The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

Item 11 on our agenda this afternoon is a debate on the equality and human rights annual review of 2018-19. I call on the Deputy Minister and the Chief Whip to move the motion. Jane Hutt.

Motion NDM7271 Rebecca Evans

To propose the National Assembly for Wales:

Notes the Equality and Human Rights Commission Wales annual report, Wales Impact Report 2018-19.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. I welcome the opportunity today to debate the latest Equality and Human Rights Commission Wales committee annual report, the 'Wales Impact Report 2018-19'. The annual debate on the outstanding work of the commission here in Wales always provides the opportunity for reflection and discussion on how Wales is performing on equality and human rights. It also provides the opportunity to consider what more can be done to further advance and improve equality and human rights. Over the years, I've met regularly with the chair and head of the EHRC in Wales, as have my ministerial colleagues, to discuss the state of equality in Wales and strengthen our commitment to work together to tackle entrenched and persistent inequalities.

Since its establishment in 2007, the Welsh Government has developed an excellent and highly valued relationship with the EHRC here in Wales. And, whilst the EHRC has responsibility as a regulator, it also provides the invaluable role of the critical friend. This valued relationship is going to be particularly important over the next three years, given the amount of work that we want to achieve. We are taking a more co-productive approach across Welsh civil society to many of the strands of work we're taking to safeguard and enhance equality and human rights in Wales. The EHRC will be central to this.

I'll turn to the 'Wales Impact Report 2018-19', which clearly highlights the breadth of hard work and dedication of the EHRC in Wales to put equality and human rights at the heart of life in Wales. Their work during 2018-19 included the 'Is Wales Fairer?' report, which looked at all areas of life in Wales and has proven to be a valuable and essential source of evidence to help us ensure that our decision making is robust and that our policies and services take account of people's needs and are accessible to all. Officials across Welsh Government have been using the findings, evidence and recommendations to shape the action plan that will accompany the final set of equality objectives within the Welsh Government's strategic equality plan for 2020 to 2024, which will be published at the end of March.

The commission undertook an extensive exercise to monitor levels of compliance with the statutory requirements of the public sector equality duty—PSED for short—and to gather evidence and intelligence on what work was undertaken across the different sectors to address key inequalities. Following the monitoring exercise, the commission has met with the majority of chief executives of the listed public bodies to discuss their findings, and sectoral briefings were produced as a result of the findings. The briefings are intended to be used to improve public bodies' equality objectives and also to inform the review of the duties, to which the Welsh Government is committed. The review will look at how we can improve the Welsh-specific duties to require public bodies in Wales to take action to address pay and employment differences, report on progress and publish pay gap data.

Last year, the EHRC and Welsh Government jointly organised a symposium event to gather thinking about the review to ensure that it has maximum impact. This approach will help to ensure that any changes to the PSED contribute to the Welsh Government's wider work on advancing and strengthening equality and human rights. The commission's legal work showed how the commission makes a real difference to people's lives—for example, by helping to clarify the law to ensure that disabled tenants are able to make reasonable alterations to their homes, allowing them to live independently. Its disability and housing report looks at the current provision of accessible and adaptable housing for disabled people and makes recommendations for the Welsh Government, and this has helped shape our new framework, 'Action on Disability: The Right to Independent Living', which I launched last September. The framework sets out how we are fulfilling our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the UNCRPD, and also highlights the role of key legislation, including the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. The social model of disability lies at the heart of both the UN convention and our new framework and I committed to promoting the social model through our new framework. We're working actively to promote the model both within Welsh Government and more widely. 

The commission's work on harassment in the workplace and the inquiry into racial harassment in higher education exposed unacceptable treatment that should not and cannot be tolerated in Wales or anywhere else in the world. In the foreword to the EHRC report 'Is Wales Fairer?', former commissioner for Wales June Milligan, to whom I pay tribute for her time in that role, called on the Welsh Government to enact the socioeconomic duty. So, as Members are fully aware, it's the intention of this Government to commence the socioeconomic duty, requiring certain public bodies to consider the inequalities caused by their strategic decisions, and the commission has been hugely helpful in ensuring that, once enacted, the duty delivers its intended effect.

