I welcome Wales having some declaration on eliminating racial discrimination, based on the United Nations convention. As a developing democracy and a nation in our own right, this is a good move to make. Wales is the right place to be doing this. Cardiff, Newport and other cities here were amongst the first in Europe to embrace people from other cultures. We've all heard about Tiger Bay, Cardiff docks, where people came from all over the world to make their home. 

But our welcoming way of being is under threat, and we can feel this. There's been large immigration to Wales over centuries, particularly during the industrial revolution, and much of that immigration came from England when hundreds of thousands of people moved here for work. But we have a culture in Wales that is strong enough and attractive enough that people embraced it. I'm proof of that myself, with a Yemeni/Irish/English background, and if you go further back, there's Swiss, there's Greek, there's Filipino, there's Bantu and there's black South African, yet I stand here as a Welshman speaking to you today, and a proud Welshman.

I'm getting tired of everything being blamed on immigrants. I don't know how people can look at the NHS and blame problems on immigrants and immigration, because they keep our Welsh NHS going, and it's political decisions that cause problems with the NHS. When things get tough, we don't have to turn on our neighbours, because that's what too many irresponsible politicians are doing nowadays. And it's also not so simple to say, 'Racists bad, non-racists good', because we've all been socialised in society, and we all sometimes need to recognise our own prejudices that need to be overcome by reason.   

So, I welcome this motion, but I hope in future that we can also see some action focused on outcomes. When we look at Welsh democracy, I'd like to see more people from minority backgrounds involved. I think NWAMI with Dr Sibani Roy are doing great work in encouraging integration—not assimilation, but integration, understanding—and I'd like to see that charity supported more. We need more people of colour to work as journalists to scrutinise this Government. We need more people of colour involved in politics.