Violence Against Women and Girls

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 23 November 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:00, 23 November 2021

I thank Joyce Watson for that, Llywydd. Can I begin just by paying tribute to everything that she does throughout the year, and around the White Ribbon period as well, to highlight the issues that she has referred to again today? She's absolutely right that the points she raises are very important ones to the Welsh Government and very vigorously taken forward by the Minister for Social Justice. She meets very regularly with chief constables and with the police and crime commissioners. The lead police and crime commissioner at the moment, Llywydd, is the Dyfed-Powys police and crime commissioner, Dafydd Llywelyn. I know that the Minister met him last week and is due to meet him again on 16 December. The Policing Partnership Board for Wales will meet on 2 December. That will be an opportunity for us to continue the dialogue that we have established with our police forces. They're not devolved, as Joyce Watson said, but we have managed to create a set of institutional arrangements that make sure that the issues that are of concern to people in Wales are discussed there regularly, directly with police interests themselves, but with other partners as well in the local authorities, in the health service. We will be raising the issues that the Member has identified today again in that forum, and I want to say, Llywydd, for the record, that in our experience we get a very committed response from our partners and our police partners here in Wales.