1. What legal advice has the Counsel General provided to the Welsh Government regarding the legal impact of the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women? OAQ55206

The Welsh Government is committed to advancing gender equality in Wales. We have commissioned research to explore options for advancing equality and human rights in Wales. A firm commitment to promoting those rights is built into the Welsh Government's DNA and directly influences our policies, legislation and decisions.

I'm grateful to the Counsel General for his response. Does the Counsel General agree with me that we may be facing a situation, given the nature of the Government at the other end of the M4 and the pressure there to deregulate, and what many of us would be concerned about in terms of a potential lack of commitment to equality, where the current equality legislation and the Equality Act 2010—we may face it being amended, in a way that many of us would not like? Does he further agree with me that one route that we may be able to go down in Wales to provide a legal framework for equality issues, and particularly in this case, for sex equality, would be to incorporate the appropriate UN conventions into Welsh law? I was very pleased to hear him mention the research, and I wonder if he can give an indication this afternoon of—I know he's not directly commissioned it—when that research may be completed and when it may be appropriate to share that with this Assembly and the appropriate committees.

Certainly. Well, she refers to CEDAW, which is, of course, effectively an international Bill of rights for women and enshrines the principles of equality that we would wish to see upheld and advanced. And we would fundamentally oppose any attempt to weaken the Equality Act.

We have sought to ensure that when we look at questions in relation to conventions, we do so in a holistic way. CEDAW itself, and the reflections that came out of the examination on its compliance in February of last year—in which Welsh Government officials were directly involved in order to make sure that Welsh interests and Welsh issues were directly represented and raised during that examination process—those reflections have fed directly into the gender equality review, the interim output of which has been considered by the Cabinet. But the research to which she refers, my understanding is that that is intended to have concluded by the end of this year, so that the output of that would be available during this Assembly term, as I understand it.