6. Statement by the Leader of the House: The Centenary of Women's Suffrage

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:39 pm on 6 February 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 5:39, 6 February 2018

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.