Item 4 on our agenda is a statement by the leader of the house: update on the implementation of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse, and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, and I call on the leader of the house, Julie James. 

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. I'm very pleased to give Assembly Members an update on the significant progress made since the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence Act came into force in 2015. The two annual reports that have been published since I took on this portfolio provide more detail of this progress.

Our national strategy published in 2016 outlines six objectives. These objectives were designed to enable compliance, as far as our powers allow, with the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, or the Istanbul convention. The delivery framework, which we published in July 2018, explains how we will work across Government departments to deliver against each of these six objectives.

The Welsh Government is committed to the prevention of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, or VAWDASV. It's an impossible acronym, Deputy Presiding Officer, but VAWDASV, as it's called. We want to improve the public sector response to these issues, and through education, empowerment and engagement, we are challenging attitudes and behaviours across society.

We need to work together to protect those who are currently experiencing VAWDASV. Our national training framework, for example, ensures that, for the first time, standards have been set on training for professionals to help them to recognise who is at risk. Last year, we published draft guidance and rolled out 'ask and act' training. 'Ask and act' is a process of targeted enquiry to be practised by front-line professionals. The training has been developed with survivors, and therefore informed by lived experience. It has the potential to change and save lives, and feedback from the early adoption work shows that it does achieve this.

We've trained over 135,000 people across Wales through e-learning and face-to-face training. That is 135,000 professionals who are more knowledgeable, more aware and more confident to respond to those experiencing VAWDASV. We have published a suite of films aimed at public service leadership to raise awareness of VAWDASV. These films have been viewed over 6,500 times. We are raising awareness amongst children and young people and are teaching them what healthy relationships look like. This work is aimed at preventing them from becoming victims, or even perpetrators. Many schools deliver this through the Welsh Government-funded Spectrum project. We are also strengthening our guidance for schools to include links to appropriate support. This will build upon our good practice guide on taking a whole education approach, and also our guidance for school governors.

The introduction of the new curriculum in 2022 will offer the opportunity to deliver relationships and sexuality education in a completely different way to traditional sex education. Schools do not have to wait until formal roll-out if they feel sufficiently equipped to do so before then.

One of my officials jointly chairs the female genital mutilation, honour-based violence and forced marriage leadership group with the Crown Prosecution Service and BAWSO. This group has developed a delivery framework for tackling so-called honour-based violence, whilst providing the best possible support to survivors. The group has also been instrumental in supporting Wales’s first specialist women’s well-being clinic for those affected by FGM.

We are working under a collaborative agreement with HM Prison and Probation Service on improving the approach to working with perpetrators. This links with the framework to support positive change for those at risk of offending in Wales. The newly formed perpetrator services network takes part in regular practice-sharing events, and a rapid evidence review on what works with domestic abuse perpetrators is due to be published in December. Next month, I will be launching new perpetrator service standards to support commissioners and services to deliver safe and effective practices. We have conducted a mapping exercise of perpetrator services in Gwent and are sharing the learning from this with other areas.

We are tackling gender stereotyping through our communication campaign, This is Me. Gender stereotyping can lead to gender inequality, which is at the root of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence. Survivors have informed our campaigns, and it is their words, voiced by actors, that delivered powerful messages about the impact of just being asked, 'Is everything OK?' in our Don’t be a Bystander campaign.

Working with survivors is integral to our delivery. We want those with lived experience to have a voice in the development and delivery of policy, funding and legislation. That is why we will be piloting a national survivor panel next year and undertaking more work on what a survivor engagement framework should look like.

Welsh Government continues to fund the Live Fear Free website and helpline. These provide 24-hour confidential support, information and advice to women, men and children experiencing abuse. It is also there for concerned others and for professionals working with victims and survivors. Men are supported through the Dyn project and men's helpline. We are working with the national advisers and key stakeholders to develop national indicators that will be measures of progress against the purposes of the Act. We will consult on these by the end of the year and will publish the final indicators by May 2019.

We have provided guidance to support local health boards and local authorities to publish their first local strategies. Our national advisers are reviewing these and will feed back on how these can improve delivery. Earlier this month, the First Minister announced that he would commission an expert-led review into refuge provision and sexual violence services in Wales. The review will look to take the best of the international approaches to inform a made-in-Wales model of support for victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence are horrifyingly prevalent, not only in Wales, but across the world. Our legislation is groundbreaking, but nothing will change overnight; these issues are too deeply entrenched. We are making progress, however, and I want the progress that has been made over the past three years since the Act was introduced to be recognised. I am determined that Wales will realise its ambition to be the safest place for women in Europe. Diolch.

