Early on in the pandemic, it became quite apparent that black and ethnic minority communities were being particularly badly affected. And at that time, locally, we had some issues in our communities, where there was understandably a good deal of concern and anxiety. We then arranged meetings with the local health board, which were very useful and productive, and then, of course, Welsh Government were very quick to act.

I'd like to pay tribute to Jane and the First Minister, and the Government as a whole, in setting up the working group that looked at those issues and indeed produced a toolkit for assessment of risk for front-line workers and others in those black and ethnic minority communities, because that was very important. That group then went on to do wider work on the economy and social circumstances and produced recommendations, which are very important.

The committee I chair as well, Llywydd, did some work that made similar findings. And I think that what we found, really, was that the factors that we'd known about for a long time in terms of discrimination and disadvantage faced by our ethnic minorities was playing itself out in terms of COVID: issues around poor-quality jobs, inadequate protection at work, insecure and low-paid work, overcrowded and poor-quality housing, and, of course, the front-line jobs that people from our black and ethnic minority communities were doing, sometimes, unfortunately, with inadequate understanding of their vulnerability and insufficient protection.

So, with that set of issues—the longstanding problems, but the very real emergency and crisis around COVID—it was absolutely necessary to act very quickly nationally in Wales and locally, and I'm really thankful to Welsh Government and our local authority in Newport, and I'm sure others around Wales, that action was taken quickly and effectively. I think our challenge now is to build on those short-term actions and the recommendations that have been produced and make sure that we're effective in the medium and longer term as well. I know that Welsh Government is looking at some of its strategies: there's a short-term update on the cohesion strategy and the tackling hate crime framework and also a commitment to a longer term integration strategy, and we know about the race equality action plan and strategy. So, there's a lot happening.

I think, in the light of all of that, we reflect as well on what's been said many times by our black and ethnic minority communities—that there's been a lot of work, a lot of recommendations, a lot of reports and strategies over a period of years, but, obviously, given that we still have these entrenched problems, there hasn't been enough actual effective, on the ground action to deal with these issues. And I think, very often, it comes across really, really strongly from these communities that, understandably and rightly, they feel that it is time for effective and concerted action to deal with these longstanding problems. The problem has been highlighted so many times and yet, to such a great extent, they are still with us. So, when they make those pleas, I think obviously we have to listen and we do have to act ever more effectively. 

I know that it's been very good locally in Newport to see young activists and others coming to the fore. We had a very effective Black Lives Matter march through Newport, which respected social distancing, and was very responsibly organised and very effective in the messages that it got across. We've had local Asian councillors taking part in Welsh Government's working group and feeding back information locally, and that's been very effective as well. We do see a lot of progress, but I think it's abundantly clear, now, isn't it, from the highlighting of vulnerability that's taken place during this pandemic, that these problems are so overdue, in terms of being effectively dealt with, that there can be no further delay. We need effective and wide-ranging action on the various recommendations produced, and we need it very, very quickly indeed.

So, I'm really pleased the Welsh Government has understood that urgency, got groups together, done important work, and is now very committed to short-term, medium-term and long-term action on these problems that I think, right across Wales, black and ethnic minority communities have every right to say have to be tackled effectively once and for all.