7. Will the Leader of the House make a statement on levels of inequality in Wales? OAQ52919

Yes. The Welsh Government is committed to driving forward the goal of making Wales a more equal nation. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s new report, 'Is Wales Fairer? (2018)' provides important evidence and demonstrates there is much more to do. We will take careful notice of the report and its recommendations.

Thank you, and thank you for pointing out the EHRC report, 'Is Wales Fairer?', highlighting some very concerning statistics on levels of female participation in Welsh society. In Wales, women continue to be severely under-represented in public roles. In 2015-16, only 14 per cent of local government chief executives in Wales were women, despite making up 73 per cent of overall local authority positions. In our emergency services, 33 per cent of chief fire officers and deputies were women—that's 50 per cent workforce—whilst just 29 per cent of all police officers are female. Furthermore, the report also highlights that gender inequality is increasing, with seven out of 10 mothers in Wales reporting to have had a negative or possibly discriminatory experience after returning to work from maternity leave. Such negative experiences may go some way to explain why women are so under-represented in our public services. Ruth Coombs, the head of EHRC in Wales, has argued that it is now time for the action to be taken by the Welsh Government, and that you need to take a lead. Therefore, could you outline exactly what actions you are taking as a result of that report, and how are you showing strong leadership in that regard?

Yes. We're very committed to working with EHRC and others to ensure that women do not face discrimination in the workplace in relation to pregnancy or maternity. The Welsh Government has itself signed up to EHRC's Working Forward campaign, which not only benefits women in the workplace, but makes good business sense to support staff in the workplace. The Member will be very aware that Chwarae Teg is currently leading on delivery of phase 2 of the gender review, building on the work they completed in phase 1, and by summer of next year we'll have a clear road map for achieving gender equality in Wales. The work will continue beyond the end of the project to ensure we're doing the things to achieve this goal. I did issue a written statement on the review earlier this week.

We have a number of other actions, which I've discussed with the EHRC in my regular meeting with them, and I also had an additional meeting specifically to discuss the 'Is Wales Fairer?' report. We fed that into our new 'Action on disability: the right to independent living' consultation, and I would urge everyone in the Chamber to respond. We've sought the views of disabled people and worked closely with disability stakeholder organisations to co-produce that new approach. On race, we are funding the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales to deliver an all-Wales BME engagement programme over the next three years, in order to understand the views and issues facing those communities in Wales, because what's quite clear, and the Member read out some of the statistics, is that the more protected characteristics—or intersectionality, as the jargon would have it—that you have, the more likely you are to experience those kinds of inequalities. So, we also give an equality and inclusion equality grant for organisations representing gender equality, race and LGBT issues, and we fund three inclusion projects: the all-Wales hate crime report and support centre, the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller advice and advocacy service, and the national support services for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants—all with a view to ensuring that people have the right attitudes to work. My colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, has been working very hard, as part of his economic action plan, to drive those kinds of equalities into the ask from companies as they sign up. And my colleague, the Minister for public services, is very engaged in this space with local authorities and we've been actively, together, considering what we can do to change the composition of local authorities, both for the councillors and representatives themselves, and indeed for the workforce that supports the elected representatives.

Leader of the house, will you report on action taken to close the gender pay gap following Equal Pay Day on Saturday? A recent ONS report said that the gender pay gap for full-time workers has fallen to a record low of 8.6 per cent. It's good to see it's fallen, but it still shows what a long way we have to go.

Yes, indeed, and, again, as part of the economic action plan in the private sector, and as part of our ask from our main companies in Wales, we are asking that people sign up to the eradication of the gender pay gap. We're working very hard to ensure that the Welsh Government has no such pay gap, and, again, with my colleague, the Cabinet Secretary for public services, to include other public services in that. I've had extensive discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for health in order to drive the gender pay gap out of public services in Wales, because we should be the exemplar employers in this field; we ought to be able to show the way. But we have of course included it in our economic action plan to ensure we have the right ethos in Wales, and we have signed up, as I said in response to Janet Finch-Saunders, to the EHRC's Working Forward programme as well.

Thank you very much, leader of the house.