Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 4 June 2019.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a trade union bulletin in Ford in Bridgend about the possibility of potential strike action if plans, as they understood, go ahead to cut two thirds of the job population at Ford in Bridgend due to cutbacks, and due to changes in Ford on a UK and European level. I understand that there's going to be a top-level Ford management meeting in June—this month—and I wanted to understand what the Welsh Government are doing to (a) take part in that meeting, and (b) to protect and safeguard the jobs at Ford. I'm getting quite a lot of workers at the plant contacting me with anxiety about the future, considering this is one of the biggest employers in Wales. So, I would like to have an update urgently on the position that the Welsh Government is taking in relation to those particular jobs at Ford.
My second question is on something that's been brought to my attention over the weekend, about a lady from Swansea who is an asylum seeker/refugee. She actually didn't know her own status because her husband wouldn't tell her. She was beaten up over the weekend, and went to the police and domestic abuse services, but was told, because she had no recourse to public funds, that she couldn't get any support. So I've been trying to help her over the last few days to get a hostel, to get anywhere to get support, because she couldn't return to this abusive relationship. And, for me, it was about the fact that she had to define herself before she could get any support. She didn't actually know her status, because her husband, being abusive, wasn't telling her. So, what can we do to ensure that the first thing we think about, if a woman is being abused, is to help her, and not to think about how much money she's got, what country she's from, what her status is, so that that woman doesn't go back to an abusive relationship? I would like to have a statement specifically on this small group of people, actually, who need support in relation to a refuge, a hostel, when they simply do not know their status.