Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:27 pm on 1 February 2022.
Diolch. Can I thank Sioned Williams for the passionate and emotional contribution? I really welcome your support and the way we can work together on common cause and common ground on this. You picked up from the statement and talked a lot in your contribution about the legislative and policy change, but you talked about the power of art as well. Over the years, we've seen huge cultural change in terms of the representation of LGBTQ+ people in the media. When I was growing up in north Wales, I could never have dreamed that you'd just watch whatever programme and there would be positive representation on there. That is really important and we can't underestimate just how important it is to have visibility in all realms of public life, whether it's culture and art, politics or across the piece.
On the points you made around data and provision, obviously I don't have that information to hand, but I'm more than happy to take that up following this and to see what we can do to build on that and to take that up with the Member as well. In terms of the action plan, it's being summarised and collated, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to bring that before this Senedd very, very soon, but I will endeavour to update Members and keep them updated as we progress, because, like you say, I'm very keen to get the plan going and to actually start to implement some of those actions. But we're not going to wait just for the plan to be published; we are still trying to take forward a number of actions and a number of elements of the plan.
You touched on conversion therapy and we're very much committed to taking forward those programme for government commitments. Myself and Jane Hutt met with the Minister for Exports and Minister for Equalities, Mike Freer, shortly before Christmas to stress our points on that conversion therapy ban and how we wanted to see it go further, and our concerns around the element of consent as part of that as well. We are still keen, at the same time, to run that very closely to seek those powers if we need them, but at the same time actually looking at what we can do to take action now. I do hope to have, perhaps, an announcement for Members during LGBTQ+ History Month along those lines as well, to trail an announcement that I can't yet make. But, hopefully, we will be able to do something more by the end of the month.
I welcome the Member's support for this and look forward to working together, like you say, to keep that progress going; it's not inevitable and it falls on all of us to continue that arc.