Equality and Social Justice Committee

Welcome back to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. We are continuing our inquiry into social cohesion in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome our witness for this session, who is Misbah Malik, from Hope Not Hate. I'm very pleased to welcome you as the senior policy and engagement officer for your organisation. So, if I could just start off by asking you about your research highlighting the rise of the radical right and hateful attitudes, how prevalent is this in Wales and how much is it confined to poorer communities? If you'd like to just address that, that would be great.

Yes. So, I think, as an organisation, I guess it's important to note, before I start, the two streams of research that we do. One is focused on the organised far right, so members of parties, members of far-right groups, and the work that they're doing, their activity on the ground—that's the focus of our research team. And then I guess the other half of the organisation and the research that they do, which I'm a part of, is more focused on public attitudes and the context through which hate arises—so, the communities that are susceptible to the far right and the attitudes that give rise to this, and that's what my piece of work is mostly focused on.

So, what we found, particularly with regard to hateful attitudes, multiculturalism in particular, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim views, is that, over the last couple of years, the progress that we've seen over the last couple of decades has started to reverse. So, over the last 15, 20 years, we've seen general improvements in attitudes and race relations more broadly. That's the result of education and also specific public-intervention programmes. But what we've found, as I mentioned, over the last couple of years, is that all of that progress is kind of reversing and is becoming worse. And attitudes that we were seeing 20 or 30 years ago are not only back in the far-right groups, but also mainstream media and mainstream public opinions. And this is UK-wide; we don't actually see that much difference across the four nations.

Your point about low-income areas and the link between negative public attitudes and deprivation is a really, really interesting one. I think typically and historically when we think about far-right movements and far-right activity it has been confined to—well, not confined to, but very focused within—low-income neighbourhoods. There's a variety of reasons for this. One is lack of education and how that can give rise to negative attitudes towards certain groups. Media literacy is a big thing. But also, increasingly, we're seeing the far right weaponise and exploit the cost-of-living crisis. We've seen this massive surge in scarcity narratives and how that can direct hate towards other vulnerable groups who the far right present as 'stealing' quote, unquote, resources, or diverting resources from those who they perceive actually really, really need it. So, obviously, we've seen, over the last couple of years, narratives about people seeking asylum versus homeless veterans and the like.

But it is important to also note that, obviously, far-right attitudes, hateful attitudes more broadly, are not just confined to low-income households; it would be incredibly simplistic to say so, even though there is a slight correlation there. I think, particularly with the cost-of-living crisis, what we're finding is it's not just scarcity alone that drives people to believe scarcity narratives, it's also actually perceptions of scarcity, and what the cost-of-living crisis has done is mean that middle-income households and those on a higher income are actually experiencing perceptions of scarcity and restricted finances and things like this. So, it is a wider group of people who are actually susceptible to believing these scarcity narratives, and so what we're finding is that, actually, increasingly, it's not just low-income neighbourhoods and households that we find most vulnerable to far-right messaging, although obviously there is still that correlation there.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Obviously, there are millionaires who are espousing far-right views, so I'm not suggesting that it's confined to those communities, but those people who have money are able to buy services that are scarce, even if they can't get them publicly. So, I wonder if you could tell us about the work that Hope Not Hate has done with communities in Llanelli and Llantwit Major, and what differences there might be, if any, facing Wales compared to England.

Yes. So, it was my colleague, Anki Deo, who led on our work in this area, so I'm saying all of this second-hand. Most of the work that we did and most of the in-depth work was in Llanelli, rather than Llantwit Major. Steve Kelshaw from Llanelli Unites essentially got in touch with us about a week after the Home Office's proposal for hotel accommodation was made public. We sent resources that we had existingly and we looped in our research team, who were then able to monitor the situation, and then we engaged with Steve and other local groups on community engagement. And that community engagement was not just specifically on the hotel issue but also more broadly on community resilience and community development and that cohesion piece of work as well.

