Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:39 pm on 1 March 2022.
Thank you very much indeed, Heledd Fychan. Again, we must pay tribute to all of those pioneers who have made their mark. In terms of local authorities—and I recall when Elyn Stephens was taking this forward—actually, local authorities have embraced this. We have a round-table, we have local authority representation, officers from the council. We must never forget our officers, must we, because councillors can say, 'We want this, we want that', but actually, the officers have to deliver.
I remember Councillor Philippa Marsden, when she became leader of Caerphilly council, coming to a meeting. We haven't got enough women leaders of councils, and it was really great when she came to the meeting, in a busy schedule, because she felt it was so important. Actually, I'm meeting with cross-party cabinet leads on equality issues, and period dignity is high up on the agenda. We've got some great groups, charities—I always remember one in Bridgend, and one in Wrexham—who are doing work. It should not be, going back to the points that were made earlier on, about just being able to get them in the foodbank if you're in that situation. They have got to be available in our schools, and we've got to think of school holidays as well. We can think of this in terms of the school day, actually, and access to this—it's an important part of the consultation.
I think workplace enlightenment is crucially important. It's good to hear that the national museum had that enlightenment about the menopause. I would say that, just on the menopause, the Minister for Health and Social Services is contributing to a UK Government-led menopause taskforce—it's just commenced its work this month. I didn't respond to the point about endometriosis, but we have got our women's health implementation group, and they're also looking at the issues around endometriosis. It's a crucial workplace issue—it's the sort of thing that the equality committee of the Wales TUC also discusses. But we need to look particularly at those under-served communities where we need to reach out.
Just finally, on the issue of school toilets, the very first children's commissioner, Peter Clarke—and I'm talking 20 years ago—when he consulted young people on what they wanted him to take up, they said school toilets. I think that says it all, doesn't it? I think we've transformed, in our wonderful new schools, but it still is an issue. It's the most private and difficult place for girls in terms of periods, but often for boys as well in terms of bullying. It's the school environment that we just need to address when we look at this issue.