4. Statement by the Leader of the House: International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:49 pm on 15 May 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:49, 15 May 2018

Indeed. I completely concur with many of the remarks you made. St Teilo's is a really good example. It's really excellent to see what can be done in schools. The Member makes a very good point about the diaspora, as well, and the work that we have to do, which is why I was emphasising the community cohesion parts of these outreach workers. I just want to highlight as well, Deputy Presiding Officer, the existence of Meic, which is the helpline service for children and young people in Wales up to the age of 25, which is a confidential, anonymous and free service available in Welsh or English from 8 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, which is contactable by phone, SMS text and instant messaging. It is a helpline for people who feel they are being bullied in any way at all in school, and has been particularly used by members of the diaspora community, who sometimes have cultural difficulties to cope with at home.

I mentioned briefly in response to a number of other Assembly Members, and Siân Gwenllian in particular, the issue around LGBT housing and homelessness issues. I would just like to highlight as well that, although we've got data difficulties, because homelessness is not captured as part of the wider statutory statistical return in terms of LGBT-specific data, Llamau have confirmed the anecdotal information we've gathered from both Shelter Cymru and local authority homelessness teams that there is a growing trend of homelessness caused by family conflict that is caused by a young person identifying as LGBT. As we discussed earlier in our proceedings today, Deputy Presiding Officer, incidence of mental health issues amongst homeless young people is higher within the LGBT population than the general population.

Just to highlight the points I made then, again, this is around the whole issue of being yourself, the ability to say, 'This is me. I am what I am. I'm proud of it and I don't want to be anything else.'We need to be able to assist young people to come forward and to be protected and safe from harm as they go through that process, and so the Government runs a number of campaigns, which we are accelerating—the This Is Me campaign, the Don't Be a Bystander campaign, the youth homelessness campaign—which all converge on this agenda. And we just want to be sure that people with LGBTQ+ protected characteristics are front and centre of those campaigns, as we take them forward.

But Jenny Rathbone is right; we have a large number of things to celebrate here in Wales. So, today is about the celebration, as well as about the need to send that message out into our communities and our world. I too am delighted that we'll be be flying the rainbow flag on Thursday.