: what we actually want are people to believe that they can do it, and in order to do that you have to have appropriate role models for your own particular sets of beliefs, for your own communities, for your own—. You have to be able to recognise yourself in what you aim to be, so it's very important that we do get that cross-bench support, if you like, for this going forward.  

Thank you very much for the statement, and I too am very pleased to mark today as an important day on the journey towards equality for women. The journey continues. It continues in trying to arrive at full equality in all aspects of life. It's a journey that’s seen loss of life, and it continues to be a long and tiring journey. But I do believe that my generation of women is determined to give all support to the young female voices that are increasingly angry about the way that they’re treated in modern Wales. This makes us as determined as ever to prioritise the need to achieve full gender equality, determined to take urgent action, and the need to place gender equality at the heart of the political agenda here in Wales.

To turn to some specific issues in your statement, you mentioned a project to celebrate 100 prominent women in Wales in all aspects of public life. What exactly will the criteria be in compiling this list? And then what will the criteria be when commissioning the two statues? Will they depend entirely on who is most popular with the public in Wales or will there be other considerations as well? I'm slightly concerned that if popularity alone is going to be at the heart of this, that might cause some concerns. Then you talked about having two statues located in two different areas of Wales. I take it that those will be geographically separate areas and that the north and the north-west, for once, will be included in that.

Turning to your grant scheme, I'm slightly concerned that there's a very tight timescale for applications for this grant pot, and it's not clear whether these grants can be used to eradicate some of the barriers facing women today. As well as remembering the past, we obviously still need to move things forward as well. As you know, getting more women to participate in public life in Wales at the level where important decisions are made is something that some of us here continue to campaign for.

If we look at local government, we see that we are at a standstill, almost. There was almost no increase in the number of women elected in 2016, as compared to the previous election, and 28 per cent of councillors are women. It will take 82 years to achieve gender equality in councils in Wales at the present rate, and we can't wait that long. I believe, and I believe that you agree, that we must use a specific mechanism for this. Evidence worldwide shows that quotas are an effective way of getting more women into positions of influence. I know that I'm wandering into a debate that is going to happen tomorrow, but I do believe that we need to look seriously at this now. Eighty per cent of nations that have more than 30 per cent of women in Government use a quota of some kind, so clearly it does work.

But, of course, quotas alone won't change the culture that's been dominated by men's needs for so long. Quotas won't eradicate sexual harassment, they won't get rid of daily belittlement and bullying on the basis of gender, they won't stop women from having to juggle caring duties and work, and they won't close the gender pay gap, and nor will they prevent domestic abuse and power-based violence. But quotas can lead to the structural changes needed in Wales to take us closer to equality.

So, to come to a question, will the grants that you've announced today be able to be used to promote the cultural and structural change needed in Wales, so that we use this initial victory that we celebrate today by the suffragettes 100 years ago—so we use that victory deliberately for achieving full equality in modern Wales, so that it genuinely accelerates this process? So, can these grants be used for that purpose?

Yes. The short answer to that is, 'Yes, they can.' We've got the three themes; so as long as you fit into the three themes, the grant will be applicable, and it's very plain that promoting change in order to encourage all three of the themes is a very simple thing to do. So, absolutely, and I would expect to be using the grant money. We've put a range of available moneys in because we want to encourage very small local schemes as well as the bigger schemes, hence the wide range of grant aid available, for exactly that reason—so we can encourage hyperlocal things that might make a difference locally to the ability to change a particular thing that might be seen as a barrier or to celebrate something or whatever, and indeed you might have a much bigger scheme to look at perhaps a nationwide effort to pick up particular barriers and changes. I spoke a little bit in the statement about trying to encourage a wide range of women to come forward as well to celebrate the diversity of women in Welsh life, and it's very important to us that we do encourage that, because we know that women who also have other characteristics, protected characteristics, face even more of a barrier than many of us who don't have some of those characteristics.

