, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Social Justice: Well-being of Future Generations National Implementation
Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Sustainable development has been at the heart of devolution in Wales right from the start. In 2015, this Parliament made a historic decision to change the course of Wales onto a more sustainable path by passing the Well-being of…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
Diolch yn fawr, Jack Sargeant. That must be the most powerful, I think, response to Joyce's original question, from Jack Sargeant. He speaks up not just on 25 November, on White Ribbon Day, but throughout the year, as a White Ribbon ambassador, about male…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
Diolch yn fawr, Sioned Williams, and I heard you raising the question yesterday in the Senedd, in the business statement. And thank you for raising that all-important issue about early intervention, prevention and the role of the specialist organisations, who…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
Well, can I thank Joyce Watson for raising this question this afternoon, following my statement yesterday and, indeed, for her long-term, long-standing commitment to tackling violence against women, which was well before she even became elected to the Senedd?…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
I thank Joyce Watson for that question. Yesterday, I made a statement on women's safety in public places. In Wales, we’re developing our violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy to include a focus on violence against women in the…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Altaf. You know I made a statement on Tuesday in the Senedd and you responded to it as did other colleagues here today. I'm getting daily updates on this, and I think my next step will be a written statement, probably over the next few…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you. I will certainly take that back to my next meeting with the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language. Absolutely critical, and I think many of us have got daughters who are either on school buses or walking, and still are. This is crucially…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Well, thank you very much, Jack, for the question and for the White Ribbon; it reminds us that it's only a few weeks until the day when we all are together with our White Ribbons, the elimination of violence international day where we unite. And to our new…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Chair. Well, this has been my question ever since May, since the election: how are we going to progress with securing the women's residential centre? What has been good is that the people who are responsible for actually working with…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Altaf. Well, I know Claire mentioned—and indeed, Jane—California; there's the Finnish project. There are projects all over the world, actually, and, again, we would want to give that context, I think, in my statement. Rather than going…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Well, I think, Altaf, you will get a lot more information when I make my statement covering those points.
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Well, that ended up with a very big question, Sioned, but because we've certainly engaged with Scottish colleagues at official level, I know Claire and officials have been looking—. Of course, they've moved on to looking at the minimum income guarantee, and…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Diolch yn fawr, Jane. It will give—. The statement will give as much detail as possible in terms of timescales and scoping of this pilot, and costings. We're obviously looking at every bit of evidence we can get. We've talked about it, Jane, as well, haven't…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Jack; I remember the debate well and how you brought this to the Senedd. I just wanted to go back to, in a sense, Altaf's question about the pilot, because this is about how we do alleviate poverty—is this one of the levers, one of the…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Altaf. And, of course, we set out with a commitment to look at and pilot a basic income scheme. And very, very early on, I think, in terms of making a statement, I made a ministerial statement and answered questions about it, and said…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Vikki. This is crucial because of the role that the voluntary sector played during the pandemic, and that inquiry that was undertaken by the committee was so important. I think what has been great, in terms of the response, is that we…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Maybe I need to come in on that one, before we go on to—[Inaudible.]. I probably have begun to answer some of those points, in terms of those recommendations, but, of course, there were recommendations that related to childcare, particularly in terms of that…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Altaf Hussain. These are key questions, which very much link to our employability and skills programmes, and so, again, a very early meeting I had bilaterally with the Minister for Economy, Vaughan Gething, was about the employability…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
We've had a gender budgeting pilot with personal learning accounts. This was one of the recommendations that came out of the gender equality review, and, in fact, it's the responsibility of the finance Minister to take that forward and assess its outcomes. I…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Well, this is again where the sorts of powers and responsibilities of other Ministers are so crucial in terms of tackling poverty, the cross-government tackling poverty responsibilities. And one of the first meetings, the bilaterals I had, was with Julie…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
Thank you very much, Jane, and great to see you as well on this committee, and I welcome your scrutiny as well. Quite clearly, in terms of gender, the fact that there has been a gender equality review, which was before we got to our race equality action plans…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
It's been one of the most successful schemes or initiatives that we've undertaken in terms of tackling child poverty. The pilots have been very valuable and we're looking at the impact of the pilots, so I certainly hope that we will, in the next phase of…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
That's a crucially important point, because we can discuss how we tackle poverty and strategies and plans, but actually we know that there is more we can do here and now. We talked about the discretionary assistance fund last week and how we need to extend it…
, Equality and Social Justice Committee
Scrutiny session with the Minister for Social Justice
In terms of tackling poverty, as I said, it is—and you rightly recognise—a cross-Government responsibility, and particularly a responsibility in terms of tackling child poverty. We have our child poverty strategy, and I recently also announced the outcomes of…
