8. Will the First Minister make a statement on housing provision for vulnerable children? OAQ52888

We made clear our commitment, and we've demonstrated through our policy and funding decisions, our support to the most vulnerable in our society and, of course, to ensuring that everyone lives in a home that meets their needs and supports individuals and families to flourish.

Thank you, First Minister. The Children's Commissioner for Wales, Professor Sally Holland, has said that the provision of secure homes for vulnerable children is inadequate in Wales. And this issue has been raised frequently with your Welsh Government. In the last year, 20 welfare placements were made for our Welsh children, yet half of these were placed in England. Indeed, BBC Wales reported on a teenager who was placed in a secure children's unit some 250 miles away from their own home. First Minister, this is not acceptable. So, why has your Government not acted upon these previous concerns, and what are you doing to ensure that vulnerable children can access the facilities they so badly need so much closer to their homes where they originate?

The problem is the lack of devolution, because, of course, secure welfare provision is currently managed on an England-and-Wales basis through a network of 15 secure children's homes. We do look to work with the UK Government's Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice as to how best to reconfigure youth justice provision, but this is another example of why justice needs to be devolved, to avoid a situation where we are entirely dependent on departments in London to provide services in Wales. And that is something, certainly, that I'm sure will be a matter for discussion over the next few years.

Reduced funding for Welsh Women's Aid has impacted upon their ability to provide dedicated support for children accommodated in refuges, and this is no surprise. Across Wales, services have seen a 14 per cent reduction in funding from local authority children's services and the Families First grant programmes. Some specialist providers do not receive any funding specifically for support for children, which means that children affected by domestic abuse face a postcode lottery. From my previous employment with Women's Aid, I know that some of these children have witnessed unimaginable horror and can have been subjected to some real trauma and they need support. With this in mind, when are you going to deliver on a model for specialist violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence support, as promised in your national strategy published two years ago? If you were serious about tackling adverse childhood experiences, and if you're serious about creating a safe country for women, this is a serious oversight that needs addressing swiftly.

I think it is correct to say that there have been funding difficulties as far as local government is concerned. What we seek to do and what we will continue to seek to do is to work with local government and other providers to ensure that there are no gaps—and there are gaps. It is true to say that coverage is not even across Wales. That is not something that we can rest easy with. We will look as part of the gender review that's being taken forward by the leader of the house and we will look at what funding might be possible in the future, given the financial squeeze that we have, in order to fill in the gaps in service provision that have been identified and that the Member raises.

Thank you, First Minister.