Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, Mark Isherwood AM, has hit out at the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip for deflecting blame to the UK Government for Welsh Government failures after he questioned her following her Statement on ‘Advancing Equality and Human Rights in Wales’ in the Chamber yesterday.
Responding to the Statement, Mr Isherwood referred to a number of UK Government initiatives and asked what engagement the Welsh Government has had with them. He also challenged her over Welsh Government failings.
Speaking in the Chamber, Mr Isherwood said:
“In my speech (at NWAMI's second International Panel Meeting on Tuesday), I referred to the launch last year by the UK Government of an initiative to build a more integrated and cohesive society, the 'Integrated Communities Strategy', described by Professor Cantle, who had previously worked with the last UK Labour Government, as ‘a very real shift in approach in which the Government will support practical action to promote cohesion and integration’.
“The 'Integrated Communities Action Plan' of 2019 takes the UK Government's 2018 strategy forward by providing practical details of the schemes it is developing and supporting. What engagement has the Welsh Government had with that, either by invitation or a proactive intervention, if any?”
He added: “The Equality and Human Rights Commission's 'Is Wales Fairer?' report for 2018 made a series of recommendations, including to strengthen the human rights infrastructure in Wales, calling on the Welsh Government to incorporate UN treaties into Welsh law and to ensure that equality and human rights protections are safeguarded and enhanced during the Brexit process and beyond. As we go forward, how will you be further engaging with the UK Government in that context?”
“You referred to the need to and how Welsh Government might incorporate UN Conventions, including the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, into Welsh law. When we debated this here last September, I said that 'There is merit in incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into Welsh law in order to strengthen and promote the rights of disabled people, as the Welsh Government did with children's rights by incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child into Welsh law in 2011’. So what consideration might you give to adopting a similar model, when you say you're commissioning research to explore wider options, or do you now have a better way, you think, possibly, of looking at this?
Mr Isherwood also asked how the Welsh Government is going to respond the UN Rapporteur, Professor Philip Alston, who said that Wales faced the highest relative poverty rate in the UK and that the Welsh Government's new 'Prosperity for All' strategy 'has no strategic focus or ministerial responsibility for poverty reduction, and lacks clear performance targets and progress indicators' and to the section in that report that was specifically targeted at the Welsh Government and asking the Welsh Government to take specific actions.
He further questioned the Deputy Minister over the Public Sector Equality Duty, the ‘Action on Disability: the Right to Independent Living’ Framework and the Social Model of disability, stating “I have yet to encounter a senior officer in any local authority or health board that admits the existence of these matters, or the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 or the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, until I mention it to them and remind them of their duties and responsibilities”, and asked how the Welsh Government monitor implementation and intervene.
After the Deputy Minister’s response, Mr Isherwood added:
“Instead of providing answers to my questions about Welsh Government engagement with UK Government initiatives and Welsh Government action to address serious failings identified in its own policy approach, the Deputy Minister deflected blame to the UK Government yet again. After twenty years of Labour-led Welsh Government responsible for a raft of key policy areas, it is quite shameful that Wales was the only UK Nation to see a rise in child poverty last year, quite shocking that Wales has the highest relative poverty rate in the United Kingdom, and quite pathetic that they still shift blame to non-devolved UK Government policies which apply on both sides of the border, when Welsh Government policies only apply in Wales”.
