2. Statement by the First Minister: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 11:22 am on 3 June 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 11:22, 3 June 2020

I thank Adam Price for all of those additional questions. The self-assessment tool that we have adopted for the NHS was led by the work of black clinicians in Wales. Professor Keshav Singhal—who I know Adam Price will have heard present the tool—was very clear when he did so that it was always going to be a work in progress, and that there would be more that could be learnt as it was implemented. And I know that he will be wanting to talk both with the RCN and with the British Medical Association and others who have developed other tools. But I am very comforted by the fact that, in Wales, our self-assessment tool was led by and actively informed by the direct front-line experience of black workers in the NHS here in Wales, looking at their everyday experience of being on the front line, and making sure that the self-assessment tool reflected all of that. I am very keen indeed that those voices go on being influential as we work our way beyond coronavirus, and the group that we have brought together under the chair of Judge Ray Singh will be an important part of that at this point, and there will be ways in which we can develop that further into the future.

Our record of appointing people from black and Asian minority communities to public appointments in Wales is not good enough. We had a root-and-branch review of our appointments process in the second half of last year, and we were on the point of introducing a radically different approach to those appointments when the coronavirus crisis struck. It's one of my ambitions to be able to bring that piece of work back to the front burner, from the back burner, as soon as we are able to in the crisis. Because we have to do better; we have to do better in relation to BAME populations, we have to do better in relation to people with disabilities. And we're by no means there, where we want to be, although we've done a little better in relation to gender equality in those areas too.

The work of the centre in looking at the experience of imprisonment in Wales is shocking on a whole range of fronts, and certainly shocking in relation to what it reveals about the treatment of black people in the criminal justice system. And there's wider evidence that with any system that has a choice between a helping and a controlling-type of response to behaviour, black people are more likely to find themselves clustered at the controlling end of things, whether that's in mental health or in the criminal justice system. I'll think about the point that Adam Price made at the end of his contribution, but I do want to agree with many of the important points that he's made this afternoon.