I think what was really interesting about the differences between Llantwit and Llanelli was the extent to which things flared up within the community. Obviously, Llanelli was particularly explosive, with a lot of inflammation around the issue descending into violence at times. Obviously, there was that permanent camp outside as well. Whereas in Llantwit it was much more reserved, I guess, and more traditional forms of protest and engaging in those more formal mechanisms.

There are a couple of reasons as to why things were different, and it's quite hard to compare because, obviously, the nuances of the situation make everything very different, but I think, broadly, that class and income were factors there. As I mentioned, low-income neighbourhoods, communities with low resilience like Llanelli, are much more likely to experience agitation around these sorts of issues and it's much easier for the far right to exploit local issues when there is, broadly, lower community resilience at large. I think another difference was the ethnicity of people seeking asylum who were entering the community. In Llantwit Major, it was largely Ukrainian refugees, whereas in Llanelli it was those of Afghan descent. And obviously racism plays a big role in whether or not people seeking asylum are perceived to be, quote unquote, 'deserving' or 'undeserving' of community resources, resources more broadly.

I think also there's a big question around the proposed sites for the accommodation. In Llantwit Major, it was in a disused school. There were plans for that school to be made into a community development that were obviously then stunted because of the hotel plans. But, in Llanelli, the hotel that was being used was a pillar of the community. A lot of people lost their jobs. It was a focal point for a lot of people there, and so obviously that meant that there were a lot more emotions surrounding that and those emotions could then be easily inflamed, easily escalated, by far-right figures coming in. So, broadly speaking, I would say that those three reasons were the cause of the difference.

No, it's really interesting. Thank you very much. I'm just going to hand over now to one of my colleagues, Julie Morgan.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I was going to ask you about social connectedness, and I think your research has highlighted the need for initiatives to proactively build social connectedness to strengthen resilience. So, what do you think this should involve?

A whole broad range of things, really. I think what we're really pushing for at Hope Not Hate is on a policy level for communities-focused policies to not just focus on social connectedness and people's attitudes towards each other; it really needs to go broader than that. And so, as you mentioned, we talk about community resilience, which is this really broad idea where, essentially, we say that for communities to be resilient to the far right, and to be able to reject hateful narratives more broadly, they, essentially, need to have three things, one of which is social connectedness. The other is access to resources, and that's a way of counteracting those scarcity narratives that I mentioned earlier. And the third thing is kind of access to power and their relationship with politics more broadly.

So, for the social connectedness side, obviously how people feel about each other is really, really important, and those connections that people have with their neighbours, with their community more broadly, and the relationships they have there, are a really strong countermeasure to hateful narratives that the far right try to spew against groups. And I think what's really, really important here is that we don't just have social contact initiatives where we're bringing people together in a room to sit and chat; obviously, that's really, really important, but that has to also go alongside education, and that's not just at a youth level, although, obviously, that's really, really important—youth groups, sport, stuff like that—but also adult education, media literacy. There need to be targeted interventions that actually address the hateful narratives that we see not only in the far right, but also increasingly in mainstream circles and spaces and on social media, and a way for people to be able to critically engage with those narratives is really, really important for social connectedness.

And, obviously, I guess the elephant in the room is that a lot of the third sector organisations who really pioneer this work, particularly at a local level, where forming those connections is most important, have been underfunded for a very, very long time, with cuts across the board. So, there's a big question about how we finance and help these local organisations and these grass-roots initiatives to continue doing the great work that they're doing.

The really important thing about social connectedness in particular is that we need national-level guidance, we need a national vision that everyone is working towards to provide that framework that everyone can situate themselves within, so that we're making sure that we're all working towards the same thing. That's really important. So, national guidance, but local implementation. Our research has increasingly found that whilst people feel quite pessimistic about the national picture, a national community, a kind of national pessimism, they actually do feel quite positive about their local community and what they see with their neighbours and where they see their local community going. So, we've really identified the local as an important opportunity for intervention. But for localised implementation, we need to have, like I said, national guidance, but also national support, national funding for these local organisations to be able to do that sort of work. So, that's really, really important.

Thank you very much for that very detailed answer, and, obviously, I accept the point you're making about how this needs to be something broad. But on the more specific, what about community-owned spaces, and how important do you see that those are? What progress have you seen there?

