Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister, updating us on your Government's activities to try to address gender inequality. I join with you in wanting all women to have economic independence, for their paid and unpaid work to be valued, for women to be empowered, and those other excellent objectives you have summarised in your statement. I also share your vision that Wales should be a place where there is equal sharing of power, resources and influence between the genders. But none of these very laudable objectives can be achieved without a top-class education system that not only gives girls the academic and social skills needed to excel in life, but gives them the confidence to take up positions of power and authority and challenge the outdated condescension of some men in their midst.

It takes a lot of strength and confidence to withstand the put-downs, condescension and dismissiveness with which some men treat female colleagues. So, at the same time as giving girls the tools to deal with such caveman behaviour, society needs to get it through to boys that this behaviour is unacceptable. And, whilst I'm on the subject of attitudes to women, I'd like to ask the Deputy Minister where the Welsh Government stands on the anti-woman messages to be found in some forms of pornography. How is the Welsh Government also combating the gender stereotyping of toys by retailers operating in Wales, or the gender stereotyping that is found in teen magazines? The Deputy Minister's quite right to draw attention to the continuing gender pay gap and aim at its elimination. This is a disgrace that has been ongoing for decades, and the pace of progress is positively glacial. But the gender pay gap will never be eradicated here whilst the school system in Wales is failing children. The ones suffering most from these failures are likely to be girls, condemned to low-paid, intermittent and insecure work in adult life, or to playing catch-up in adulthood, because the Welsh Government is being too proud to admit its mistakes or learn from schools that far surpass the state system in terms of academic and other achievements. Everywhere else in the world, it's recognised that education is the key to gender equality. How many times do we see adverts for charity donations saying that girls in the third world just need education to put them onto a level playing field? So, will the Deputy Minister let us know which discussions she has had with the Minister for Education about fixing our shamefully performing education system so that girls can excel as they should?

Just as everyone here will say they want girls to be engaged in education, we would also want women to be involved in politics. Women can stand for public election, that's true, but what happens to them when they're elected? The social media are currently trolling women who are against Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, which is disgusting and disgraceful. It also exemplifies the treatment too often meted out to women public figures, whether elected or not, simply for expressing their views in an attempt to silence them. Will you ask the First Minister to set an example by making sure that anyone from his own party who has trolled a female elected representative will be thrown out of Welsh Labour for their harassment of women? 

Finally, how can the Government claim that it wants women to be empowered and equal when its own First Minister could not bring himself to agree with people on all sides of the political spectrum, including those in his own party, that rapists should not be given access to any child born out of their rape? The answer is it can't, because if your First Minister, on behalf of your Government, is unwilling to take a stand against such men being given an ongoing means to control and emotionally abuse their victim, then your statement made on behalf of that same Government rings rather hollow. Thank you.