On the quota thing, I'm having long discussions with my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for public services about some of the things we might be promoting in local councils. I have no problem with quotas myself; I'm not in a position to commit the Government to it at the moment, but it's certainly an ongoing and active discussion that we're having in the Government and, indeed, I'd encourage us to have it across the Chamber as well about the various mechanisms that are available. I concur with the very many women who've been saying all over the UK today that we celebrate the 100 years, but that progress has been too slow, and that I'm not prepared for my daughters and granddaughters to be having this conversation in another 50 or 100 years. And so, we do need to find a way to accelerate this change, to celebrate the successes and the sacrifices of the past, but also to make sure that we don't need to be having a similar conversation again in 100 years.

Can I just also very much welcome the statement by the leader of the house on the centenary of women's suffrage? We do, as you say, leader of the house, celebrate today the Representation of the People Act passed on 6 February 1918. It gave women the right to vote whilst also noting that women had to be over 30, and they, or their husband, had to meet a property qualification in order to vote. So, it was very much partial suffrage. But, also, in 1918, an Act was passed allowing women to stand for electoral office.

So, will you join me in welcoming the Barry and District News feature this week on Barry's first female politician, Councillor Beatrice Alice Lewis? Beatrice Alice Lewis was born in Ely, Cardiff, and was married to a coal trimmer in Barry. She topped the ballot in the 1919 local elections for the Castleland ward in Barry. She served for nine years and was noted for her campaign for a Barry maternity clinic. Will you also welcome the women's right to vote exhibition that's staged in Vale of Glamorgan libraries by the Vale Labour women's forum? That features Dame Dorothy Rees, the first female MP to represent Barry.

I think the statements that have been made by colleagues across the Chamber are important today: Suzy Davies talking about meaningful suffrage, the lack of suffrage, and the exclusion of women in many parts of the world, and also Siân Gwenllian who spoke about recognising the initial victory, which we celebrate today, 100 years on, but recognising that we have to achieve full equality in modern Wales, particularly for young women. This is a time when we must recognise what we have in common. There's more that unites us than divides us on these issues.

So, do you agree that we have a responsibility to encourage women to stand for local government, the Assembly and Westminster, and do you welcome the Chwarae Teg women's LeadHerShip campaign? I'm sure many of you will know about the LeadHerShip campaign at Chwarae Teg because it's enabling women to shadow Assembly Members—and I think many of you have agreed to sign up to this, men and women—to encourage greater political participation given the unacceptably low level of representation, particularly of women in local government. Indeed, only 20 per cent of councillors and MPs are women, but, of course, we do have an opportunity to seek gender equality in this Assembly. We've seen how fragile it is when we did have that equality in 2003: 50 per cent down to 42 per cent. We've got to make that gender parity stick. So, will you welcome the Chwarae Teg LeadHerShip campaign, and also, again, confirm that you are announcing today this all-important Welsh Government's women's suffrage centenary grant, and that we want all those organisations to engage with it locally and nationally?

Indeed. I'm very happy to welcome all of the contributions that Jane Hutt has highlighted, particularly in Barry and the Vale; they're excellent. There are a number, of course, right across Wales, of excellent exhibitions of this sort. The grant scheme I'm announcing today is, indeed, to assist people to continue those exhibitions into the future or to develop them in any way that they see fit. I should have answered in response to Siân Gwenllian, but I'll say it now: we are not looking at a short timescale to come back. We're imagining that a lot of these schemes will be towards the end of the year when some of the other centenaries are coming forward. The centenary, for example, of the first actual vote is in December, and so on. So, this is a whole year of celebration. There are some UK schemes that are active at the moment and we're encouraging them to go forward. So, I'm not looking for a short period of time; we'll be giving people a reasonable length of time to get the grants together and some assistance in doing so.

