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.