Community-owned spaces are really important. We do focus groups up and down the country, and one of the main things that people have talked about when they talk about how their community has changed is that there just aren't places to meet any more; there are no places to bump into people, whether that be community centres, sport centres. Even local businesses, the decline of the high street means that you don’t have that sense of community any more. And as much as we talk about social connection and cohesion in terms of people’s attitudes and relationships with each other, it’s also about place, as well, right? So, if we’re thinking particularly about the community level where you think, ‘Okay, we need to create a community identity’, it’s really hard to do that without anchoring it to a place and so, you’re right, community-owned spaces are super important.

And this is something that we kind of work adjacently to; the community power sector is one that we work with, although we’re not really part of it ourselves. So, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to say specifically what the progress has been there in detail, because we’re not directly involved in it, but I think there are definitely opportunities that are coming up in terms of how we do that. Again, the community wealth fund and the focus on, basically, using dormant assets in order to create a wider sense of community and reinvest in under-resourced communities, there’s a really good opportunity there.

But I think the thing about community power and community-owned spaces and community-owned assets is it’s a very case-by-case process at the moment. It really has required a group of local people who are really going to champion this piece of work to take it forward. There’s a lack of national guidance, like I said before, a national framework for places to be able to do this sort of thing. And so, again, often, the communities that need it most are the ones that are missing out because they don’t have extra resources, extra time, extra capacity to put into this. So, again, I think we need national-level guidance in order to really take this work forward, because I think it’s really, really important.

Thank you very much. Finally from me, do you think that we should be targeting interventions at those with extreme views? What's your view of that?

I guess the answer depends on who is doing the targeting. It’s important to note that there is obviously a very broad spectrum of hateful attitudes, right from people who are planning to commit acts of terrorism, who are actively engaged in banned neo-Nazi groups, and then there’s a specific method of intervention for them via Prevent, via official actors who are trained in this sort of thing. And then, on the very other end of the spectrum, you have people who—. For example, what we’ve found a lot, again going back to the cost-of-living crisis, is people who are thinking, ‘I can’t afford to put food on my table, I can’t afford to send my kids to school with lunch’ and so are listening to what Reform are saying and the simplistic narratives they’re saying about scarcity and competition for resources, and are kind of then tuning into what Reform are saying and are going on this journey with them.

So, there’s a huge, broad range of what hateful attitudes can include, but I think, absolutely, yes, we do need to be intervening at all stages of this spectrum and I think again it goes back to making sure that there is an overarching framework, so that we know who is intervening at what point and via what channels and processes. Like I said, at the extreme end, you’ve got counter-terrorism measures, Prevent, deradicalisation and all of that, and then at the—quote, unquote—softer end, I think that’s when, again, the community-level interventions are really, really important. Those community groups and places where you can go and feel listened to, and I guess to softly challenge, because the views haven’t necessarily been entrenched yet, that’s where I see the community level as really, really important and that’s more the end that my work at Hope Not Hate focuses on.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Jane Dodds and then I'll come to Heledd Fychan.

Yes, thank you, and good afternoon, Misbah. I just wanted to pick up on that last point there about the different interventions. One of the things we heard in the last session was about mapping, about an overarching picture of what was going on at various levels. I mean, I think I know the answer to this because I know that you’re a small organisation, but do Hope Not Hate do any of that mapping that’s particularly useful for us in Wales? But I wondered if you did any and if you did, could you just talk for one minute on it? That would be great. Thank you.

Yes. Just to clarify, sorry, do you mean mapping in terms of mapping what interventions are happening, or mapping as in where the activity is?

No. The interventions.

Yes. I mean, we broadly have an idea of what is happening where, but it is mostly focused on the areas that we target and that we are involved in. So, when we go into a local area or decide to support a local area to do their own thing, we kind of map what's already happening there, as well as the very broad national bits of intervention that are going on. So, yes, I guess the short answer is, 'sort of', but again, capacity wise, it's really difficult for us.

