I'm pleased to contribute to this debate today. Diolch yn fawr, Siân, for opening. I think it's a sad indictment of the times in which we live that reports of hate crimes against LGBT people in England and Wales have rocketed according to new data, which was just mentioned, compiled by the Home Office and other organisations. In fact, looking at the statistics, I think that I'm right in saying that there's been a 25 per cent rise in hate crimes based on sexual orientation alone—25 per cent.

This is a deeply worrying statistic, but, of course, behind the statistics, there are heart-wrenching individual stories. And, Siân, you mentioned one of the most recent, which has been publicised, which was in Gwynedd, in your constituency, I believe, which left a teen hospitalised. As you said, that was a youth club member—only 13. He was assaulted at a local bus stop while being verbally abused. I understand that, at a meeting, the founder Aled Griffiths called for members—he said allies should stand together for equality. And I think all of us who are allies in this Chamber and in this institution would agree and support those views—we all need to stand together, as you said at the end of your speech on that. Of course, that's one example. There are many more. In another instance, a man punched his neighbour and hurled horrific homophobic abuse at his—I mean, it's horrific even reading the details of this. It's unbelievable that this is happening in today's society, but he punched his neighbour and hurled horrific homophobic abuse at him after allegedly assaulting his partner. So, multiple people were involved in that attack.

So, the purpose of this debate is to call on the Welsh Government to work with local authorities, with schools and the police to try and eradicate the prejudice and the violence that our LGBT constituents across Wales face on a day-to-day basis.

If you dig down into the statistics, it gets even more worrying. Anti-trans hate crime has more than quadrupled in the last five years. So, these really are breathtaking statistics that you wouldn't accept in any other line of life or line of criminal statistics. So, this really does need to be addressed as soon as possible.

You've mentioned the devolution of justice, and I think you said that Leanne Wood was going to go further into that. And I'm certainly not averse to devolution of further powers to this place where necessary. I think it's quite desirable, in many respects, that we do actually have, as the finance Secretary and, indeed, the former First Minister said, the tools of the toolbox in order to deal with these issues. I would urge a word of caution, in that, of course, further powers are not always the answer. We do have to, as I think you said, know what we're going to do with those powers, which is why I think point 3 calls on the Welsh Government to come forward with a strategy of how all of these disparate areas can be joined up to try and make things work better. So, I would be concerned if the focus was taken off using the powers that the Welsh Government currently have on a discussion—important as it may be—about the future design of powers for this place, because I think, at this moment in time, LGBT people across Wales need to know that we are out there looking out for them and doing what we can at the moment to support them.

You did mention education, and the education Minister is in the Camber today, and it seems to me that you cannot deal with this issue of hate crime and homophobia, and all sorts of other phobias, without actually addressing that early on. Often the seeds of crimes later in life are sown very early on, and it comes down to malign influences that young people might have early on that aren’t addressed and that they don’t always have a good example to follow, so I think that schools and education have an important role to play. And I would say, large strides have been made in that area—there are issued that are talked about now in schools that were never mentioned before, so that is progress, but we need to go far further in dealing with this issue to make sure that, in future, LGBT people, trans people—indeed, all the people that we represent—can feel safe and can feel free, in youth clubs or wherever it might be, to express themselves and live the sort of lives that they want to live and which they deserve to be able to live freely and without prejudice in Wales.