Thank you for your statement. You say that standards are being set for training professionals, and refer to 135,000 people trained. Of course, training is an event rather than a process, and awareness isn't the same as understanding and acceptance of issues as we go forward. So, how do you propose to embed this, not as a one-off online or face-to-face training event, but as an ongoing cultural awareness and change?

You refer to healthy relationships education for children and young people, preventing them from becoming victims or perpetrators, and the introduction of relationships and sexuality education in schools from 2022, but schools not having to wait until the formal roll-out if they feel sufficiently equipped before then to do this. When I questioned you on this recently in the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, I pointed out that there were programmes like the Hafan Cymru programme in schools. I think we've both been out with them and were both impressed by that. I referred to my working with Jocelyn Davies and Peter Black at Stage 4 of the Act, threatening, possibly, to bring it down had we not got assurances on healthy relationships education—or, you're now rephrasing it as the new term you're using, 'relationships and sexuality education'—in schools. I said we didn't support this on the grounds that we'd wait seven years for it, and leaving schools to have the option, if they wish, in the meantime. So, how have you taken forward what you stated to me in the committee, which was that you hadn't had the conversation with Kirsty Williams about the seven years, so you would go back and have that, because it was then a surprise to you?

You refer to the work of the female genital mutilation, honour-based violence and forced marriage leadership group, and their development of a delivery framework for tackling so-called honour-based violence. How is that delivery framework turning into delivery? Could you give us a bit more information on what the delivery is, who's doing it, where, when and how will that be monitored?

You refer to perpetrator programmes. I also, with the support of the other opposition parties during the passage of the Act, put down amendments, which were defeated by the Government, calling for perpetrator programmes to be within the Act. At the time, we were told by the then Minister that there weren't any accredited schemes available in Wales. In fact, there were; there was the Relate Cymru scheme, which has also been adopted by various other providers across Wales.

You refer to collaborative agreement with HM Prison and Probation Service. Well, I received assurances that we would have action by the Welsh Government on pre-custodial perpetrator programmes. So, can you confirm that the new perpetrator service standards you'll be launching to support commissioners and services next month will also address the need for pre-custodial perpetrator programmes, and how they will reflect the Respect accreditation standards, on which evidence was given to the cross-party group on violence against women and children some months ago, providing an evidence-based framework for work with perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse? And also, their new delivering interventions work with young people who use violence and abuse towards a family member, work with women using violence against men, and work with those in same-sex relationships, which they also told that cross-party group about.

You refer to the Live Fear Free website, and men being supported through the Dyn project and men's helpline. Of course, you wouldn't refer a woman victim or survivor to a charity run by men, and during the passage of the Act, another amendment I put down was calling for what Welsh Women's Aid had called for in the past, which was a gender-specific strategy for men and women. Again, the Minister stated this wouldn't be in the Act, but the need would be addressed as we move forward. So, given that North Wales Police has now announced that a quarter of their domestic abuse reports involve men, and the crime survey for England states that 42 per cent of the cases they now are picking up are affecting men, and that three quarters of suicides are men, how will you also work with some wonderful charities like KIM Inspire in Holywell, which you might have heard of and who would love you to visit, who started out supporting women needing mental health support in their community? They have now also established and recruited men to deliver the KIM 4 HIM project, which is groundbreaking, established by a brilliant women's group but incorporating men to deliver it. And, of course, there is the work of DASU, the Domestic Abuse Safety Unit on Deeside, who were also innovative, many years ago, in broadening their services to incorporate men as well as women, who work together in mutual support.

Okay. Well, I'll do my best with that very long list of issues that you've raised. In terms of the training being an event and not a process—I think you said—it's a training framework. So, we are rolling out specific parts of the training framework. So, for example, 'ask and act' is part of the framework. So, the national training framework exists, within which the training programme sits, and the whole point of them is that they are a process and that people continue to progress with their knowledge, so that it's an effective set of professional qualifications. But also, actually, it's a set of abilities and skills that all front-line workers should have. I was particularly impressed by going, for example, to the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, who've put all of their firefighters through it because firefighters are respected and are allowed into people's houses. They've been trained to look for the signs of domestic violence and sexual violence, and that's been very successful and I was very impressed with that. So, I think I can reassure the Member that we are very much aware that it's a framework and not an event.

