Diolch, Llywydd. I apologise to colleagues because I'm struggling a little bit with my voice. 

So, I just want to start off by thanking the committee for their joint report and to all the Members who have contributed to the debate. I think there really is a distinctive approach to equality that is woven into the Welsh devolution mindset from the outset and built into the DNA of the Welsh Government. The commitment gives us a solid platform in Wales to create strong and inclusive policies and legislation. It's clear from what everybody has said in their contribution that we accept that we're heading into an unprecedented and uncertain period for Wales as we leave the EU, in terms of the discussions on whether a 'deal' or 'no deal' scenario has different implications for protections of human rights that we all wish to see protected. And I think there was agreement from every speaker that those rights need to be protected.

We've been very consistent in what we want to see by way of our priorities for leaving the EU and part of the Brexit talks, and one of those has been a fundamental maintenance of the human rights position for Welsh citizens and their place in the world. And, of course, that would also include a continuing commitment to ensure that no falling back happens as a result of our leaving the EU. So, some measure of checking what the human rights position of other leading countries around the world is and ensuring that we stay in lockstep with that must be done. And David Melding, I think, in particular, mentioned that it's not just the EU that we should be monitoring for that, and that's certainly our view as well, and we need to make sure that Wales stays in lockstep with the very best of practice around the work.

However, the continuing uncertainty makes it very difficult to evaluate the future of the landscape and to have very specific courses of action at the moment, until we see what that landscape might look like. David Melding also pointed out, for example, the public debate about the distinction between the EU charter of fundamental rights and the European convention on human rights deriving from the European Council, and the confusion in people's mind about what's incorporated where and so on. So, I think one of the things we are very keen to do is to look to see what we can do in terms of Welsh legislation, to enshrine in the laws of Wales, so that we protect those fundamental freedoms in a very straightforward way. And, actually, as a result of a conversation that was initiated in this Chamber, Llywydd, with Helen Mary Jones on her legislative proposal for incorporation of the UN convention on the rights of disabled people, we have commissioned a piece of research to show us how, in Wales, the interlocking pieces of legislation best fit together.

Many Members—Jane Hutt, John Griffiths and other Members—have mentioned the socioeconomic duty under the Equalities Act, for example, and whether we should bring that into force. We very much want to do that. But we want to ensure that we do that in a way that is completely compatible with, for example, our groundbreaking well-being of future generations Act, and that it doesn't cut across it in a any way or undermine that Act. So, we've commissioned a piece of research to see how that jigsaw best fits together and to give us a route-map to getting to a place that everybody in the Chamber outlined, which is a place where, very simply, we set out what those fundamental rights are in Welsh legislation and we don't have a layered effect. In conversation with the commissioner for the future generations Act, for example, she talked about the difficulty of ensuring that we don't slip back—we've passed the well-being of future generations Act, which has some things to say with regard to socioeconomic factors in decision making in Wales—and we don't put the socioeconomic duty on the next layer, so that people go there first, but we actually ensure that they interlock. So, one of the issues around just copying Scotland is that Scotland doesn't have a well-being of future generations Act, so we want to make sure that they meld together.

So, I want to assure everybody in the Chamber that what we want to do is ensure that we have the best, most cutting-edge protection for these human rights in Wales, in a way that's uniquely Welsh, in a way that blends our legislation together with the various conventions, and in a way that enshrines individual rights, as John Griffiths, I think, pointed out in his speech. One of the very important things to look at when we look at convention rights and the enacting of the various duties and so on is that individuals have a means by which they can enforce their own rights and fight against any infringement of that. So, I'm very happy, Llywydd, to say to the Chamber that we will come back as soon as we have that research with a route-map for getting to where we want to be and that that's independent of the EU debate, because we want to see what our legislation should look like anyway. And then, as that's informed by what the withdrawal Act looks like in its final form, and whether there's a deal or not, we can make sure that that's incorporated into that conversation.

So, various other Members—excuse me, sorry, I'm really struggling with my throat today, unfortunately—have also raised other concerning issues around this. I'd just like to reference a few of those as I end my contribution. One is the rise in hate crime and the 71 per cent rise in referrals. This is really shocking for us. Wales has a long history of welcoming people from all over the world. As the First Minister often says, we are all migrants, it just depends how far back in your family you want to go. None of us came from here originally. We very much want to see a welcoming, positive and tolerant country, and one of the things we'll be looking at in our research is to see whether the legislation gives us a platform in Wales to make sure that we enforce the cultural outward-looking country that we want to be by allowing people to have recourse to law if those rights are infringed. So, that's one of the things we're very interested in doing. We're also looking to see the Welsh public sector working collaboratively to develop shared equality objectives that can be targeted at tackling both inequality and socioeconomic disadvantage as part of a piece around hate crime. Many of the people who experience hate crime experience it for a specific protected characteristic, but, actually, there's intersectionality. Often, they have a number of those characteristics, which we want to see given the strength of the protection of the law as much as we can.

So, Llywydd, we want to walk the fine line between being very careful about imposing additional burdens on our public services and being very clear about what their obligations and duties are in terms of delivering services to the people of Wales. I'm very grateful to the two committees for their work in bringing this debate forward. I'm very happy to confirm that we are doing the research necessary to incorporate all of those pieces of legislation in the best possible pattern, and I look forward to working with both committees in the future to bring that forward. Diolch.