Online safety is a complex societal issue. Tackling it requires a multi-agency approach. Our national digital resilience action plan outlines the commitments we are undertaking across Government, along with expert partners, to enhance the protection for children and young people online. A collaborative approach is essential to make real progress and, therefore, partnership working is at the heart of the action plan. Reflecting the continually evolving nature of the digital world, the action plan is updated annually, adding new work streams, as well as providing a summary of progress against work to date. This year's action plan sets out over 70 actions that we are delivering with our partners to enhance online safety provision and practice across Wales, and I'd like to highlight some of the key activities we continue to take forward.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of announcing the winners of our Safer Internet Day film competition, 'Respect me. My internet, my rights'. The films were extremely thought-provoking and they emphasised the power of young people's voices and their rights to be safe from online harm. It is essential that we listen to young people's experiences to truly understand the online world through their eyes, and their voice is central to our programme and drives our policy development.

This year, we've set up a new youth panel for digital resilience. This panel brings together young people from across Wales to influence and directly inform our work to enhance online safety. I look forward to hearing from the panel, and wish to extend my thanks to those young people for volunteering their time to support this important work.

With so much information at their fingertips, we know that young people often go online to seek support and advice. Earlier this year, we launched 'Online issues and worries', a new area on Hwb's 'Keeping safe online', specifically for children and young people. This advice was co-constructed with young people and aims to support them if they are concerned about an online issue. This new advice expands the reach of Hwb's 'Keeping safe online', our dedicated one-stop-stop, which hosts news, advice and guidance on a breadth of digital resilience issues. This critical area has continued to evolve. It now hosts over 400 resources to support children and young people, as well as their families and school communities. Through 'Keeping safe online', schools have access to an extensive offer of bilingual teaching resources, as well as training opportunities, and these cover a range of topical online safety issues, including sharing nude images, peer-on-peer online sexual harassment and misinformation.

I was able recently to attend the launch of resources developed with the Football Association of Wales, targeted at boys, around some of the online harms that can be caused and, equally, visited a school in the Cynon valley to hear from young women there about the experiences they'd had of working with technology companies to provide guidance to their peers as well. There is a wealth of resource that is being generated, including by young people themselves.

Online safety is constantly evolving, Dirprwy Lywydd. It's important that we keep pace and equip our education practitioners with knowledge about the latest trends and risks, and how to support their learners to navigate them. For the first time, next March, we will host two national digital resilience in education conferences. These events will shine a spotlight on online safety and will provide schools with the knowledge and resources that they need to continue to drive the development of online safety in education. It's critical that online safety is embedded firmly within a safeguarding culture. It should not be seen as merely an IT or digital issue. Digital resilience is now integral within our statutory safeguarding in education guidance, and firmly on the agenda of the national safeguarding in education group.

This year, my officials are working in partnership with Estyn, meeting local authorities and headteachers to examine how they've embedded online safety within their safeguarding policy, provision and practice. While education plays an important role, many of the online safety issues schools report take place beyond the school gates and outside of school hours. Therefore, it's critical that we engage with parents and carers, and the action plan includes several actions to provide families with support and advice on a range of online safety issues. Recognising that many online issues play out on social media, the Welsh Government developed 'In the Know'. The series provides parents and carers with key information about social media and gaming apps popular with children and young people. We continue to build on this series, as well as exploring other ways to support parents.

Across the world, there is a strong debate about the role that legislation should play in making the internet safer, and that's been highlighted in today's debate. It is vital that the onus must not rest with children to protect themselves from online harms. The UK Government has outlined its plans through the introduction of the long-awaited Online Safety Bill earlier this year. I welcome the ambition of the Bill in respect of the enhanced protection for children and young people. It is essential that the UK Government now priorities this work, and I support the calls made by many of our partners to take forward the Bill with no further delays, and I echo the point that Heledd Fychan made in the debate.

I was pleased to see the recent amendment brought forward outlining the intention of crimialising the assisting or encouraging of self-harm online, to which Natasha Asghar drew particular attention. Abhorrent behaviour such as this should have no place in our society, and I'm also glad to see that controlling and coercive behaviour will be added to the list of priority offences within the Bill.

While the UK Government seeks to strike a balance between free speech and safety, it is critical that changes made to the Bill are not at the expense of children's safety and do not dilute the impact this legislation can have. I urge them to commit to maximising the much-needed protection this Bill affords for children.

Social media and online platforms must be challenged, in the way we've heard in the debate today, to ensure that they tackle harmful content on their platforms. Ofcom will ultimately play a key role as they develop robust codes of practice to hold online platforms to account. We look forward to continuing to engage with them to make social media and online platforms a safer and better place for all.

Let me be clear, Dirprwy Lywydd, our children and young people have the right to be safe online. They have the right to be free from online bullying, they have the right to be free from online hate and violence, and the right to be free from online abuse and harassment. The Welsh Government is playing its part to ensure that our children and young people are empowered to be responsible, ethical and informed citizens. It is my firm commitment to drive our mission to ensure their rights to be safe are fully realised, and I call on the UK Government to act without further delay.