4. Statement by the Leader of the House and Chief Whip: Update on Implementation of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:49 pm on 27 November 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:49, 27 November 2018

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.