Following the referendum on exiting the European Union, the UK's four statutory bodies for human rights and equality were united in their commitment to protect and enhance equality and human rights standards across the UK, being particularly concerned that loss of the protections afforded within the EU charter of fundamental rights would lead to a regression of rights, such as employment rights, women's rights, health and safety protections, et cetera. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended that Welsh Government should further incorporate UN treaties, including the United Nations' convention on the rights of disabled people, and where possible legislate to replace gaps in rights in domestic law resulting from the loss of the EU charter.

I was pleased to announce at my oral questions on 28 January that research has been commissioned on wider options to strengthen and advance equality and human rights in Wales, and the research will be undertaken by a consortium led by Swansea University. Among other things, the research will consider the possible incorporation of UN conventions into Welsh law and whether there may be a need for fresh legislation, such as a human rights Bill for Wales. It will consider how such actions would interact with the existing framework provided by the well-being of future generations Act. It will also look at whether further integration will strengthen and improve the promotion of equality. This research is expected to report by the end of this year, 2020. This work accords with the amendment tabled to this debate, which we will support.

To oversee and provide strategic direction to this work, I've convened a steering group consisting of key stakeholders, which I chair. The group also oversees the implementation of phase 2 recommendations of our gender equality review, and the commencement of the socioeconomic duty. I'm pleased to have the EHRC as members of this group.

The commission's work on apprenticeships and their involvement in the inclusive apprenticeships task and finish group helped shaped the action plan to increase the participation of disabled people in apprenticeships in Wales.

Of course, there are other areas of work that are equally important. Despite many positive changes in the way that disabled people, LGBT+ people, women and black and minority ethnic communities are treated, our country still isn't a fair and more equal place for everyone. The commission's work has highlighted this, and its advice and recommendations to us and the wider public sector have influenced and driven policy decisions and continued action to achieve our vision of a more equal Wales. There is more to be done and more we will do. Diolch.

Thank you. I have selected the amendment to the motion and I call on Helen Mary Jones to move that amendment, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

Amendment 1—Siân Gwenllian

Add as new point at end of motion: 

Calls on the Welsh Government to outline a comprehensive strategy for protecting human rights in a robust and meaningful way now that the UK has left the European Union.

Amendment 1 moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm very pleased to move this amendment, speaking in the place of my colleague Leanne Wood, who is unable to be with us this afternoon. I'd like to begin by saying that I'm very grateful to the Minister for accepting our amendment, which was tabled in the spirit hoping that she would.

I want to associate myself with all the positive things that the Minister has said about the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission here in Wales. It's my belief that they do a great deal of work with relatively little resource and I know that that work impacts, as the Minister has said, and I know that it will continue to do so.

However, I wish to raise some concerns, not about the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but about the environment in which it may find itself working. We know that the Conservative Government at Westminster, which is responsible for the funding and the management of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, under the UK legislation that currently governs equality law here in Wales, has a long-term commitment to repealing and replacing this legislation. As the Minister has said in her speech, I have real concerns about what that replacement might contain.

This is a Government with a strong commitment to deregulation—a Westminster Government with a strong commitment to deregulation—and we know, do we not, Dirprwy Lywydd, that deregulation often means removing the protections of the most vulnerable, whether that's the protections of people working in dangerous environments under health and safety, or whether, in this case, this is the protections, for example, of women and girls to have their rights protected in work if they need to go on maternity leave.

I'm very pleased to hear the Minister say that she is intending, as she's said before, to enact the socioeconomic duty and I'd be grateful if she was able to tell us this afternoon what sort of time frame she's intending to do this. Because it's our contention on these benches that the tradition of support for the promotion of equality and social justice, which has been, I think, shared fairly broadly across many parts of this Assembly, is now under threat by the changing environment at Westminster. I believe that we need to insert a sense of urgency in some of the work that the Minister has already outlined.