In terms of the schools issue that he raised with me in committee, with my conversation with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, we have that in the diary but we've not yet actually met. But, as I said to him, we are making sure that the programmes that we currently fund, as I said in the committee, are still there and that schools that have got expertise as a result of those programmes and so on can roll out the new curriculum as soon as possible. As soon as I've had the meeting with Kirsty Williams, I will come back to him. I've not yet been able to have that due to diary pressures.

In terms of perpetrator programmes, we're working with Cardiff Metropolitan University to undertake a rapid evidence assessment of what works with domestic abuse perpetrators, which will be published imminently. We'll be consulting on draft guidance for public services working with perpetrators, and we are working with the regional VAWDASV boards to ensure that safe and effective work with perpetrators is reflected in their strategies. So, we will expect to see the consultation on that very shortly.

In terms of the issues that he made about the quarter of domestic abuse reports being men, Deputy Presiding Officer, without taking anything away from the men who suffer from domestic violence—because all domestic violence is an abhorrent process in our society—it's the scale of the abuse. Two women a week are killed by their partners. That simply isn't the case for men reporting domestic abuse. That's without being disrespectful to those people who are, because that's not my intention. But, clearly, the scale of the problem is nothing like what the figures that the Member quoted would lead you to believe. Men report abuse—it's a generalisation, I know—at a much lower level than women. Women tolerate it for much longer, and the abuse is much worse and much more violent. So, we do have to have a proportionate response to the various sorts of abuse. We do have the various helplines and projects that are being sponsored, but it would be a mistake to think that some sort of equality across the provision was what was required as a result of some of the statistics the Member quoted.    

Leader of the house, I would urge caution when discussing who provides services. As a former probation officer and support worker for Women's Aid, I would say, of course, that all violence and all abuse in all relationships is wrong, but I'm also acutely aware of perpetrators who say that they are victims of abuse as a cover for their actions. So, when considering the funding of services, I'd want to be satisfied that proper checks are taking place to avoid this sort of cover from perpetrators being publicly funded and further harming victims. So, how can we ensure that those getting money for the provision of these services are bona fide?

I'm surprised that, three and a half years into this legislation, the basic level of mapping services has yet to happen. We know from the organisations delivering these services that there are gaping holes in service provision, and cuts to local government may well have made this situation worse. But, we don't know the extent of that because we can't properly follow the budget lines through to show this.

As I raised with you in committee, I'm concerned about the provision for children in all of this. When I worked for Women's Aid in the 1990s, we were campaigning for core funding for children's services. If children are not given the opportunity to work through the impact of the domestic abuse that's taking place between their parents, we risk seeing patterns of that behaviour being repeated. 

I also raised concerns with you about the teaching of relationships, control, consent et cetera in school. The need is there to start at a very young age, but this won't come in now, we've heard, until 2022—eight years into the legislation. That tells me that this matter is not a priority for your Government. We cannot wait for another three years' worth of potential harm to be done before we address this among young people. And the work that's being done by the third sector, fantastic though it may well be, is great, but it's not enough—it isn't comprehensive enough. So, my questions are: will you ensure that children's domestic abuse services are core funded? I know you said that this will be covered by the review of services, but I don't think that there was specific mention of children's services in that statement. Will you work with the Cabinet Secretary for Education to bring those curriculum changes forward?

I welcome the First Minister's announcement to commission an expert review into refuge provision and sexual violence services in Wales. This is long overdue. We've got so many people who are not receiving the help that they need when they ask for it, and there are many, many more who don't seek help until much, much later. And we're letting all of these people down by not adequately funding services that can help people to rebuild their lives after a traumatic incident. So, another question, then, is: when are we likely to see the conclusion of that review? And more importantly, when will we see additional resources allocated to fund extra services?

And my final question is a question that I asked you in committee, but I didn't get an answer for there, so perhaps I'll get one here. In 2016, a previous national adviser said that commissioning guidance is critical to the purpose of the Act. So, when is that guidance going to be published? 

