I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate today. The Equality and Human Rights Commission continues to do vital work. Indeed, during these worrying times, when human rights are being threatened to an unprecedented degree by the Tory Government at Westminster, it is doing vital work to ensure that Welsh institutions and the Welsh Government take every opportunity to ensure fairness for the people of Wales. I am therefore pleased to acknowledge that work here in the chamber.

To prepare for my contribution today, I looked back at previous reports by the EHRC and the comments and the relevant questions that were raised in their wake, and each year, we seem to feel that the threat to human rights is unprecedented. Over recent years, in responding to the reports, we have cited austerity policies threatening employment and livelihoods and the damaging implications of Brexit that put the foundations of human rights at risk. And then, over the years, there has also been a marked development in the awareness of the effects of climate change on human rights. And we have seen, for example, the basic right to a safe home being literally washed away as some of our communities suffered more persistent and more severe floods. And as we were hit by a global pandemic, of course, we all explored the nature of our right to health, to healthcare and to have contact with each other, and our rights as workers. And attention was drawn to how the rights of specific groups, as Altaf Hussain said, of our society, for example disabled people, children, people in care homes and those receiving maternity care, were grossly violated and neglected at times by some Government decisions during that period.