At the core of what we're trying to achieve here in terms of reducing gender inequality must be the promotion of fair work. As the report says, this is essential if we're to deliver a Welsh economy that provides individual and national prosperity while spreading opportunity and tackling regional inequalities, including gender inequalities. Last year, the Fair Work Board set out the underpinning values of fair work, which include a right to be heard, fair and guaranteed hourly earnings, job security and career progression, and not least, job quality and working time quality. The Fair Work Commission is now taking this work into its next phase, building on these strong foundations, and it will be looking closely at the levers that are available to Welsh Government to implement that fair work, and will be identifying whether there are new or additional steps that might be taken, including looking at new legislation. We've made a commitment to amend the economic contract following the work of the Fair Work Commission, and, again, we need to get that evidential base right so that we can act and make sure that we have the best, world-leading legislation in that regard here in Wales.

The report also rightly focuses on the issue of childcare. It's often cited as one of the main barriers faced by parents who are accessing work. It's cited, as everybody, I think, has mentioned, as one of the reasons why some parents where they do, or work the hours they do, or don't work at all, so it's still an unpalatable truth that, in the twenty-first century in Wales, the majority of children in relative income poverty live in a household where, actually, at least one person is working. We know that well-paid work is both the best route out of poverty and the greatest protection against poverty, and, Deputy Presiding Officer, we also know that financial inequality in the home is one of the main drivers of some of the sexual violence and domestic violence that we see. So it's absolutely paramount that we drive gender equality into the Welsh culture, and in that regard I just want to highlight the 'This is Me' gender equality campaign that the Welsh Government has been running. It has been very successful in terms of its reach, and we hope that it will be very successful in terms of its impact, but in terms of the number of people who've seen it, that has had a very wide reach indeed.

I'd just like to underline to members of the committee that that is very much about being allowed to be the person that you want to be, whether you're male or female, so driving some of the cultural change that John Griffiths in particular talked about, where it's perfectly acceptable for a man to be the main carer of the children and for the woman not to be, and vice versa, or whatever other arrangement suits you. We should be facilitating all of those changes in society. There's no doubt at all that people make decisions on how to do childcare at home when they can't afford the paid childcare that they need based on inadequate information. So, I think it's fair to say that the evidence says that the vast majority of people making decisions about which partner should give up work and so on base it on narrow things around current earnings and not on lifetime earnings, for example, and without a full understanding of the economic impact prolonged periods out of work can have on anyone's career.

With that, I want to say that we're looking very carefully at the issues raised by a number of people, particularly Siân Gwenllian and Jane Hutt, but I think everybody who spoke mentioned it, around the take-up of shared parental leave in the Welsh Government, so that I can understand what's currently being taken up, or certainly on offer, but what's currently being taken up and why, and what effect that has, and what data we have about that, so that, again, I can bring it back to this Chamber to say what we can do about ensuring that more people take up those offers, and if they don't, what the barriers might be, given that it's on offer here in the Government, and because, again, if we can't be the exemplar, Deputy Presiding Officer, then I think we're going to be struggling.

I'm not going to focus that much on our childcare offer. It has been rehearsed in the Chamber very often and my colleague the Minister for Children, amongst other things, has already set it out. But it is worth saying just this: that the childcare offer is not the only way of securing childcare paid for by the Welsh Government. We do have a number of other programmes that I know my colleague Huw Irranca-Davies has mentioned in this Chamber on a number of occasions. Together as a package, they are far more than just the current childcare offer that's in the manifesto, and he has spoken often about corralling that together, and that will be part of what the Fair Work Commission also looks at, to see what barriers there are in driving some of the fair work practices that we want to see in Wales.

I also want to say this about the work of the committee: I very much appreciate the work that's been done on flexible working practices and so on, but there is a case also for pushing what are called modern working practices, and outcome-focused employment, where actually presence in the workplace is not what drives the remuneration. That also assists people with disabilities and other access issues. So, if your employment, if possible—and it's not always possible; it's more difficult, for example, for teachers to have this—but there are lots of jobs in the modern economy where an outcome-based remuneration package works very well, and therefore for people who need very flexible arrangements, as long as they can produce the outcomes necessary, what difference does it make where they do it from, how they're addressed or what access arrangements they've had in order to produce those outcomes? I very much want to reference the work of the previous GE Aviation chief executive, La-Chun Lindsay, in what she was able to show could be done even on a production line when you look at output-based working to get diversity and opportunity into a workforce. I think it's a shame that she's gone back to America now, but I'm still in contact with her, and she drove some very innovative practices.

So, I just want to end, Deputy Presiding Officer, by thanking the committee again for this comprehensive report. It's provided food for thought and gives a clear sense of the issues still facing people in Wales, particularly women in the workplace. I think that the committee is a good champion of equality, as I hope I am. This portfolio that I have is not just a responsibility for me, however—it's a responsibility across the Government. We've accepted the vast majority of the recommendations of the committee, and I look forward to working with my Cabinet colleagues and my committee colleagues in taking this important work forward. Diolch yn fawr.