I'll try and work my way through that list of questions. The proportionality bit is very important to us. So, as I said, we've got to look very carefully at who's providing what services and what the proportionate response to various levels are—[Interruption.] Yes. So, for example, many of the providers dealing with women who are seeking refuge from domestic abuse are also seeking refuge because they've experienced sexual violence, for example. The two things go hand in hand with women—not so much with male survivors of domestic abuse. And without taking anything away from men who come forward, as I said, the level at which men come forward is—it's a generalisation, of course, and that's always invidious, but, across, the piece, it's much less so. So, we're working very hard to make sure we do get a proportionate response and a proportionate funding level as a result of that. Would that we had enough money to fund absolutely all of it, but we don't, so a proportionate response is very important to us. 

As part of our sustainable funding model, we are looking to see how we work across the piece with the regional services. For the first time ever, local authorities have had to come forward with a plan and a map of their services. So, it's the first time we're responding to that. We've worked very hard, particularly in a pilot area in Gwent, who are much more advanced in terms of their collaboration in this area, to see what will work and what will not work. I think it's fair to say that we've had some unintended consequences of some of the funding arrangements that we've put in place. So, for example, we ask people to collaborate, and then we ask them to submit a retender for services, in which the unique selling point that they're resubmitting is part of the collaboration. So, clearly, there are some unintended behaviour consequences of that, and we're working very hard to overcome that. And some of the regional consortia have made very strong and I think sustainable suggestions for that. The national advisers are chairing those discussions and I'm sure we can come up with a more sustainable model for that. 

I actually agree with her about the mapping services. That's the purpose of the local authorities being asked to come forward in this way with their plan for the services and our response to that. The First Minister has announced his expert-led review. I'm very keen to see the voice of the survivor inside that. It's important that the experts are there to give us that advice, but, as I said, we want to see survivors at the heart of reviews of services, because we know how much we learn from what happened to them and where we might have intervened earlier, and what worked for them and what didn't. I was very pleased to be at the launch of a Welsh European Funding Office-funded service with Mark Drakeford, my colleague, last week—Threshold DAS—where that was emphasised. I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting four of the survivors there, who talked us through their experience and what would have been of assistance to them. And it's very important indeed for us to do that.

Part of the gender review of policy, which is going on simultaneously as well—it will be no surprise to anybody here, if you've read stage 1 of the review, it's in there, but the stage 2 review as well looks at resources and the budgeting process as part of that review, and I'm sure that that will come to the forefront. One of the things we want to look at is how we measure interventions across the Welsh Government, and what impact we look at in terms of what those interventions deliver, and that hasn't been done in quite that way before, so I'm very keen to get that done. And the guidance will be out very shortly. I don't want to give you an absolute deadline, but I'm hopeful it will be very shortly.

John Griffiths.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd—

Sorry—excuse me, John. On the curriculum, I've yet to have the meeting with Kirsty Williams, and as soon as I have, I'll report to all Members about where we are with that. Sorry, John—I beg your pardon.

John Griffiths—we'll try again. [Laughter.]

No problem at all.

Leader of the house, as you will know, the committee that I Chair, the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, is taking a general approach of returning to reports and, indeed, legislation that we've scrutinised, to make sure that implementation is what it needs to be, and that includes this particular piece of legislation. So, one aspect that we've been concerned with, as Leanne Wood mentioned, is the statutory commissioning guidance, and the timeliness of taking that forward. And as Leanne Wood also said, the previous national adviser said, I think some two years ago, that the publication of statutory guidance is critical to the purpose of the Act, and that she was very concerned at the time that there was no confirmed timeline for publication of that guidance. And, indeed, in the absence of that, Lloyds Bank Foundation and Welsh Women's Aid produced non-statutory guidance. So, I'd just be interested in anything further you can say in terms of making sure that those issues are satisfactorily addressed.

Also, in terms of the local strategies, leader of the house, in a recent evidence session, you said that the draft strategies were all published by the deadline set in the legislation, which I think was May of this year. But I'm just wondering if there are any legal consequences in terms of those local strategies not being published in their final form by that May deadline, given that that deadline was actually set out in the legislation. I'm wondering whether there will be a timescale for the delivery framework, because I think that's obviously very significant to the progress that needs to be made.

And finally, on the review of refuge provision, I wonder if you might provide some clarity as to how the review, announced by the First Minister, will work alongside the sustainable funding model.