This is about addressing a large number of the issues that have just been raised around making sure that the contribution of women is recognised and the role models are recognised, with all of the schemes that are there to encourage young women in particular to come forward and be seen in public life. It's not just as an elected politician, it's to be seen in public life. So, the councillors are very important, but actually, it's very important to be seen to be on public boards and prominent on the boards of charities and all the rest of it, so that women take their proper place in public life. We know that once we get that representation to start, then things such as the maternity hospital and so on suddenly accelerate up the agenda, and rightly so. That's part of what it's about; it's to make better decision-making processes come about and to have less restrictive employment practices and more supportive arrangements in place not just for women, but for many people with other protected characteristics that are so important to get diversity in public life into the prominence that it ought to have in Wales.

Thank you for your statement, leader of the house. One hundred years ago today, the right that so many women had fought and sacrificed so much for became law; women finally got the right to vote after so many years of struggle. That women won the right to vote is testament to the hard work and sacrifice of the suffragettes and their allies, both inside and outside Parliament. When those 8.5 million women voted in the general election of December 1918, they exercised the right to decide who would govern the country and them. My great-grandmother's vote and those of her generation could decide who would govern future trade policy, agricultural and fishery policy, economic policy, competition laws, company laws and every other area of governance. That is what the suffragettes fought for. But little more than 50 years after women voted in this country for the very first time, our Government started diluting our vote and giving it away, piece by piece, along with the governance of our country, to unelected bureaucrats.

The vote exercised by my generation of women is now subject to qualifications. It affects only those laws and policies that aren't decided by the European Union. We can change the person who decides how our NHS provide services, but not whether VAT is charged on tampons. No-one asked women of my generation whether it was what we wanted. I'm sure there will be a lot of Members speaking in glowing terms of the glorious step forward taken 100 years ago today, which, of course, it was. Schoolchildren are often surprised when they learn that women did not always have the vote. They cannot fathom why anyone would ever think it acceptable for decision making to be the preserve of the select few. But in this place, and in Westminster, we have politicians who are happy for our hard-won voting rights to be ignored so that decisions can be made by unelected, unreachable, untouchable bureaucrats. [Interruption.]

So, while, of course, I'm celebrating the 100 years of women having the vote, I'm also celebrating the wonderful Brexit vote where Welsh women and men voted to regain the power of their vote. If we don't want to allow the fight, the injuries, deaths and other immense sacrifices the suffrage movement made for us to go to waste, and if we don't want women, and men too, to lose the power of their vote, you must ensure a proper Brexit and the full repatriation of our governance. Regaining the power of our vote is a continuation of the suffragette struggle 100 years ago. So, my one big question is this—[Interruption.] You knew I'd get to it. Putting up plaques, celebrating notable women and giving grants is all well and good, but how are you going to re-empower women in Wales? And how are you going to ensure in the future that their vote will mean as much post Brexit as it did 100 years ago? Thank you.

Well, I'm afraid I couldn't disagree with the Member more about almost everything she said, which is a shame, as part of this. I personally exercised my vote in the European elections and many of the women in my family did so as well. It was always open to people to exercise their vote in the democratic elections for the Members of the European Parliament, and, indeed, we have a previous Member of the European Parliament as part of the Labour benches in this Assembly. So, I disagree entirely with what Michelle Brown said, but I will make a couple of other remarks. No relative of mine voted in the general election in December 1918 because they were working class and owned nothing. So, actually, the celebration of universal suffrage is the one that I would be looking forward to. I'm also looking forward to taking forward the debate about votes at 16, so that we lower the voting age so that everybody in this country who is eligible to pay taxes has proper representation in the places that represent them.

We had the Brexit vote, and of course the Government will honour it, but what we didn't do is have a vote about the terms of that Brexit. We've had that debate elsewhere, we don't need to have it now. But the three themes of the centenary celebration are very important here. The educate one is very important. It is very important indeed that people thoroughly understand all of the circumstances of their democracy so that they continue to make the right decision when they exercise their vote responsibly.