It's one of the things, again, that we are calling for as part of a broader tension-monitoring piece of work that we think really needs to be happening in a centralised space. As well as mapping tensions, it's also mapping where there are opportunities for intervention, and then overlaying the two together to find out where the gaps are. So, we are not really doing it, but we really do think that it needs to be done, particularly at a national level, so that it's all centralised.

Just to follow up, did that happen in Llanelli, when you got the request to go there, or not? It did?

Yes. My colleague, Anki, basically did a bit of a scoping exercise with Steve, to see what community organisations existed, both locally but also on a wider Wales scale, that we could then draw resources from. That was particularly useful.

And is that public? Is that something that this committee might be able to see?

I'm unsure. I can get back to you on that. I think that it was more for internal purposes, just to establish the role that we, as Hope Not Hate, could play coming in, by identifying where the gaps were, so that we wouldn't be duplicating anything.

We would be grateful if you could talk to your colleague, because it would be helpful for us to be able to measure the positives out of the intervention. Thank you. Heledd Fychan.

Diolch, Gadeirydd. If I could just pick up on the last few points, and thank you for being with us today. Just in terms of the need, which you clearly outlined, to counter some of the challenges that we are seeing, how much of a concern is the funding situation? You mentioned specifically the third sector, as well, and we know that national insurance contributions are something that has been raised with us as Senedd Members. Do you, as an organisation, have concerns that the funding is going to be a barrier to this work being taken forward?

Yes, definitely, and on various different levels as well, I think. Local authority funding has been absolutely slashed, and we know that cohesion initiatives are often seen as non-essential and so are the first to go, and the last to be brought back as well. So, even though there are commitments to local government finance reform, there is a huge question of whether or not this additional funding will go to fill existing black holes, or whether or not it will actually go to new initiatives. Again, cohesion is often seen as non-essential, and so it is not top of the priority list.

Also, more broadly, when you think about individual donations as well, which a lot of charities, particularly very grass-roots ones, are really heavily reliant on, across the board those are down as well, so it is really, really worrying. Even from an anecdotal point of view, organisations that we have worked with for long periods of time have said to us that they are really, really struggling to keep funds afloat.

So, yes, it's really, really worrying, particularly when you think about this sort of work and how important it is that it's long term as well. These issues that communities are facing are heavily, heavily entrenched, and it is going to take more than even a five-year funding cycle to really, really see a difference and really, really make a difference. So, yes, we are really, really concerned about it.

Thank you for the clarity there. Obviously, you have mentioned two things with the framework, not just in terms of being able to measure tensions, but also what your research work has shown more broadly as well. You mentioned centralisation. Who would you like to see taking that lead? Where would you, as an organisation, sit with that? And how do we take that forward, and what are the risks if we don't?

Sorry, just to clarify, was this for the sort of tension-monitoring—

Both, because you've got the—. Sorry, I have got the Welsh papers in front of me. So, it's the 'fframwaith mesur deinamig', which is the dynamic measuring framework, I think. So, both of those you have outlined as being important, I think.

Yes, definitely. I think that this is a bit of work for Government, for sure. We really believe that they need to be taking more of a leadership role in terms of cohesion. Obviously, I've emphasised heavily throughout this that community level is really important, and the communities often hold the answers, but that doesn't mean the communities have to be left to deal with this by themselves, as I've mentioned, in terms of framework and funding from Government. So, we really want to see Government taking the lead role here, but what's really important is that there's a broad spectrum of partners at various different levels—regional, local, communities—who are involved in this work, and not only do they need to be involved, there needs to be a two-way dialogue. I think, particularly when you're thinking about any sort of measurement, particularly a local measurement, local dynamics, understanding that local nuance, it really is the people on the ground that understand this best, and their insights really need to be better fed up the chain.

A lot of the time, when we're talking about cohesion and we're talking about that relationship between the local and the national, we talk about how the national needs to be better communicating with local groups in terms of what they should be doing, what the guidance is, but, actually, also, it's important that it happens the other way as well. I think there are huge dangers in this work not being done, and I think we saw that during the riots where there wasn't any real centralised approach to monitoring everything and the chaos that that created, but also, even more so, I believe, there's actually a danger of half-heartedly doing this work, not doing it right and not involving the right people, because then you get a sense of complacency, which is like, 'We have a general idea of what's going on, so it's fine, we'll leave it at that', but actually, if it's not being done right, you're really leaving a lot of people and a lot of communities vulnerable, because they believe that things are being dealt with and they're actually not.