I was very pleased to hear her say earlier that she was committed to the research, which she's already mentioned to us, to look at what kind of legal framework we may need to have here in Wales to protect the rights of our citizens going forward. I was also pleased to hear her say that that work includes looking at the potential to incorporate the UN conventions on human rights more broadly into Welsh law.

I feel that it is time, and we believe that it is now time, to consider going further than that and to seek a clear and simple devolution of equality responsibilities to this Senedd, because it is my firm belief that we will be able to develop a consensus around the kind of approach to equality and human rights that it may not be possible to deliver in Westminster. And it is my concern that the positive work that the Equality and Human Rights Commission do now may become impossible if they are working in an environment where the UK Government—working at a GB level in this case, of course, because arrangements in the north of Ireland are different—are hostile to its work.

The Minister may remember, going back a very, very long time to the 1980s and early 1990s, that a lot of the good work that was then done by the Equal Opportunities Commission in Wales, led by our late colleague Val Feld, actually had to be done in spite of the central policy that was coming out of the then central Government. I don't think we can expect our Equality and Human Rights Commission to function that way 30 years later, doing positive work like—. For example, the Deputy Minister will remember the creation of Chwarae Teg, which is a very, very important organisation in Wales now, that had to be done in spite of rather than with the support of the then Equal Opportunities Commission centrally.

So, I would ask the Minister, in her response to this debate—and I won't repeat the positive things she's said about the specific pieces of work that the Equality and Human Rights Commission have done this year—to inject some speed into this work, because I feel that the environment may change more quickly than we are expecting, and that we may find ourselves with more work to do if we don't, for example, create a Wales-based legislative framework to protect the human rights of our fellow citizens and to promote the more equal society that I know the Deputy Minister—and she has our full support—is seeking to promote.

So, I don't disagree at all, Diprwy Lywydd, with anything that the Minister has said—I would support it all—but what I am concerned about is that changing environment and the need to inject some speed into this work, so that we don't find ourselves, for example, with an Equality and Human Rights Commission in Wales that has been so stripped of resources that it can barely do its job. Diolch yn fawr. 

I'm pleased to speak in this debate in my capacity as Chair of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee. I do believe that the commission's 'Impact Report' lists a wide range of activities across almost all areas of devolved responsibility, and so is very much a matter for important and significant debate here. Of course, the commission acts as an important source of expertise, both for the Assembly and, indeed, for the Government.

One of the big achievements of this reporting period was the publication of 'Is Wales Fairer?' in 2018, and I do believe that's a comprehensive and, indeed, illuminating report, setting out both the challenges we face in making Wales more equal and fair, and also in terms of the set of 42 broad recommendations that could help deliver real and lasting change if implemented.

In fact, much of those recommendations chime with our committee's findings, and in particular I would like to highlight those relating to protecting equality and human rights post Brexit: improving data collection on homelessness; encouraging more employers in Wales, including the Welsh Government, to offer flexible working from day one; addressing pregnancy and maternity discrimination; improving the public sector equality duties; ensuring full implementation of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015; and minimisation of barriers to ensure that the broadest range of people take part in Welsh political life.

We are currently, as a committee, following up these issues in our current scrutiny work—or we will be looking to do so during the final months of the Assembly. And I would, Dirprwy Lywydd, like to ask the Deputy Minister if she can outline whether recommendation 25, which calls for the Welsh Government to set achievable and binding targets for poverty reduction and to report on progress annually, will be implemented; and, if so, when these targets will be set.

