Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:44 pm on 10 January 2023.
Thank you very much for those questions and the important point about women's representation in local government. We are absolutely far from where we should be in terms of the number of women who are taking on the role of councillors, but also council leaders. We have very, very few women council leaders in Wales, and that's something that we would want to see increased in future as well.
I think that the work around remote attendance is really important to support women particularly, who usually have the caring responsibilities and the family responsibilities, to be able to attend meetings in a way that is more convenient to them—so, that's important—and also tackling bullying as well. We know that women are very often at the fore—in the front line—of receiving abuse online and in person and so on, so we need to, obviously, be redoubling our efforts in that space as well. I think, on a party political basis, there is a job for all of us to do in terms of nurturing talent within our parties, identifying women who might, just with a bit of encouragement and support, consider putting themselves forward for these roles as well. So, I think, individually, we can all take some responsibility for that as well. So, I think that there is good work going on, but we are far from where we would want to be in that space, absolutely.
On job sharing in the Senedd, that's not something that I'm directly involved with. I think that would probably be a question potentially for the Llywydd at this point, or colleagues who are working within Welsh Government on that. It's not something I'm personally involved in, but I will try and get an answer on that.