2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 12 October 2021.

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Photo of Joyce Watson Joyce Watson Labour 2:43, 12 October 2021

Diolch, Llywydd. Trefnydd, could we have a statement, and I think the Minister for Social Justice is best placed to speak on it, on the very urgent need to make public sexual harassment a specific criminal offence in England and Wales? I referred to it in my recent topical question to the Minister on women's safety in public places. But, since then, it's become clear that the roadblock to reform is the Prime Minister himself. As well as blocking a new law on harassment, the Prime Minister personally intervened to torpedo attempts to make misogyny a hate crime. It emerged this weekend, however, that Tory peers and MPs plan to defy Johnson and push ahead with attempts to change that law. I know it falls outside this institution's legislative powers, of course, but, just as Boris Johnson's dismissal of misogyny and gender-based harassment sends a dangerous public message, the Welsh Government ought to counter that and do what it can to realise change in the law to protect Welsh women and girls.