Moving on to other areas of the commission's work over the reporting period, our committee has benefited from their expertise in our work, in particular: when they gave evidence to our inquiry into parenting, employment and maternity in July 2018; and as part of our joint work alongside the Finance and Children, Young People and Education Committees in November 2018, when we looked at the effectiveness of Welsh Government budget impact assessments; and their work on the cumulative impact of tax and welfare reforms on public spending, which was very much informative in terms of our consideration of the possible devolution of those benefits.

In addition to that, our committee has been directly influenced by the 'Impact Report' and its indications in terms of the breadth of the commission's work. That, of course—in terms of our understanding and appreciation of their work—very much includes the way that they've supported individual legal cases on important issues, such as access to education and adapting homes in the rental sector. And, of course, their report is also important in terms of highlighting their goals for 2019 to 2022, all of which we can agree are important and commendable objectives: ensuring that people's life chances aren't held back by barriers in their way; making sure we have strong foundations on which to build a more equal and rights-respecting society; and to protect the rights of people in the most vulnerable situations.

So, given all of that very important and significant work, Dirprwy Lywydd, I look forward to seeing how these goals are met through the commission's work in the coming year. And, in closing, I would like to commend the 'Impact Report' to the Assembly and that very important work that the commission continues to do.

As this annual 'Wales Impact Report' states, the Equality and Human Rights Commission's goals are to:

'Ensure that people's life chances aren't held back by barriers in their way'

—in other words, the social model—

'Make sure we have strong foundations on which to build a more equal and rights-respecting society' and 

'Protect the rights of people in the most vulnerable situations'.

It refers to the launch of their 'Housing and disabled people: Wales's hidden crisis' report. I chaired a meeting of the cross-party group on disability, at which the commission spoke about this. They expressed concern about: the lack of data held by local authorities around disabled people's housing requirements and knowledge of the stock they hold; concern that only 55 per cent of local authorities said that they conducted equality and impact assessments on their local development plans; and they rightly stressed the importance of listening to disabled people.

The report found that there is a significant shortage of accessible homes. Disabled people are not getting the support they need to live independently. There was no target in the Welsh Government's 20,000 affordable housing target by 2021 for accessible homes. Only one out of 22 local authorities has set a percentage target for accessible and affordable homes, and only 15 per cent of local authorities in Wales said that the information they had about disabled people's housing requirements was good.

The European convention on human rights was drafted by the Council of Europe, not the European Union. As a signatory, the UK would be breaking international law if it failed to respect the rights in the convention. The 2019 UK Conservative manifesto states that the UK Government 

'will update the Human Rights Act' and establish

'a Constitution, Democracy & Rights Commission that will examine these issues in depth'.

I trust the commission will be involved in this. It also states that

'the UK has long been a beacon of freedom and human rights—and will continue to be so.'

This 'Impact Report' refers to the commission's 2018 'Is Wales Fairer?' report, and the commission is keen for the Welsh Government to provide actual evidence detailing how it is taking forward its specific recommendations. I hope the Minister will respond to that. 

Highlighting the difficulties experienced by disabled people accessing public transport, it recommended that Transport for Wales should work with Network Rail and rail contractor KeolisAmey to improve accessibility of the existing rail infrastructure across Wales, and that public transport providers and regulators should provide training to ensure all staff have the knowledge and skills to help meet the needs of disabled passengers. 

Although the Welsh Government has stated that it intends to explore further incorporation of human rights in law in Wales, it voted against Darren Millar's proposal to incorporate the UN principles for older persons in Welsh law. It therefore now needs to set out its specific proposals.

I regularly hear from disabled people who have been discriminated against and, therefore, need the commission to support strategic legal cases that establish legal precedent. I therefore welcome the cases that were supported by the commission that resulted in the Special Educational Needs Tribunal for Wales ruling that a north Wales school unlawfully discriminated on the grounds of disability—it sounds identical to a case I was involved with, involving an autistic pupil—and in a judgment that means that we heard that landlords must allow disabled leaseholders to make changes that are reasonable and necessary. 

