Chapter 7.
Leading on Equalities
Welsh Labour’s Promise to Wales
WE WILL:
- Implement and fund the commitments made in our Race Equality Action Plan to tackle the significant inequalities and racism faced by Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities.
- Strengthen the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Strategy to include a focus on violence against women in the street and workplace as well as the home. Expand the ‘Ask and Act’ and ‘Don’t be a Bystander’ training and awareness campaigns.
- Work with partners to establish an equalities legal service to provide support on unfair or discriminatory employment practices. We will explore legislation to address pay gaps based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, and other forms of discrimination and ensure public bodies and those receiving public funding address pay disparities. We will implement targets around Gender Budgeting so that all decisions by a Welsh Government are seen through a gender lens.
- Incorporate the United Nations Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People into Welsh law.
- Ensure the history and culture of our Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities are properly represented by investing further in our cultural sector and museum network. We will address fully the recommendations from the Monuments and Street Names Audit and from the Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic Communities, Contributions and Cynefin in the New Curriculum Working Group.
- Create a Race Disparity Unit alongside an Equality Data Unit to ensure an inclusive evidence base to inform decision making in government. We will expand our Access to Elected Office programme to encourage more Women, Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic and disabled people to stand for elected office. We will implement the recommendations of Reflecting Wales in Running Wales: Diversity and Inclusion Strategy for Public Appointments in Wales (2020-2023).
- Support Pride Cymru by becoming a formal sponsor and we will create a Wales-wide Pride Fund to support events and campaigns across the country. We will also appoint a Wales-wide Pride Coordinator to support campaigns and activities.
- Use all available powers to protect our young people through banning all aspects of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy that are in our powers and seek the devolution of any necessary additional powers. We will also work to devolve the Gender Recognition Act and support our Trans community.
- Work with organisations such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter to tackle hate crime and misinformation, particularly to protect our children and young people from hate crime and bullying.
- Embed period dignity in schools and expand our free period provision in communities and the private sector.
- Make our Welsh public transport system more accessible to disabled people, in line with our commitment to the social model of disability.
- Continue our strong partnership with voluntary organisations across the range of our responsibilities, for example, through our Credit Union network to help the most financially vulnerable in our communities.
The best future there can be for Wales is the most equal, free and fair future.
Throughout our history, the Labour Party has stood for the rights and recognition of those who are vulnerable and disadvantaged or who face stigma and discrimination. We are the party of equalities and human rights and we remain committed to freedom of conscience and freedom of belief.
Many of the challenges, including racism, faced by our minority communities have their origins in structures of power and social relations that have long had their day yet still need to be challenged. Gender inequality is still an entrenched unfairness and violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence remains all too common. We want to make Wales the safest place in Europe to be a woman. We also know that people are disabled by barriers created by societal inequality and not by their impairment or specific needs. We have come a long way on the march for LGBTQ+ equality, but until every person can be their true self, living free from fear, we still have work to do.
Welsh Labour recognises our common humanity and celebrates diversity, and difference. The more we work together, the more likely we are to achieve positive change. That is why we actively support progressive networks, campaigns and organisations that are working towards an equal society.
What we did in government
- To tackle domestic abuse and sexual violence, the Welsh Labour Government established the Live Fear Free and the Dyn helplines for women and men who are victims of violence and domestic abuse.
- We have launched a Race Equality Action Plan, co-constructed with Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic community mentors and community groups. We have also invested over £1.2m to tackle hate crime and to support victims of hate crime.
- The Welsh Labour Government and Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic clinicians, created and introduced the All Wales Covid-19 Workforce Risk Assessment Tool, the first in the UK. This helped to protect the health of NHS, social care, education, and key worker staff in Wales throughout the pandemic.
- We established the Access to Elected Office Fund to support and encourage disabled people to run for elected office in the Senedd and Local Government.
- We introduced Disabled People’s Employment Champions and committed nearly £40m to employment support for those most negatively impacted by Covid.
- Welsh Labour embedded Relationships and Sexuality Education in the new curriculum ensuring LGBTQ+ inclusive education for our children and young people. We also established a ground-breaking Gender Identity Service to support Trans people and commissioned a comprehensive LGBTQ+ action plan in partnership with Stonewall Cymru.
- We removed the ‘gay blood ban’ and became the first UK nation to make PReP available on the NHS. We supported Prides throughout Wales as well as sponsoring Pride Cymru.
- We committed Wales to be a Nation of Sanctuary and provided over £1m to the Asylum Rights Programme offering advocacy and support.
- The Welsh Government commissioned research to advance the case for the incorporation of UN Conventions into Welsh law and the introduction of a Human Rights Act for Wales.
- It was this Welsh Labour Government that provided free period products across schools, colleges, local authorities, and communities.