And increasingly so as well, with everything happening on social media and the role that social media is playing with misinformation and disinformation, it's not just a case of monitoring what's happening on the ground, it's also monitoring what's happening online. So, as part of this conversation, we need to have tech platforms involved, as well as statutory agencies, like the police, et cetera. It needs to be this really broad framework of multisector organisations that are involved at various different levels.

Yes, certainly. I think what you've outlined, if I may, is that if we take a piecemeal approach or only fund when there is an issue in an area, actually, if we don't consistently fund, then the preventative side of escalation is impossible.

Absolutely, yes. One thing we always say at Hope Not Hate—with the riots, for example—is that trigger events that are outside of the Government's control that threaten cohesion and raise tensions are always going to happen, we can't do anything to control that, but what we can do is give communities and local people the best possible chance of being able to reject hateful narratives and inflammation. But, yes, you're completely right; that work cannot just be done when something happens. It's too late; it has to be done proactively. But then, when you marry that with the very short-term issues that the Government are also trying to fund and also trying to deal with as well, that's when you get this issue with things not being prioritised as we think they should be.

Thank you, and thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much. Jane Dodds.

Thank you very much. I'm just going to follow up on some of the things that were picked up there and that you mentioned around social media, and misinformation and disinformation, just to get those right. You've touched on it slightly, but what is the impact, from Hope Not Hate's position? If you take this back 20 years, would this be happening, or is it a function of where we are now in terms of our access to social media, as well as other factors?

Social media has had a huge impact on the sort of work that we do and the organised far right more broadly. As well as being a way of information being able to spread quickly and heavily—that's obviously an issue—more dangerously for us, and what's proving a bigger issue, is that it means that, essentially, people online don't have to join a specific formal far-right group in order to engage in this activity. They can drop in and drop out whenever they want, post a few tweets, retweet a few things, whereas beforehand, they would have to sign up to a local group, go to the local meeting. There was a lot more commitment involved, which, for some people, would be a barrier, because they wouldn't be able to commit to that. Now, it's so easy for people to not only engage with this content, but also share it, make their own, produce it and become part of this wider ecosystem. So, it's a real big issue for us in terms of the quantity of people that are engaging with this material.

Particularly when it comes to misinformation and disinformation, things are spreading a lot quicker. The regulation of tech platforms is nowhere near where we need it to be. We are years behind where we should be. I say ‘we’—where the country should be in terms of our regulation of what's happening online. There are major concerns about the Online Safety Act being watered down and things like that. And then also there's the question of education and media literacy. Again, we are years behind in terms of where our media literacy education programmes need to be, not just for young people—obviously, that's a very specific issue, young people and social media and the kind of risks there—but also actually for older people as well, and adult media literacy education programmes. It's a really important thing. And so, yes, it's a big issue for us, for sure, and I think it definitely starts with better regulation of social media platforms.

Thanks. I'm just going to do something that's really off the script: is it correct that, after the tragic events in Southport, there were some politicians or aspiring politicians who were not helpful on social media? Could you just say a little bit about that and what, in your view, would help in terms of managing that situation? I'm just going to make a quick plug: the Welsh Parliament are hoping to pass a Member accountability Bill, which we hope will deal with deliberate political deception. So could you just give a quick view on that, just so that we've got that on the record in terms of what happened there? And it might be there are other examples as well.

Yes, there were mainstream political figures who posted on X following the tragic events in Southport. There are two things I want to say about this.

First, it's really clever how it was done. A lot of the time, people in mainstream positions of power who have a certain level of accountability will not directly quote misinformation or disinformation, but will pose questions that cause people to make certain assumptions. And so there were tweets going round about why is the identity of the attacker being kept a secret, and questions like that, which then feed into this idea that things were being covered up, that it was a certain identity that was being ‘protected’. What that does and what's really dangerous about that is it provides a level of validity to the misinformation and disinformation that was swirling around and does heavily inflame. That was something that we see as a particularly tragic part of how things flared up after Southport. It was the fact that this misinformation and disinformation was reaching mainstream circles and was being perpetuated by mainstream figures.