I've previously spoken here in support of a proposed Bill to incorporate the UN convention on the rights of disabled persons into Welsh law, and called for Welsh Government action to address the failure by public agencies to carry out their duties and responsibilities to disabled people, noting that the Equality Act 2010 requires service providers to think ahead and address barriers that impede disabled people. This 'Impact Report' notes that the Welsh Government has committed to review the public sector equality duty in Wales, in line with the commission's recommendations. 

I will therefore close by referring to just three recent examples amongst many where this is being ignored on the ground: where a local education authority has told the parents of a young girl that she should not go to her local primary school because they deemed her wheelchair adaptations too expensive without consulting them—that is current; where Flintshire based Changing Places campaigner Kim Edwards stated, 'Currently, people with profound disabilities are excluded from their local towns because they're not able to have their basic human needs met, simply to use a toilet'; and where social services failed to establish and meet the communication and processing needs of an autistic child when they interviewed her, and then determined that she was not at risk of abuse from her perpetrator—fortunately, the court saw through this earlier this month. 

I wanted to start on the rights of children, really, to talk about this, because there are serious gaps in where we are in Wales. This is a concrete example: where a child in care can allege abuse, the child will not receive an advocate as they should do—they have the right to an advocate, as confirmed by the children's commissioner recently; they will not be taken to a place of safety—or they could, in some circumstances, not be taken to a place of safety; and it's possible they will not be spoken to by a child protection specialist. So, we are debating equalities and rights and so on here today, but this is happening right now. It has happened, and it really needs addressing. It's completely unacceptable that young people are deprived of their rights and their voices are just not being listened to.

I'd like to talk as well about the progress that needs to be made in terms of maternity rights and also paternity rights for fathers. I think we're still well behind the curve on the domestic abuse of men, because one in three victims now are male, and there really is a huge lack of provision. I remember when I first mentioned it here in the Assembly, I was told to get my facts right—sorry, not to get my facts right, but to get my priorities right. That was the word—'priorities'. And I thought, 'Wow, I'm here as somebody who's been through that, actually', years ago and there was nowhere to go—nowhere to turn. And I remember, from my experience, telling people that I'd taken up white-collar boxing, because I was so embarrassed about the state of my face. I see person after person in my office and there's very, very little support for them out there.

In December, I gave a lecture in equalities at Bradford University—I did the Rosa Parks memorial lecture. I really thought there that we're light years behind in Wales in terms of equalities. We have a very multicultural capital, but it is not reflected in the environment of this Assembly in terms of professional staff. I think there's a big issue. It's either unconscious racism or it's perhaps clever, conscious racism in many areas of Welsh society, and every person of colour I speak to, we have the same conversation, because when we think we're being assertive, we're always called 'aggressive'; when we think we're being passionate, we're told that we're angry; when we try to do the best we can, we're told that we're awkward and not team players. And recently, I'm just fed up, really, with the number of articulate, bright, intelligent women of colour who I meet who are automatically labelled 'angry' because they assert their own personality and they want to be themselves, and they insist on being themselves and they speak up for themselves and because of this, they're 'angry' and 'aggressive'. I think there's a whole load of subconscious racism in society that we need to, first of all, admit exists. What was great about the lecture I gave: I asked the question at the beginning, 'Who is prejudiced here?', and everyone put their hands up. There are many environments where I could have asked the same question and no hands would have gone up at all.

I want to finish, lastly, on class, because I think the biggest inequality we face is class inequality and in particular housing. The number of young people and working class people who are unable to buy their own properties now, and they pay a tremendous amount of money in rent to councils and rent to housing associations and that money is lost to their families. Whereas, with the more middle-class people who own properties or several properties, their children will have the inheritance from that—the inheritance from equity—and what this Assembly has done in passing laws to stop people being able to buy social housing has reinforced inequality—[Interruption.] Yes.

