As well as engagement on social media, there will be a number of online events and launches taking place during this the week. For example, Race Equality First is holding a virtual launch of its discrimination and hate crime project today, which will be providing assistance to victims of hate crime and discrimination across Wales over the next three years.

Victim Support Cymru will be launching its hate crime charter on Saturday, which brings the rights of victims of hate crime to the forefront. It will encourage organisations to adopt the charter to show their commitment to playing a part in tackling hate crime, from providing support and information to victims to raising awareness. The Welsh Government will be signing up to the charter and I encourage organisations to sign up and show their support too.

In March, I led a debate on our progress with tackling hate crime in Wales, where I gave an update on the ongoing and upcoming work of the Welsh Government. Since that time, our focus has rightly turned to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. We've had to adapt the work we'd planned, for example, the delivery of hate crime projects has moved online and we hope to restart hate crime in schools activity by the end of the year. However, we have also seen clear evidence of cohesive communities across Wales, as people came together to support one another through this challenging period. The unprecedented commitment to volunteer, to support neighbours and those most vulnerable is something we must continue to celebrate and cherish. I hope we can continue to build on these relationships going forward.

We have revised the timeline of our pan-Wales hate crime communications campaign, with a launch early next year. This will be a major campaign aiming to highlight the isolating effect of hate crime on victims and encouraging public support.

Our community cohesion teams have been instrumental to our work to support communities and mitigate tensions across Wales during the pandemic. The versatility demonstrated by the teams in their joint response to the unexpected challenge of COVID-19 has once again highlighted the great value of the programme.

But there are those who seek to divide our communities with hateful and divisive narratives. Opportunistic individuals have recently tried to capitalise on the unacceptable way the Home Office communicated its decision to use the Penally army training camp to accommodate asylum seekers without consultation and engagement with the local community and local public services. We aim to be a nation of sanctuary in Wales, and this means supporting those who arrive to integrate effectively for the benefit of surrounding communities, providing support and assistance to achieve this.

Through our regular meetings with police and Victim Support, we have seen hate crime reporting, on average, remain generally lower throughout the pandemic. While we can't be certain why, it is possible that it is a result of social distancing and a lack of interaction, or alternatively through reluctance to report hate crime due to not wanting to bother the police during this busy period.

We know through our conversations with all four police forces in Wales that hate crime remains a priority, and I want to use this opportunity to reinforce this message. We encourage victims to continue to come forward and report incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether to the police or via the Welsh Government-funded National Hate Crime Report and Support Centre, run by Victim Support Cymru.

I would like to thank the police, local authorities, the third sector, and all of our partners for their flexibility and resourcefulness over the last few months. We remain grateful for their support and expertise.

Previously, I've highlighted the Law Commission’s review of the adequacy and parity of protection offered by hate crime legislation. It published its consultation paper on 23 September. The Law Commission would like to hear from as many stakeholders as possible, including victims of hate crime and the service providers who support them. I strongly encourage people to participate, as it is important that the consultation benefits from Welsh views and experiences.

In the remainder of this Senedd term, we intend to lay down the foundations for future work in this area. As well as responding to the Law Commission's consultation, we will work with partners to develop community cohesion principles to identify common goals by which we foster and promote community cohesion in Wales. And as part of this work, we will produce an update on actions in the hate crime framework. We're also working on an exciting new partnership with Cardiff University's HateLab dashboard, to increase our capacity to monitor and respond to online hate.

The 2019-2020 national hate crime statistics for England and Wales were published by the Home Office today. They showed an overall 2 per cent increase in recorded hate crime for Wales, compared to an 8 per cent increase across England and Wales as a whole. The statistics included a 10 per cent increase in transgender hate crime, a 2 per cent rise in disability hate crime, and a 2 per cent rise in hate crime where sexual orientation is the motivating factor. There was a 2 per cent decrease in race hate crime and a 3 per cent decrease in religious hate crime. We have not seen the same increases across all strands of hate crime as we did in the previous year. However, the statistics show that the rises we saw in 2018-19 have been sustained.

In addition, we know that there are still around half of self-reported hate incidents not being recorded as hate crime across the UK. This might range—the reasons for this—from a lack of faith in the criminal justice system or due to people not knowing how to report hate crime. Our work to raise awareness of hate crime and encourage victims to report is as vital as ever, as is our effort to better understand the experiences of victims and the reasons for not wanting to come forward to report.

Across Wales, organisations are using Hate Crime Awareness Week as an opportunity to remind people that they do not have to tolerate hate and prejudice. It's not acceptable for people to live in fear just because of who they are. I hope that all Members will join me today in supporting this very clear message that there is no home for hate in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.