Can I thank the leader of the house for her statement, which, I was pleased to note, acknowledges the sacrifices of those who went before us and those who spoke up for women's right to vote, and, indeed, women's right to stand for election? In the case of the Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney constituency, it's a matter of pride to me that such support came from Keir Hardie, who was their MP at the time. In 1905, Keir Hardie wrote a plea for women's suffrage, about attitudes to the franchise, and he said, 

'We do not now speak of women as being in the same category as "idiots" and "lunatics," but for political purposes we treat them as if they were.'

So, it's perhaps a matter of reflection that, since Keir Hardie spoke of his support for women's votes, it wasn't until I was elected in May 2016—over 100 years later—that his constituency finally had a woman representative, either in Parliament or in the National Assembly for Wales. So, I'm also delighted to be involved with the Chwarae Teg LeadHerShip campaign, which is going to help to encourage women into politics, and if I can play some small part in encouraging that, I'm happy to do so.

But I'm sure, leader of the house, that you'll agree with me that the impact of the Labour Party policy on all-women shortlists has seen Labour as the party that has delivered more women representatives, in both Westminster and here in Cardiff Bay, than any other party put together. And that is a very proud achievement, but one that demonstrates the need for us to be proactive in our support for equality of representation.

Now, I've spoken briefly about the support that came from Keir Hardie, but I do want to mention briefly as well the support for women's suffrage that came from other quarters in Merthyr Tydfil, and you may be aware of the Crawshay family who were renowned as ironmasters, but it's also true that Rose Mary Crawshay, who was the wife of the last ironmaster, Robert Thompson Crawshay, was a staunch feminist of her time, and signed the first woman's suffrage petition in the nineteenth century. Indeed, such was her support that she was accused in the media of disturbing the peace and leading Welsh women astray. So, can I ask the leader of the house if she agrees with me that as the debate about further changes to our National Assembly unfolds, we should ensure that our democratic institutions give a real voice to the women of Wales? And would she further agree that, like Rose Mary Crawshay, we should continue to disturb the peace for as long as the fight for equality continues?

I'm extremely happy to agree with both of those sentiments—absolutely. One of the biggest compliments I was ever paid during my long career in the law was that I was a bloody mouthy woman—[Laughter.]—which I think I was going to have put as an epitaph on my grave, actually. So, I completely agree with that. As everybody in this Chamber will know—I've said it many times—I'm extremely proud that I, myself, was elected off an all-women shortlist. I was the first woman in my family to go to university and I'm extremely proud to be the first woman in my family who has achieved elected office, but I'm absolutely determined that the ladder I climbed will be available for all the young women in Wales to climb in my stead.

I will be taking part in the scheme from Chwarae Teg. There's also a mentoring scheme from the Women's Equality Network Wales that I want to mention, which I would encourage everybody to also take part in. It's really important to get the diverse range of Assembly Members to take part in those schemes so that everybody can have an opportunity to take part, and in this way, we can make sure that our voices continue to be heard. And in the words of Welsh Women's Aid, assuredly, still we rise.

I think today, whilst we look back, has to be an opportunity for us to pay tribute, not only to those women who delivered the vote, albeit restricted, 100 years ago, but for the struggles that went on and those women who delivered us here to the Assembly. I'm particularly thinking here that it was in 1918 that we had the vote, albeit limited, but it was 1999, 81 years later, that women took their rightful place to represent their constituencies in this Assembly, and that didn't happen by accident, those numbers. Those numbers came about by a vision and determination by Baroness Anita Gale—commonly known as 'Anita' to all of us, as she would say—the then general secretary of the Labour Party in Wales. And she seized on an opportunity, where there was an absolute blank sheet of people representing 40 constituencies and the regions, and she persuaded and cajoled people to support her vision, and that vision was to select 20 men and 20 women on behalf of the Labour Party to go forward and do their best. And I say she persuaded and cajoled; actually, there were—and there are many of us here who know—hugely heated and highly contested discussions that went on across Wales. And eventually, through those, we arrived at the trade unions and the membership to support that move. There are many of us here who still bear the scars as a consequence, but it was a good move, and it did deliver what we have now. Now, does that make a difference? Not by itself. It will never make a difference in and of itself.

