Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:09 pm on 25 February 2020.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I would like to thank contributions from across the Chamber by Assembly Members, and also take the opportunity to thank the Wales committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and I think many of them are here today. I'd like to just start by thanking Helen Mary Jones for her very pertinent points about the challenges that we face, and quite rightly as well acknowledging the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to question us about how we are delivering and addressing those challenges, and working with the EHRC in terms of the opportunities.
Of course, the opportunity that we have taken is to enact the socioeconomic duty. It was, as I said, very clearly called for in 'Is Wales Fairer?' and it will apply to relevant eligible public bodies, and that will include, of course, Welsh Ministers, local health boards, NHS trusts, Welsh special health authorities, local authorities, fire and rescue services, the Welsh Revenue Authority and national park authorities—so, key public bodies under the 2010 Act. And we are working towards a coming-into-force date of 1 April 2020. We've had the consultation, which was launched last year, and we've got a wide range of views from members of the public from events that we held, and feedback was generally positive in terms of welcoming the duty.