Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:25 pm on 6 March 2018.
I had two points I wanted to bring up with the leader of the house. I'm very pleased we're having an individual debate tomorrow on prisons and I'm hoping to use that opportunity to talk about women prisoners, but I wanted to draw to the attention of the leader of the house the activities of the Koestler Trust, which is a prison arts charity. This week, I'm expecting a painting to go up in my office that has been painted by a woman prisoner, and is there to mark International Women's Day week. So, I thought this initiative has got such worth that I wondered if it would be possible at some point to have a statement about initiatives like this in Wales, which as well as the intrinsic merit of the paintings themselves, are a form of rehabilitation. So, I wondered if there was something we could look at there.
Secondly, a week ago, hordes of women descended on the Whitchurch rugby club in my consistency. The roads were blocked and they weren't able to get into the room that had been set aside. This was for a meeting organised by our MP, Anna McMorrin, addressed by Carolyn Harris MP and myself, and this was all to do with the absolute fury about what's happened to their pensions—the so-called WASPI women. It did seem to be such a matter of such huge concern to so many women, and I know so many women throughout Wales, that I was wondering whether there was anything at all that we could do through our business here in the Assembly to look at this issue and to look at the huge implications it's having for women in the planning of their lives, such as whether they give up a job or not, affecting their roles as carers—all things that do impinge on our devolved responsibilities, although of course the issue itself is non-devolved.