So, again, we need to pay tribute to those women who came here very, very early on, and inserted protection for women within the legislative format that is Wales. We had, in the very first constitutional arrangement, an absolute duty to equality that was put in. We also had legislation—well, not legislation, because we wouldn't make it, but statements that we would look after women and girls fleeing domestic abuse and make sure that they were safe. So, it isn't simply about getting women into an institution. It's about getting the right women, with a vision, into this place. And I thank Anita, and I'm sure that you will also, for that. But on Friday, I took part in the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians event in Jersey, and I went to speak to women and girls as part of a programme—a wide programme—that is to encourage women to stand for or take part in politics, at whatever level that might be. So, it is really being part of a wider movement, and I'm really pleased that we've got some money for areas like mine, rural areas and all areas of Wales, to actually think about what it is they need to do in their own communities. And I suppose my question on that is: how are those communities going to know that that money is available to them, because we want as many organisations to apply for it as is possible? Thank you.

Well, I'm more than happy to pay tribute to great Anita Gale. I don't know if it's a mystery to people on the other benches why we all started to smile when Joyce said 'persuasive' and 'influential', but we all remember Anita's persuasion and influence—in my case, fondly. In other cases, perhaps people might still be twitching a little. But it shows the power of somebody with a determined vision and the strength of character to pull it through. So, she was absolutely determined that we were going to have gender equality in our constituency representation for this place, and her determination shone through and won the day. That's the real message of Anita. Two things: have your vision, pursue it formidably—I think that's the right word—and actually, to this minute, persist in your struggle to make sure that the vision that you have for gender equality stays firmly on the agenda.

Joyce is right also to pay tribute to the many women who came to this place right at the beginning and set some of those standards, and I want to mention one as well, which is Val Feld, who everybody will know was extremely determined to get equality onto the agenda of this place, and I think we'll all agree that she did a very good job in that. But I also want to pay tribute to my colleague Jane Hutt, who is, of course, the longest-serving Minister in any administration in the UK, and was one of the original women here, and I think also herself played a very large role in making sure that this place treats equality with the seriousness that it deserves, and with the prominence that it deserves in our national policy making.

In terms of the availability of the grants, though, we will be making that available. I'll be making sure that every Assembly Member gets a letter explaining how it works. We will be writing out to all of the community organisations that we support already, but if any Assembly Members want us to do anything specific in their area or highlight it in a particular place, I'm more than happy to do that as well.

I realise now that I'm probably speaker No. 3 from the back benches, so I shall practice what I preach to you all and be very brief in just asking you a question.

Can I welcome the statement, leader of the house, and also today recognise that it was the brave women in 1908 who set the second suffragette branch up in Rhyl, who went forward and helped those women on their way? As many have noted, it's a partial franchise for women today, and we move on and we will all celebrate.

There are a number of things that you've mentioned, and there are a number of things that the Assembly are doing. Particularly the one I wanted to mention is the women's suffrage in Wales exhibition, which starts on 5 March and runs through to 18 March. It takes in International Women's Day, which this year the Assembly have dedicated over to the women's suffrage movement. I just wanted to say to you, or ask you, and ask the Government—part of the work stream that I'm concentrating on is women in public life, and a lot of what you've mentioned are things that I will be involved in, but can the Welsh Government and the Assembly Commission work very closely together so that we don't duplicate events, that we get the maximum window dressing, as I've heard it being said today—I don't care how many windows we dress in purple, white and green because I think that's what we need to celebrate—and that we move forward together, as an Assembly Commission, as a Welsh Government, as the people of Wales, the representation of Wales, to celebrate the work of women? I just wonder whether you will agree that that is the best way forward.

