Diolch. I move amendments 1 to 3, whilst also acknowledging that there is much of merit in the original motion. The increase in stalking offences is more than a matter of regret. The new curriculum can and must foster a culture that prevents the occurrence of stalking in the first place. New guidance for planning bodies should ensure that the safety of women and others at risk, including disabled people, is considered in the design of public spaces. Providers of specialist support for survivors of stalking must also be sustainably resourced, and included in the design and delivery of related services.

Our amendment 2, calling on the Welsh Government to work with both police forces and police and crime commissioners to improve police handling of stalking, is essentially a technical amendment, which Members should therefore support. While the role of commissioner is to hold chief constables and their police force to account, chief constables and their police forces are responsible for the operational delivery of policing services.

Office for National Statistics figures published last March found that although most crime figures dropped in Wales and England during 2020, recorded stalking and harassment offences had increased by 20 per cent during the coronavirus lockdown, with the figure rising to 31 per cent as restrictions had eased in the summer of 2020. The anti-stalking charity Paladin said most victims were reporting being stalked via social media, messaging apps and e-mail, but physical stalking was also happening despite the lockdown. Paladin had also previously highlighted the lack of perpetrator programmes for stalkers. Hence our amendment 3 calls on the Welsh Government to ensure that perpetrator programmes are available across Wales.

Last December, I noted here that I was one of the three party spokespeople who took the Welsh Government to the line over the passage of the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, securing Welsh Government pledges in several areas, including accredited perpetrator programmes, to change the attitudes, behaviour and belief of perpetrators. As I said, during the passage of the Act, I moved amendments calling for the national strategy to include provision of at least one perpetrator programme. As Relate Cymru had told committee, 90 per cent of the partners they questioned sometime after the end of their programme said that there had been a complete stop in violence and intimidation by their partner. The Minister responded then that he did not consider my amendment appropriate, but had jointly funded research to help inform future responses to perpetrators. However, as I said in December, the only mention of perpetrators in the latest violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence national advisers annual plan refers to exploring a blueprint for the whole system that aims, amongst other things, to hold perpetrators accountable.

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust have raised concern that a lot of victims tend to drop the charges because they find it too emotionally challenging, meaning the actual number of stalking victims could be much higher than official data suggests. Stalking is increasingly being recognised as a form of domestic abuse within the criminal justice system, a Crown Prosecution Service analysis finding the majority of offences are committed by ex-partners. Although a record 2,288 charges were brought in 2019-20, more than double the figure five years previously, the percentage of reported cases charged fell from 23 per cent in the year ending March 2016 to just 11 per cent in the year ending March 2020. Speaking last summer, the senior policy and campaigns officer for the Suzy Lamplugh Trust said:

'What is really needed is in depth specialists and regular training for police officers. We need to make sure that when somebody reports stalking…the police officer responding to the incident understands what stalking is.'

Unfortunately, Plaid Cymru's predictable call for the devolution of powers at the end of their motion distracts from a highly important debate and gives the false impression that our Westminster colleagues are not also already switched on to these matters. Hence our amendment 1, which calls on the Senedd to welcome the Stalking Protection Act 2019, introduced by then Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston and Conservative peer Baroness Bertin, and the Lords vote in favour of an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to make misogyny a hate crime in Wales and England, led by Conservative Baroness Newlove. The Minister for Social Justice's statement in her letter copied to Members last Friday that it is likely that amendments agreed in the Lords will be overturned and further amendments made, only reinforces the importance of this Parliament sending a united message of support for making misogyny a hate crime. Thank you.