Part of Questions to the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip – in the Senedd at 2:45 pm on 16 July 2019.
I thank Mick Antoniw for that supplementary question, because it was mentioned, as you know, last week by the First Minister in the social partnership statement that we would enact Part 1 of the Equality Act 2010—the socioeconomic duty. In fact, this is a priority for me. In terms of taking this forward, to enact it by the end of this calendar year is our target. I'm meeting tomorrow with organisations to look at the ways in which the socioeconomic duty fits in with other legislative responsibilities and duties of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, but looking at where we can strengthen equality and human rights, and the socioeconomic duty plays a part in that. But I think the key point is that this will be new guidance that will ensure that we tackle the social disadvantage in our communities. It will require Welsh public bodies to make decisions—this goes back to Delyth's question earlier on—that tackle unequal outcomes caused by socioeconomic disadvantage. And that has been missing from the toolkit that we have to tackle poverty and inequality and to make sure that it is part of the duties of our public bodies.