2. What is the Welsh Government doing to address women's safety in public places? TQ568

I thank Joyce Watson for that question. Yesterday, I made a statement on women's safety in public places. In Wales, we’re developing our violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy to include a focus on violence against women in the street, the workplace and the home, to deliver our commitment to make Wales the safest place in Europe to be a woman.

Thank you, Minister, and I thank you, Llywydd, for accepting my question. As you noted in your written statement yesterday, Minister, it is with great sadness that you should have to issue another statement because another young woman has lost her life. Her name is Sabina Nessa, and we all must remember and say her name.

Women and girls don't feel safe in public places. Public sexual harassment is often described as an epidemic, but it isn't new. You know as well as anyone, Minister, that it's endemic in our society. What has changed, though, is how women and girls, through social media and websites, can now turn their grief and anger into organised resistance, and campaigns like the White Ribbon, Everyone's Invited and Our Streets Now are doing amazing work to raise awareness and lobby for cultural reform.

I very much welcome your commitment to strengthen Wales's end violence against women strategy to include a focus on public spaces and workplaces. But we also need the UK Government to make public sexual harassment a specific crime, and Harriet Harman has tried to do this with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that is now going through the Lords. Can I urge the Welsh Government to push Westminster on that?

But in terms of what we in Wales can do right now, you said in your statement:

'It is not for women to modify their behaviour, it is for abusers to change theirs.'

And that is absolutely true. But we also need to make women and girls feel safe in public, especially with nightlife reopening and university students returning. So, would you join me in recommending the safe places initiative, which is a network of venues and support where anyone feeling intimidated, at risk or scared can take refuge? It's up and running in Cardiff now, and people can download the safe places app to find the nearest open door on their way home. I know that hotels in Swansea and elsewhere have also adopted similar schemes. It's certainly something we should be looking to expand in Wales, and I would be very grateful for Welsh Government support in doing that. Today, I did write to the Chief Executive and Clerk of the Senedd to ask if we here can use and offer a safe place to keep people safe in Cardiff Bay. I was very pleased to hear that I had a positive response. I call on everyone here in this building to support that application, and I don't expect anybody not to do that. Thank you.

Well, can I thank Joyce Watson for raising this question this afternoon, following my statement yesterday and, indeed, for her long-term, long-standing commitment to tackling violence against women, which was well before she even became elected to the Senedd? And I think, for new Members, it's a really important time coming up, with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Children. All parties take part, and what we can do this year, we will see, but it's very important, and the white ribbons will start being worn around this Chamber.

Can I also say that this is very good news, that the safe places initiative—that the Senedd may, hopefully, become one of those? The Commission, I'm sure, will be looking at that very carefully. And I congratulate particularly the businesses in Cardiff who started this safe places initiative—those businesses, FOR Cardiff— recognising that this is all partners—private, public and third sector—that come together to address this scourge, this endemic violence against women.

So, I just want to reassure the Senedd today that our next violence against women and domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy will take on these wider dimensions of violence against women in public places and in the workplace. We've been clear always as a Welsh Government about our ambition to end violence against women and girls. It is a societal problem, as I said in my statement, which requires a societal response, and it is about challenging attitudes and changing behaviours of those who behave abusively. And this is crucial, but also, as I have said in my statement, Wales will not be a bystander to abuse. But I'm glad that police and crime commissioners, public safety boards are all coming together. We're consulting on our draft strategy, and I know that the Live Fear Free campaigns will be taking on this huge issue in terms of awareness of stalking, harassment, abuse and violence against women in all aspects of life, including the street and other public places.

Can I thank Joyce Watson for bringing this issue for us to be able to talk about it in the Senedd? And I of course raised this issue of the need to strengthen the violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy in the Senedd yesterday, in light of Sabina Nessa's horrific murder. And I'm glad the Minister issued a statement later that afternoon, stating that the Government commits to strengthening the strategy to include that all-important focus on violence against women in public places as well as the home.

The strategy's specialist and crucially important support services are currently funded through a patchwork of local, regional and national commissioning and grants, as well as charitable funding pots, often with short contracts. Specialist services report that there remain differing funding levels and processes according to different local authorities, health boards, police and crime commissioners. Could I therefore ask for a commitment to implement a sustainable funding model, with a focus on prevention and early intervention, and ask how the Government will ensure that it achieves this end and oversight of that funding at a national and local level, in line with the calls, which are informed by the experiences of specialist services? Diolch.

Diolch yn fawr, Sioned Williams, and I heard you raising the question yesterday in the Senedd, in the business statement. And thank you for raising that all-important issue about early intervention, prevention and the role of the specialist organisations, who are very engaged in helping us develop the next five-year strategy. In fact, we have had a funding strategy initiative, which has been chaired by Yasmin Khan, one of our national advisers, bringing together the specialist services and, indeed, all those who fund the specialist services as well, and moving forward so that we can get a more coherent national approach to funding, which, of course, will include regional partnerships and at a local level as well, but to ensure that we get that comprehensive funding of our specialist services in Wales.

I'm very grateful to be called, and I'm grateful to my colleague Joyce Watson for raising this issue. But it is with sadness that we do have to talk about these issues, but it's right that we are doing so, given recent events. I won't repeat what colleagues have said today, but, Minister, I want to be quite frank and quite clear here: it is men who have to change their behaviour, and it is men who have to encourage other men to change their behaviour. Minister, you mentioned the international day coming up, and the White Ribbon Day on 25 November, and I will encourage all Members of the Senedd, all Government Ministers, and colleagues who work in this building, and those men outside of this building, that we all must make the White Ribbon promise to never commit, excuse or remain silent about male violence against women. Minister, will you use your position within the Welsh Government to continue to spread the message that it's men's behaviour that must change? Diolch.

Diolch yn fawr, Jack Sargeant. That must be the most powerful, I think, response to Joyce's original question, from Jack Sargeant. He speaks up not just on 25 November, on White Ribbon Day, but throughout the year, as a White Ribbon ambassador, about male violence, about the misuse of male power over women. And the fact that violence against women clearly is still very endemic in the home, but in the community, in public places, in the workplace, and also addressing this as an issue that we now feel that we're going to be addressing through our new curriculum, in terms of the responsibilities and opportunities to look at this in terms of our education, educating boys as well as raising awareness amongst girls. This has to be about raising the issue of inequality as well as safety issues faced by women and girls, and ending all forms of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Thank you, Minister.