It is important, today of all days, that we, as the National Assembly for Wales, acknowledge International Human Rights Day on Monday, 10 December 2018. Seventy years on since the adoption of the universal declaration of human rights, the advancement of social justice and equality was one of the core fundamental reasons that I, and, I know, others in this Chamber, entered political life, and it is why the progress and maintenance of social justice and equality of opportunity is at the bedrock of all that I do as the Assembly Member for Islwyn. In fact, fighting the ideology of the far right and BNP was fundamental to my personal journey. It was a Labour United Kingdom Government that was an original signatory to the European convention on human rights and it was a Labour United Kingdom Government that enshrined it into our law, with the passing of the 1998 Human Rights Act.

But it is, indeed, as others have said today, a sad day when the leader of the UKIP group smiles and encourages the former leader of the English Defence League and BNP member at a recent rally—and his real name, I believe, is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon—now advising UKIP.

Last year, the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, addressed the United Nations in Geneva. Jeremy Corbyn outlined in that address the problems that our common humanity faces. He stated, and I quote, that the growing concentration of unaccountable wealth and power in the hands of a tiny corporate elite, a system many call 'neoliberalism', which has a sharply increased inequality, marginalisation, insecurity and anger across the world. We know that challenges such as these threaten the advancement of social justice, and, now more than ever, we have to confront these challenges head on. It is therefore saddening to see, every day, the growing queues at food banks across the UK and the increase in evictions and homelessness. It is saddening to see, every day, the continuing financial and time sanctions inflicted on the discredited universal credit—our most vulnerable claimants affected—the cuts to child benefit, the cuts to tax credit thresholds, the travesty of the personal independent payment assessments and the strategic dumping of the UK welfare support net for our most vulnerable, despite the strategic and far-reaching mitigations of our Welsh Government. The recent UN report into poverty and human rights in Britain follows a further damning rights report into how the UK treats its disabled. No-one here should be proud of that. It states that the application of the UK social policy welfare system drives poverty, creates homelessness, disempowers women, the disabled and children, and fundamentally breaks human rights, and, further, that the dangerous ideology driving universal credit, which puts financial resource into the hands of the main, male breadwinner, often, drives domestic abuse and sexual violence, is mysoginistic.

It is therefore important, then, as we contemplate the UK human rights agenda and our place in world, and the implications of whatever Brexit is, on this day of all days, that we do all, I hope, in our power to protect the human rights we have now to safeguard them for the future and enshrine them in our constitution for the future of our children's rights now and for the years to come. Thank you.