Of course I agree that that's the best way forward, and I look forward to working with the Commission, actually, to make sure that we get the celebrations sorted out for the year ahead, and that we get the maximum value out of both the Government grants and what the Assembly can do to highlight the good work that's been put forward together. I understand—and I hope this is right—that the Assembly Commission has agreed to be a Chwarae Teg FairPlay Employer, so I look forward to hearing about that, and to encouraging the Welsh Government to join in with that scheme as well.

Women demanded the vote as much in the interests of men as of women. They wanted it for the good of the whole community, so said my great-aunt, Eleanor Rathbone, who was the ninth woman elected to the UK Parliament. She firmly believed that it was entirely necessary to take the whole community with her, which is why she spoke at hundreds of public meetings across north Wales, Liverpool, Cheshire and Lancashire. Because we have to remember that people in those days, ordinary people, couldn't afford to buy a newspaper, and they certainly couldn't afford to buy a radio, so how else were they going to get information about the importance of the fight for the suffrage of all women and all men, because most men were also excluded at that point? We have to remember that in 1918, only 17 women managed to become candidates in the general election, and only one of them was elected, Countess Markievicz—and because she was a Sinn Feiner, she never took her seat. So, it took an awful lot more struggle to ensure that women really became part of the political fabric.

Indeed, Eleanor's view, having spent 40 years campaigning for family allowances, based on her observation of how women and children were treated during the first world war—when their men all went off to war, they were all left destitute. She spent the rest of the war dishing out welfare to all these families as the only woman on Liverpool City Council. That really did focus her mind on the importance of the role of the family as the producer and reproducer of the future labour force. She firmly believed that family allowances had to be society's contribution to all children, because whether we have children or not, it is everybody's duty to support the well-being of children. The family allowance became child benefit under Barbara Castle, but now it is being seen as withering on the vine. Child benefit has reduced in value since 2010—by 20 per cent since the Conservative Government came in. As well as that, we've got in-work benefits also being reduced at less than the rate of inflation, and children are suffering the brunt of this austerity campaign. We need to remind ourselves that it is children and their well-being that have to be at the forefront of our minds in ensuring the well-being of our whole community. So, we won a battle, but we certainly haven't won the war.

Well, absolutely. We won the battle, and the war is by no means over, and there are a number of fronts on which that war—if that's the word that you want to use—needs to be conducted. There are some interesting things about the suffrage, as it was first instituted. If all women had been allowed to vote at 18 just after the first world war, there would have been far more of them than there were men, of course, because of the tragedy of the great war. One can't help but feel that the policy makers, who might have been all men, might have had that in mind when they considered the suffrage. It's a really good example of why you need a diverse range of decision makers to take all of these things into account when you are going forward. So, you are absolutely right, and you are absolutely right to highlight the fact that there are campaigns that affect the whole of society that women tend to bring forward because they are the carriers of the burden, quite often. As society changes, we hope that we will not be able to say that in the future. But, as we speak, it is still the case that the majority of women carry the burden of the family alongside them in public life.

So, part of this campaign will be about gender equality. I started a campaign called 'THIS IS ME' last Monday in Gower College, about making sure that everybody can be the person that they want to be, regardless of their gender or their sexuality or their race or their creed or disability or any other characteristic. Until we accept that human beings are human beings, and that they should be able to be the best person they can be and make the best contribution that they can make, we will still have this struggle. So, it is very much, Llywydd—it's a good place to end this debate—it is very much the case that what we are actually talking about with gender equality is the right of every individual human being to be the best person they can be and to make the best of their own selves and take their rightful place in the world, whatever that rightful place is—in public life, in private life, in economic life, in cultural life, in every other aspect of our society. Only when we've achieved that will we have achieved equality.

I thank the leader of the house.