I think your point about the accountability framework or piece of work that's being done there is really important. That's the kind of recommendation that I was going to give from the Hope Not Hate side as well. We've done a bit of work in the past about the public sector equality duty and the duty to promote good relations between different groups. I think there's definitely a bit of work that should be done there about individual people's responsibility within that public service piece. I think that's really important. And yes, definitely, accountability is the only way to go.

The final question from me—I’m aware of the time. The third sector, charitable sector, we know have been under significant attack here in Wales. We've had a terrible situation with the Welsh Refugee Council experiencing a real onslaught. Does Hope Not Hate give guidance? Where do you think that should come from? Obviously, you're a third sector organisation as well, but where should that come from? Who should be responsible for ensuring that our third sector and charitable organisations also are protected from what can be a terrible onslaught, and threats to people, for example?

At Hope Not Hate we've done a lot of work with the migration sector in particular around safety and security since 2022, when all of the protests around hotels were happening. We've provided resources that we've created that do general advice for people working in accommodation, but also online safety as well, so we have these resources that we give out when people ask for them. We also very often have organisations phone us up and tell us that they're worried about something, and we'll sit on a call with them and give them all the advice that we can.

You're completely right in that we are also a third sector organisation and so, actually, a lot of the guidance and advice that we can give is quite limited because we aren't a security organisation. That's not expertise that we actually have, and so I think there is a massive gap there in terms of being able to give very specific advice around very specific issues. Again, I do think there needs to be some Government leadership here in terms of what they are advising organisations to do, but also when it comes to the private companies that are running particular hotels or particular asylum accommodation providers, I think there's also a responsibility there for them to be making sure that things are as safe as possible.

So, I think yes, definitely, there needs to be more accountability in terms of who is leading that work, because at the moment it is coming down to third sector organisations to do it themselves. But again, we aren't the experts. Security isn't our area of expertise. There definitely needs to be leadership taken there.

Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Gadeirydd.

I'll bring in Mick Antoniw now.

Thank you for the evidence you've given. Just so that we're clear, because I'd like to ask a little bit about a strategic framework that needs to develop a little bit, what would you describe as being the far right? We hear the term used in the most general sense and it has almost been normalised. Could you perhaps just give clarity as to how Hope Not Hate see the far right? Who exactly are they and where are they within the political spectrum?

That's a really good question. I can answer very broadly, but I think to do justice to the nuance and the expertise that goes into this, I will have to confer with colleagues and I can get back to you on the specific definition, because it's not my area of academic expertise at all. But I think broadly when we are talking about the far right in terms of communities, what we really stress is that, for example, Reform are far right, but not everyone who votes for Reform, listens to Reform, is far right. I think there needs to be definitely a distinction between what we are categorising groups or individuals as versus people who are susceptible to their views and susceptible to their attitudes that then lead people into maybe following a more extreme ideology. So, I will have to get back to you on the specifics, because I definitely can't do the organisation's expertise justice, but there is definitely a distinction between the communities that we're talking about and the people who are perpetuating certain agendas and ideas.

Would you say that one of the key tenets of the far right is the promotion of hate and division?

Yes, definitely.

Okay. I would particularly like to ask about a strategy that involves devolved Government. One of the main issues that's arisen on a number of occasions in Wales—and I'm sure others will have more examples, whether we take Llanelli or other areas—is the sudden imposition by the Home Office of groupings of asylum hostels or the use of hotels, or whatever, without any engagement with devolved Government, any advance engagement that enables the issues or any concerns that the community might have to prepare the way for the community, any misunderstandings about who's actually going to be there, provisions for education, medical, health services, and so on. Certainly, it seems to me that our example has been that there's almost been a total lack of engagement from Home Office at UK Government level. Has that been something that you've considered or that has arisen in terms of the discussions? Do you think that is something that would be an important part of any strategic framework that would need to be developed?

