1. Will the Minister make a statement on how the Welsh Government is helping young people who experience violence in relationships? 369

I thank Jack Sergeant for that question. We provide a range of support to young people who experience violence in their relationships, either directly through counselling services, or indirectly via awareness-raising training for professionals who work with young people, to ensure that they respond appropriately to any identified support needs of the young people they come into contact with.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Minister. Violence in children and young people's relationships is a serious public health issue. Cardiff University recently undertook extensive research into this matter, and they found that there are gaps in support. Deputy Minister, if we do not address this issue, our future generations could fall between the gap of domestic violence support and child social services. What steps can the Welsh Government take to respond to the report's findings?

Minister, I know that you have long championed the cause of ending relationship abuse, and I was delighted to stand alongside you on Monday to mark White Ribbon Day at the vigil organised by our colleague and friend, Joyce Watson AM. Now, one area I think you'll be particularly interested in is the White Ribbon youth advocate programme, which encourages young people to sign the White Ribbon promise. Deputy Minister, will you explore how the Welsh Government can support this programme, particularly with online content, which is more likely to be accessed by our younger generation?

Thank you, again, Jack Sargeant. I was very pleased to be beside you on the vigil. What was good about the vigil was that it was a cross-party vigil and we had speakers from across the Chamber, but it wouldn't have happened without Joyce Watson, who has supported and initiated that vigil every day, and, indeed, earlier in the day, we were in the cathedral, which also Joyce initiated, 16 years ago. It was an important event.

Just in terms of the importance of your question, I joined one of the workshops where we heard from youth advocates from Gwent Police, and they were some of the first White Ribbon youth advocates in the UK coming forward. My officials are working with colleagues in education to design and pilot a health and well-being peer mentoring challenge for the advanced Welsh baccalaureate, which will also promote the Welsh White Ribbon youth advocate programme. Also, we'll be looking at the best ways to raise awareness of this programme online, with our communications and education colleagues, to ensure that we can reach as many people as possible.

I'd like to thank Jack Sargeant for raising this really important question today. I wonder if the Minister agrees with me that one of the issues that's key in the way that young people perceive healthy relationships and what's acceptable is the exposure at a very young age of so many of our young men and women to pornography, some of it of a very violent nature, which infects their idea of what is a normal or what is a healthy and respectful relationship. I'd like to ask the Minister today if she will have further discussions with the Minister for Health and Social Services about what more we might be able to do through the new curriculum, but also immediately, to work with schools, and also with youth groups, where some young people who perhaps find it harder to take a message in a classroom might hear that in a more informal setting to counteract some of these terrible misogynistic messages that our young people receive from, particularly, online content that is so difficult to control.

I do welcome that question, Helen Mary Jones, and I know that the Minister for Education is also joining me today in accepting that. There are a number of approaches that we're already taking, for example, I'm sure you'll be aware of the Spectrum project that we're funding, going into schools to teach about healthy relationships. We actually do have a 'This is not OK' communications campaign aimed at children and young people, and it has to take on board what they might also be facing and experiencing in terms of pornography and misogyny.

We're funding counselling in schools, as we've said, but also, most importantly, developing the new cross-curricula education on sexuality and relationships, and also, it is about working with young people more informally, as you say. That is where we have to also work with those volunteers as well as professionals who work with children and young people. Training professionals to ask and act so that they recognise the signs of violence and abuse is crucial in terms of signposting for support.

I have to congratulate Cardiff University for actually looking at this; for seeing the link between all violence and relationship violence, and doing some work underneath it. I think that there is more work that needs to be done. What we have here in this headline is just that: figures. But what we really need to start to understand is what's behind those figures, what is it that produces those figures? When we say that it's a public health issue, it is, but the emotional scars will stay with people for life, and the mental stress and the stigma will also potentially stay with those individuals for life. To experience that at such a young time, when you're first starting out on your journey as an independent individual, is really, really difficult.

Some five years ago, I did a very quick online survey of 100 young people under the age of 21, and I was shocked then by the responses to several questions, but one specifically:'Do you think it's okay to slap your partner?' Over 50 per cent said, 'Yes, that's fine', and there wasn't really a great separation between girls and boys, although there were more girls than boys who thought that that was okay. So, knowing that, then, and knowing this, now, I think the best thing that perhaps we can do, moving forward, is to ensure that all places where children are and where they congregate, whether that's a school, a sports club, a youth club, or any other venue, we have well-supported and funded programmes that teach them about control, and what control looks like. If they happen to meet somebody who says, 'I think it's great, you look lovely, let's have a nice meal at home', and every time, you're only ever being taken out to where they live, and being more and more isolated, individual young people will think that that's a compliment; they won't necessarily see that that's the start of a controlling, potentially highly abusive and dangerous situation for them to be in.

There are many organisations out there who offer this help, and many organisations who would be pleased to help us help those young people. So, my question here today is knowing what we know now, we can't afford to ignore it, we can't afford for any of those young people to become one of those statistics that I had, the candles here—163 women killed by men last year. So, we must intervene now, and we must, actually, now put our money where our mouth is.

Well, I also thank Joyce Watson for that question and for, obviously, the leadership she's taken. I agree that Cardiff University has produced a very valuable piece of work, particularly looking at our young people. I think on Monday night, many people in the Chamber today heard of those moving experiences of survivors—a young woman, a survivor, who talked about how she couldn't have come out of her experiences of abuse and coercive control without the support of New Pathways. Of course, there are a number of organisations, Women's Aid and  Bawso, who were all there on Monday, who are supporting, and Llamau and Hafan Cymru—so many. But also, I have to mention the young police officer from north Wales who told of his life when his mother was stabbed and killed, and the impact it's had on his life. He is now a serving police office in the North Wales Police in the domestic abuse unit. Survivors are crucial to the way forward, in terms of policy.

And I'm glad that we also launched a communications campaign during freshers' week this year, and those messages were targeted at university students. This was the third phase of 'This is Not Love. This is Control'. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. The second topical question this afternoon is from Andrew R.T. Davies.