That's an important point, but the main reason for this is a lack of housing supply—that is what has driven house prices up and maintained a section of society that have an interest in seeing house prices remaining high. And I have to say that the person who consistently argues against more house building in this Chamber is you.

No, you're wrong there. What I consistently argue against is building on greenfield sites. For example, right now in Cardiff, there are 1,300 empty proprieties standing, unused. They should be renovated and we should put people back in them. What I'm actually talking about is the inability of people to save a huge, huge deposit and buy a property. It's reinforcing inequality. And until we enable people to buy their own houses and we enable people to be independent in their own lives in that way—in asserting their own personal sovereignty—then we're not going to really address the issue of class inequality. Diolch.

Can I, before I begin, just say what a pleasure it is to serve on the committee under the stewardship of John Griffiths? I concur with many of the comments that he made in terms of the varied evidence that we've seen in various inquiries in the time that I've been on there and preceding me as well. And I very much welcome the Minister's statement in response to the report of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the work that the commission is doing. I think this country of ours in Wales has led the way very much. It has built on the very good progress that we've made in the previous decade and more on a UK basis, but has carved its own way in terms of equality and human rights as well.

But I just want to focus on one area, because today I've been mulling over a report that deals with one particular area of inequality, and it's the area that deals with health inequality. I think there's nothing more stark than the knowledge that where you're born, the situation and circumstances you're born into, will materially affect how many years you have to live and the quality of that life. The Marmot report has come out in the last few days—a very authoritative report. The Government itself has welcomed the report, but I think it's probably going to struggle to deal with some of the conclusions that it has come to. I've been looking though, Deputy Presiding Office, some of the charts, because it helps me very often when I look at some of the pictorial evidence in front of us, when we see the charts that show that life expectancy is now falling amongst the poorest people in certain English regions. By the way, it says there are implications in Wales as well, which I'll come to in a moment.

In the past decade, a third of English children were living in poverty for three years running, and those numbers are going up. If we look at some of the other key ones, which I've printed off today, the increase in life expectancy at birth in England began to slow after 2010, and this is projected to continue. The UK has now a higher proportion of children living in poverty than Poland, Ireland and the OECD average, and if Members want to know what the OECD average is, it's 13.1 per cent living in poverty, and in the UK, it's now 17.5 per cent. All the indicators in England are going the wrong way, but they're also going the wrong way across England as well. So, how have we got to this position? And by the way, it does all point to a certain departure point where things started going wrong.

Well, what we see now is that life expectancy has now stalled in the UK for the first time in more than a hundred years, and it has reversed for certain groups, including ethnic minorities, and also the most deprived women in society. The report that has come out, the Marmot report, which is authoritative, is expert-led and is wide in its scope and deep in its expert research, has put that down largely to the impact of cuts that have come directly out of austerity policies. It is not me saying this—it is the report that is saying it. In fact, Marmot, who is the director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity said, and I quote directly,

'The UK has'—previously—

'been seen as a world leader in identifying and addressing health inequalities but something dramatic is happening. This report is concerned with England, but in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the damage to health and wellbeing is similarly nearly unprecedented.'

And he goes on to say,

'austerity has taken a significant toll on equity and on health, and it is likely to continue to do so.'

It is responsible for life expectancy flatlining, people's health deteriorating and the widening of health inequalities. And if I can just go slightly further on, in a foreword to the report Marmot says,

'From rising child poverty and the closure of children's centres'—

Bear in mind that he's talking about England, but the impact of austerity has got a wide reach, because he says it also applies to Scotland and Wales as well.

'From rising child poverty and the closure of children’s centres, to declines in education funding, an increase in precarious work and zero hours contracts, to a housing affordability crisis and a rise in homelessness, to people with insufficient money to lead a healthy life and resorting to foodbanks in large numbers, to ignored communities with poor conditions and little reason for hope.'

Austerity, he says,

'will cast a long shadow over the lives of children born and growing up under its effects'.

He describes it as 10 lost years, and the generation that have gone through those 10 years will bear the burden of those 10 lost years, the children who are born within it.