I'll start there, because that allows me to talk about the two together. We've set up a task and finish group of stakeholders to develop the sustainable funding model, after all of the work that we were doing, as I said in answer to Leanne Wood, around sorting out the necessary infrastructure to regionalise the commissioning. And then we realised, as a result of various submissions, from all over Wales, that people were not in a position to do that, and there were various difficulties. So, rather than forging ahead with that—we very much want this to work, in the end, so what we did was we rowed back from that a little bit. And the task and finish group is chaired by one of the national advisers, Yasmin Khan, with a view to us working out the sustainable funding model that everybody involved in the sector actually buys into and agrees. So, the timescale did slip, but I thought it was much more important to have that sustainable funding model than to have the rigid timetable and then not have something that worked.

In terms of whether there was a penalty or a consequence of them not having done it, we had to consider that, because I didn't think that, where we are in the cycle, that was a proportionate response. So, we decided that that wasn't a proportionate response in this instance. However, it's possible to have that if, in further iterations, the timescale isn't met. But given where we are in the Act, and this is new territory and so on, and given that they'd got their drafts in, we didn't think that was a proportionate response. But it is possible to do that later on in the cycle if we do have somebody who doesn't produce it in good time.

In terms of the refuge provision, what we want to look at is the assessment of need coming back from the local authorities, what's currently funded at the moment, what the map of that looks like and how that matches. This is a very complex area, because it's not just Welsh Government funding—there are a raft of other sets of funding: lots of charities fund in this area, the UK Government tampon tax funds in this area, and a number of other things do. So, what we want to do is put a set of fundings together that allow people to get the best out of that jigsaw and to kind of provide a pathway through it, because you don't want to have a PhD in how some of that fits together to be able to access it, and to stop the constant competition for small amounts of money that goes on in groups of people we'd like to have collaboration from. So, that's no small task and finish group that the national advisers are chairing, but I'm told it's going very well, and we are very hopeful that we'll have a seriously sustainable funding model coming back out of it. 

My interest in this subject is prompted by the many years I spent as a justice of the peace, where I saw first-hand the terrible effect that domestic abuse has not only on the victims but also on the families. So, can I thank the leader of the house for her statement? It is gratifying to see the steps being taken by the Welsh Government to eradicate these abhorrent crimes. The Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 was a welcome, much-needed piece of legislation. I also think it right to recognise the many interventions and initiatives the Welsh Government has introduced since the Act, including a national strategy and its six objectives, published in 2016, and the leader of the house mentions the Live Fear Free website and helpline. It would be of interest to have some figures on how effective these two interventions are and the level of interaction by victims with both these online services. 

Leader of the house, for many years, domestics were ignored by police and society in general, often viewed as 'family matters'. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. It is now acknowledged that domestic abuse not only affects the families involved, but also society in general. Those who grow up in a violent household often take that violence into their wider social activities, and those who regularly view domestic abuse are far more likely to see it as normal behaviour and often reflect it in their own domestic relationships. 

One of the key factors in protecting the victims of domestic abuse is the provision of interventions to help them get out of such relationships. They must be sure that if they leave an abusive environment, they will be protected from their abuser and provided with a safe refuge, not just for themselves but also for any children they may have. They must also be confident that their predicament is understood and that the law will act against the perpetrators in an appropriate manner. Leader of the house, we must ensure that there are adequate numbers of refuges to take any, and all, victims of domestic abuse.

Leader of the house, you mentioned that Gwent Police has become the first force in Wales to offer 24-hour specialist support to victims of domestic abuse. They will, in the force's control room, have a team of four specially trained assertive outreach officers who will work exclusively with people who come forward as the victims of such crime. This is a positive response to the fact that Gwent Police receive around 12,000 domestic abuse calls a year. But we know that there are probably many more victims out there who, for fear of reprisal, fail to report such abuse. It is to be hoped that other police forces in Wales will follow this excellent example. Perhaps the leader of the house could update us on where other police forces are with regard to that. 

We must all play our part, both as AMs and as ordinary citizens, in helping to eradicate this evil practice. Domestic abuse is violence and violence of the worst kind, because it is often perpetrated against some of the most vulnerable in society. We must send a clear message that it will not be tolerated in Welsh society. 

Well, yes, thank you for those remarks. I want to pay tribute to our previous colleague Jeff Cuthbert, who is the police and crime commissioner, who has taken his passion in this regard into Gwent Police with him, and Gwent Police have indeed been good role models in this, and he's the lead police commissioner in this area. We work very closely with him to make sure that we understand what works, and, as I said, Gwent is one of the areas where we've been looking to see how we roll out the regional commissioning, because of the advanced nature of their arrangements.

