Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:00 pm on 7 December 2021.
Thank you, Minister. Your statement is once again, as always on these subjects, very, very welcome. Any violence against women and girls cannot and should not be tolerated within today's society. The fact that domestic abuse is the biggest killer of women aged 19 to 44—as you say in your statement, Minister, even more than breast cancer—is a sobering reminder of the urgent need to tackle domestic abuse and the misogynistic behaviours in our society.
Education, I feel, could be a very useful tool in helping to tackle domestic abuse, and this is why I'd like to focus on this. Instilling what healthy relationships are in the minds of our children and young people, I think, will be a key step forward in rooting out these behaviours, so I'm pleased that discussion and education on this will be incorporated in the new curriculum; in fact, it was one of the major key turning points for me from not supporting the education Bill last term to then supporting it, because I was so enthralled and pleased to see that this would form part of the new curriculum, because these conversations need to be had. And I truly believe incorporating it will go a long way to helping to tackle it.
Minister, I'd be grateful if you could outline the impact of teaching this to young people and how it will be monitored and measured to ensure that it is having the desired effect, and the quality and content of delivery being important, obviously, and I'm sure you'll agree, its age appropriateness as well as the consistency, of course, of the approach across all schools. And what discussions have you had with the education Minister on who is going to be best placed to teach and educate on these matters—teachers themselves or outside bodies with expertise in talking about this to young people? Because—