10. Debate: The Equality and Human Rights Commission's Wales Committee Annual Review 2017-2018

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:55 pm on 6 November 2018.

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Photo of Neil McEvoy Neil McEvoy Independent 6:55, 6 November 2018

There are some data gaps identified in the report. I think the Government needs to meet the call for 'Talk to me', and to develop improvements to reduce suicide, particularly for men, because the biggest killer of men under 45 in Wales is in fact suicide. There are huge gaps also in data and research for mental health provision amongst ethnic minorities. I'll just give you one example. There are no suicide rates for anybody from an ethnic minority, so we just don't know if certain communities are being affected in particular ways. The Government has recognised previously that there are higher rates of discrimination in health against people from minority backgrounds, who are very often seen as being aggressive and uncooperative, and the lack of adequate translation in the health service really doesn't help there. And passive racism, frankly, is also a problem.

The conversations that we need to have, which are not actually in the document—I'll talk about suicide again, for example. There is research out there that shows that southern Asian women are two and a half times more likely to attempt suicide than white women, especially in the age group of 18 to 24. I think it's good in the report that there is specialist support for ethnic minority women, disabled women and women with complex needs, in terms of domestic abuse support. But there's an absence of gender-responsive services for male victims of domestic abuse. And men are the largest minority group of victims in violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, yet they receive the lowest level of support.

There's a lack of equality in housing that I want to mention, which is not actually in the report. Because if you're a non-resident parent—and, really, the term is slightly misleading—it's if you have less care time for your children, then that is not taken into account in terms of housing allocation, by housing associations or indeed councils. So, you may have care for your children every weekend, or two days a week, but if you're on the housing list, your children will not be taken into account. So, for example, you could have five children, and you would be allocated a one-bedroom flat. Historically, I think this has been seen as a male issue, but what I'm finding through my work—I tend to attract a lot of cases like this—is that it's becoming a lot more gender neutral. I had a woman in my office last week talking about this very problem, and as a result she may well lose contact with her children. It's a real inequality that we're not actually talking about.

I just want to deal with one amendment—and I wasn't able to get in there with Gareth. The Plaid amendment says that it regrets the growth internationally of political movements seeking to roll back human rights protections, and calls on the Welsh Government to publish a plan for maintaining human rights following withdrawal from the EU. I see nothing wrong with that—no particular group is mentioned, nobody is singled out, it's just a recognition of what is actually happening in the world. And I fully support that. I just find it strange that anybody would want to vote against a plan to maintain human rights—quite strange. Diolch.