Thank you. Can I now call the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip to reply to the debate? Jane Hutt.

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.

But, as I mentioned about the co-productive approach to policy making, we are going to engage with partners in terms of developing the guidance to ensure that the socioeconomic duty works for public bodies to whom it applies, and delivers for the people of Wales. Of course, we will seek that, and it will tackle many of the points that have been made by Members about tackling socioeconomic inequalities.

Of course, there have been numerous calls in recent years for the Welsh Government to take legislative action to strengthen and advance equality and human rights here in Wales, and commencing the socioeconomic duty under the Equality Act 2010 is going to ensure that we look at the impact of strategic decisions on the poorest people and groups in Wales. But clearly, also reviewing the Welsh-specific duties under the public sector equality duty is vital to ensure that they're up to date, proportionate, and effective, and I thank Mark Isherwood for giving concrete examples so that public bodies and, of course, the EHRC, listening to this can see where indeed we do need to undertake a rigorous review of the PSED and how we deliver that.

Of course, we are working closely with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to review the monitoring and improve the reporting arrangements so that equality data reports from Welsh public bodies are easy to find and understand. It's very clear that if we are going to develop and create a fairer society where diversity is valued and respected, where people don't face discrimination and prejudice, a society where people can participate, flourish and have the opportunity to fulfil their objectives—. So, we will, obviously, take that forward in terms of our responsibilities with our equality objectives for the next four years.

I'm grateful to John Griffiths for your points as well in terms of responding to 'Is Wales Fairer?' and for the valuable work that you undertake with leading your committee. And, of course, you are quite right in terms of tackling poverty, and that call for the socioeconomic duty to be tackled will be one part of the response to that. But the Welsh Government doesn't hold all the levers needed to make that difference to the headline figure for poverty in Wales, and we have to recognise the research by EHRC into the impact of the UK Government's tax and welfare reforms. You talked about the cumulative impact of tax and welfare reforms, and the fact that disabled households and those with children are particularly at risk. So, the work that we are doing to address this is crucial, not just in terms of the socioeconomic duty, but particularly in terms of access to transport and enforcement, and that's where, of course, our framework, 'Action on Disability: The Right to Independent Living' is so important.

So, I think, also, just in terms of responding to our responsibilities, I was very pleased to come before the committee to be scrutinised on our progress with the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence legislation, and the progress that we are making in term of delivering five years into that pioneering legislation, and we're holding an event in north Wales to develop a strategy for the next five years. The Wales Audit Office did find that the Act is transforming services, and there's evidence of good collaboration in parts of Wales. But it is also about prevention and making sure that we are working not just in terms of the perpetrators, but with education, with children and young people.

I would like to thank Huw Irranca for speaking about the importance of tackling health inequalities as well. Of course, it is the health inequalities, recognising Professor Marmot's pioneering and inspiring work, that it's clear we need to address.

On data gaps, thank you, Mark, for mentioning that as well. There are clear gaps in the data in Wales that make it difficult to understand the experiences of people sharing all protected characteristics, but tomorrow I am meeting the deputy national statistician to discuss the census and ways in which we can look at the statistics and work, indeed, with the UK Government to explore whether limitations can be overcome by data linkage. 

Action on the disability framework is an absolutely key priority for the Welsh Government, using the social model of disability and engaging, as we already are in terms of access and inequalities in relation to transport. 

I would like to conclude by recognising that the landscape of equality and human rights over the next months and years is challenging. The presence and dedication of the EHRC to work with us on this agenda is vital. It's clear that we have opportunities to strengthen our resolve, seek the positive outcomes that will make a real difference to the lives of the people we serve in our richly diverse nation.  

Thank you. The proposal is to agree amendment 1. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore we'll defer voting under this item until voting time. 

I intend to now move to voting time, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung. No. Okay, then. 

Voting deferred until voting time.