Thank you very much to Leanne and Siân for bringing this debate, along with Mick Antoniw, because I think it's a very interesting debate and one that we don't often address. I want to talk about some positives, because I think we can all agree that there are lots of deplorable things going on in society.

I want to highlight Just a Ball Game?, which is a charity that is combating LGBTQI phobia in sport, which is often one of the places where people feel their inhibitions are laid aside and people feel they can behave on the terraces in a way that is different to how they would behave in the street. I remember hosting a memorable meeting last year in the Pierhead with Just a Ball Game?, organised in collaboration with my late lamented constituent Bob Woods, a distinguished social worker and LGBT rights campaigner. Amongst those attending, to my delight, were five members of the St Teilo's LGBT group, pupils who meet monthly in order to discuss matters of common concern, who were brought, with the consent of their parents, by a member of staff. The speakers included Neville Southall, one of the top 100 football players of the twentieth century—as football fans will know he played for both Everton and Wales—and Gareth Thomas, the second-highest try scorer, behind Shane Williams, and one of the most distinguished rugby union and rugby league players in Wales and Britain. Both of them are icons of their games who have played prominent parts in combating homophobic hate crime in sport.

Shamefully, just under a year ago, Gareth Thomas was the subject of a homophobic attack whilst on a night out in my constituency, in Cardiff. It was to his credit that Gareth Thomas opted to go down the restorative justice route, rather than prosecute the 16-year-old and give him a criminal record—something that Neville Southall commended him for. I'm sure that that is a much more effective way of getting this 16-year-old to rethink his ideas about his prejudice, which he no doubt had picked up from other people in his family.

I also want to speak about the Cardiff Dragons Football Club, which is Wales's first and only LGBTQI football team. It was set up in 2008 by football fans who wanted to create a team free from homophobia and play football in a safe and supportive space. They still have difficulty getting pitches in the winter months, which are normally taken up by other clubs. So, if anybody knows of a winter weather football space that they could offer them, please do get in touch.

Their mission statement is to promote participation in and awareness of football, social cohesion and healthy lifestyles within the LGBTQI community in Cardiff, south Wales and beyond. They take part, playing in the Gay Football Supporters' Network league against teams from all over the UK. The supporters network was set up in 1989 by fans of the sport, and it has extended from simply following the game to campaigning for LGBTQI rights and freedom from abuse while they go to matches as well as also playing. The Cardiff team also plays in straight leagues as well, where they are, from time to time, subject to abusive comments from opposition teams. Whilst these complaints tend to be quickly dealt with by the league, we nevertheless have to understand that homophobia, just like racism, is, unfortunately, something that we have still a lot of work to do on in sport, particularly in football.

So, the Cardiff Dragons are in talks with Cardiff City to set up a Cardiff City LGBT supporters network, which they're hoping to launch in February next year to coincide with Football v Homophobia Month, and I will be delighted to support that.

The Wales team doesn't have an LGBT supporters network at the moment either, so these are important initiatives to normalise respect for difference in sport, which is one of the arenas where people do feel that they can start to air their prejudice. 

We have to be constantly vigilant about, and intolerant of, homophobia and racism in sport. We have to ensure that the next generation is enabled to combat the inherited prejudices that were enshrined in law in the past. And section 28 has already been mentioned as a really shameful period in our history. I can recall that, over a decade after decriminalisation, my own uncle had several scrapes with the law simply because homophobic policemen had nothing better to do than harass gay people who were meeting furtively in public places rather than having the confidence to meet out in the open on the same terms as heterosexual people.