David Rowlands raised an interesting point about data. That is an issue for us, and one of the reasons we're doing the review that the First Minister announced is to make sure that we do have all of the right data and, where we don't have it, we know in advance we don't have it and we put in place the right arrangements so that we can collect that data. And that data can come from all over the place: from A&E resources, from GPs, from programmes, from helplines, and all the rest of it. So, that's one of the many purposes of the review.

And just in terms of the normal behaviour and the perpetrator programmes, we know that they work. After the This Is Me campaign, we had an increased use of the Live Fear Free website by over 6,000 per cent. So, it really did work. Seven million impressions through tv and radio advertisements, a significant increase across the use of all of our social media channels—so, that's very good. We also know that calls to the helpline from concerned others doubled during the Don't Be a Bystander campaign period compared with the same period the year before. So, we know that they work and we collect the data to show that.

The last thing to say is that future campaigns are going to be focusing on coercive control. Deputy Presiding Officer, I've seen the storyboard for that; it actually moved me to tears, I have to say. We are launching those in January and we expect similar penetration and reach across the market to redouble our efforts to say what David Rowlands said, that this behaviour is simply not tolerable in any civilised society, never mind Wales.

And, finally, Joyce Watson.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I thank you for your update today, leader of the house. We all know that last Sunday was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and that there will be 16 days of activism. There is huge campaigning going on and awareness-raising around things like the White Ribbon campaign, and I'll be doing one of those again with the Women's Institute in Aberystwyth on Friday.

But what isn't happening is—the incidence of domestic abuse and the deaths of two women per week, they're not coming down. There is no reduction whatsoever in those figures, and those figures do represent people. They represent individuals and families and loved ones that are being lost. So, it leads me to ask the question: whilst I recognise all the good work that we are now putting into schools, teaching children about the respect agenda at the very earliest stages that they are able to comprehend that, what work are we doing beyond that in terms of other clubs, social clubs, sports clubs, youth clubs that aren't attached to schools, where we can get that message into communities in a different way? Because it is obvious that we have to change the pattern of behaviour, and the pattern of behaviour clearly starts with young people.

The other figure that doesn't seem to be coming up very often is the one that the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service told me last week, that they receive 60 calls every single month about threatened arson. And, if you look at the UK figures, when it comes to domestic abuse, 40 per cent of them are as a consequence of arson attacks.

So, those are my two questions: one about other fire and rescue services taking up the very good work that's been driven by Huw Jakeway in south Wales, and the other question is about widening, as far and wide as possible, the impact and the influence that we can have on young people under the respect agenda.

Yes, and, as usual—Joyce Watson has championed this for years beyond mention. All of your political career, you've been a champion for this, quite rightly so. And it is worrying that the figures don't move. We need a much more concerted, across our society, impact on this. It's part of the reason we were running the gender stereotyping piece, because I think—. Some people, we had some feedback saying, 'What's this got to do with it?' But, actually, we need to understand the base cause of some of these issues, and a large part of the base cause is people being forced into role models that they simply don't want to be in, don't live up to, and it makes people seriously suffer in their mental health, and that leads on to these kinds of programmes. So, I couldn't agree with you more. We're having a conversation with our universities about running compulsory consent programmes before people register, for example, and I'd like to pay tribute to Cardiff University, which has already done that, and we'd like to see that rolled out across the piece, and to have compulsory consent talks in schools for young people as they become sexually active as part of the new curriculum, and, as I said, I will be talking to Kirsty about the timing of that, and what we can do about it.

But she makes a very good point, and I will be taking it up with the national advisers as well, about how we can get, for example, our youth engagement and protection programme involved in this matter, because she's absolutely right: we have to get that consent talk out there. Unfortunately, with my data and digital hat on, you see increasing numbers of young men addicted to pornography online, and that's a real serious issue as well. We see the rise of some behaviours associated with that.

So, this is—you're absolutely right: we need to get this widespread in society, and that whole issue around ACEs, teaching children that what they're experiencing is not normal or right, and that they have rights, and our whole rights-based approach to education, is also in this space. So, I think we just need a whole-Government approach to working it out, and I think the gender review is very much pushing us in that direction as well, and she's absolutely right to highlight it.

Thank you very much, leader of the house. Thank you.