I thank the Deputy Minister for her statement. She will, of course, remember the hard fight we had to have included in our founding statute the specific responsibility for this institution to have due regard to equality of opportunity in 1998. It's nice to hear her refer to it in her statement, and I would also like to remind us all that that was led by our former colleague Val Feld, who brought many interests together, and I'd like to pay my respects to Val for that today. We have, of course, seen some progress since 1998, but I know the Deputy Minister has acknowledged today that we still have a great deal more to do, and knowing that time is short I just want to briefly raise a couple of specific points, if I may.

First of all, I'd like to ask the Deputy Minister about the provision of services to women survivors of domestic and sexual abuse and their children. Now, I'm sure the Deputy Minister will agree with me that those services—and we know this from research—are best provided by local women-led organisations that are answerable to their service users. We know that these organisations across Wales are losing tenders to provide those services to larger commercial organisations. Often, no children's services are provided in those tenders, and, if they are, they are an add-on, there isn't adequate time. Where they are provided, they're often provided by volunteers—provided on a shoestring. Now, I know the Deputy Minister will agree with me that we will never break the circle of domestic abuse unless we support the children who have witnessed those atrocities in their own homes. Surely, this has to be a priority for the Welsh Government, and can I ask the Deputy Minister today what more she can do, in partnership with local government in Wales, to halt and reverse this trend of local organisations losing out to the big commercial people who are there to make profit, not to look after our children?

The next issue specifically I'd like to raise is the issue of period poverty, and I do welcome the recent Welsh Government investment, but we've seen further evidence again this week that we still have girls missing school because they can't have access to appropriate sanitary products. We still see women and girls using inappropriate things, like having to use socks, having to wash things, and I congratulate the National Union of Students—I'm sure the Minister would agree with me—on the campaign that they've kicked off on these issues this week. I'd specifically like to draw the Deputy Minister's attention to research published by the British Medical Association in Wales this week—last month, rather—showing that no consistent approach is taken across the NHS to the provision of sanitary protection in hospitals for women and girls who are in-patients. There are places—there are some of our hospitals where people cannot even purchase those supplies for themselves, let alone have them provided for free. No health board in Wales has got a specific policy, according to the BMA, on how these services should be provided. So, can I ask the Deputy Minister today, as part of the discussions she's referred to in her statement that she's having with ministerial colleagues, to discuss this matter specifically with the Minister for health to ensure that all women and girls receiving in-patient treatment in all Welsh hospital settings are provided with sanitary products free of charge as a matter of course? We do not expect our patients to bring their own lavatory paper into hospitals; we certainly should not be expecting them to provide their own sanitary products.  

My last specific point is to highlight the plight of the 1950s women whose pension rights were reduced without consultation—referred to as the WASPI women. The UK Government has, of course, now acknowledged that thousands of these women were never contacted about the proposed changes, and that this condemns many of them to poverty towards what they expected to be the end of their working lives. Now, obviously, this isn't a devolved matter, but I'd like to ask the Deputy Minister to agree that the Welsh Government will make further representations to the UK Government in this regard, in the light of the fact that the UK Government has now acknowledged that they did not notify all the women affected. 

And, finally, I'd like to very briefly make a general point relating to the use of language when we discuss this matter. Acting Presiding Officer, if we, as legislators in this Chamber, know anything, we know that words matter; they have very specific meanings. And, if we do not accurately describe a problem, we cannot appropriately address it. When referring to discrimination against women, the Equality Act is clear in its language: it makes sex discrimination unlawful except in certain specific circumstances. Yet, when we discuss these matters, we tend to use a much more imprecise term. We talk, for example—and the Minister has done today—about the 'gender' pay gap when what we mean is the 'sex' pay gap. The Deputy Minister refers in her statement to the Government's own 'gender' equality review, and talk, of course about gender equality is common practice, but it's a practice that needs to be brought to an end. There seems to be some sort of squeamishness about using the legally correct term, which is 'sex', and this matters. It matters because policy reviews and frameworks and policies should correctly reflect the legislative frameworks on which they are based to ensure that they appropriately comply with legislation. It also matters because the use of the term 'gender' could lead to confusion between actions needed to tackle sex discrimination and the important but distinct agenda around protecting and promoting the rights of people who identify as trans.

The Deputy Minister and I are both too old to be squeamish about the use of the word 'sex', and I would like to ask the Minister to undertake a review today of the language the Welsh Government uses with regard to this matter to ensure that, in future, it is fully compliant with the Equality Act. I completely accept that this conflation of the terms 'sex' and 'gender' is common; things that are common are not necessarily correct or useful, and I hope that the Deputy Minister will be able to take a look at this so that we can use the right language when debating these issues in future.