Yes, absolutely. We've worked with various different local authorities, for example, across the UK and this is something that we have heard time and time again—the lack of information coming from the top down and then the issues that that causes. I think there are two parallel streams or parallel issues that are relevant to this. I think one is about the decision-making process, the consultation process. Local groups, local authorities, people on the ground who actually can assess the nuance of a situation are not being involved at all, or if they are being involved, it's at the very last point, in which case their opinions and the additions that they can add or the concerns they have are too late for them to be listened to. So, I think any decision-making process that affects a community, whether that be asylum accommodation or anything else, needs to involve a whole wide range of community stakeholders from the earliest possible time, so that issues that people can see arising can actually be listened to and dealt with as early as possible.

You've made a great point about the services and how services are going to cope, and what things need to be put in place. And even the location—whether or not it actually makes sense for something to be in a particular location, because of wider conditions or the wider context—again, needs to be thought of at the very earliest point, and it's definitely an issue. So, going forward, when it comes to any decision-making process, any relationship between the UK Government, devolved nations and local communities, there needs to be that two-way, reciprocal dialogue from as early as possible in any consultation process.

And I also think there's a second point about what, at Hope Not Hate, we call the information vacuum, and this is essentially—and I'm sure you've had it as well—where you're not receiving any information from the Home Office, or very little information. So, when communities are coming to their local authority, for example, the local authority is not able to answer any of the questions because they actually don't have the answers. How many people are coming to this hotel, who is it that's coming to the hotel, what is the date of the move-in? Really, really simple things like this, and this automatically creates an air of distrust and a fracturing of the relationship between people in the community and the people in 'positions of power', and that just sets up a relationship that then is really, really strained and really, really struggles to then cope with any additional issues that arise. So, as well as involving community stakeholders from early on, because it actually makes sense in terms of the efficiency of decisions that need to be made and the nuance that's brought in, it also needs to be happening for the sake of just your regular community members, and being able to have that information to provide to them. Because what we say at Hope Not Hate, and what we've seen time and time again over a range of different issues is that when you have this information vacuum, and authorities are not able to provide information that people want, that then provides a space for the far right to move in and spread misinformation and spread disinformation and fracture that relationship further, and then you're setting yourself on a downward spiral that's really, really hard to claw back from. So, yes, there are two, I guess, individual streams, but connected streams, as to why it's really important that any framework really does involve communication and two-way, reciprocal dialogue between authorities and community stakeholders.

Okay. Thank you. I think you've answered most of the points that I wanted to raise, either in earlier questions and now. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I just wanted to very lastly ask you what contact you've had directly with the Welsh Government, either at ministerial level or with the cohesion co-ordinators that exist in different areas.

Again, it's my colleague Anki who's led this specific work, so I can write back to you and get the very specifics of dates and everything with that.

That'll be fantastic. Thank you very much indeed for your excellent evidence. We'll send you a transcript, which, obviously, you can correct if there's anything we've misheard. Otherwise, we look forward to receiving that additional information that you need to confer with your colleague on. The committee would like to just briefly go into private until we start our next public session at 14:30.

Welcome back to the Equality and Social Justice Committee. I'd now like to welcome Councillor Mary Ann Brocklesby, leader of Monmouthshire County Council and the Welsh Local Government Association's lead on social justice. Thank you very much indeed for making the time to come to give evidence to us today, and thank you very much indeed for your detailed paper on this. So, in your written evidence, you highlight the social unrest that happened in Mayhill in 2021 and in Ely in Cardiff in 2023. Could you just summarise what learning has resulted from these disturbances and how this has been shared across the 22 local authorities?

Thanks, Jenny. I think that the key learning from this is the leadership role that local authorities can do and must play in building community cohesion, and building community cohesion not from a point of reaction but from a point of inclusion, collaboration and prevention. If I could go into some detail, one of the striking features was that council leaders and council officers immediately engaged with the directly affected communities in Mayhill and Ely, but also with neighbouring communities, recognising that there is an overspill, and working in a multi-agency way to facilitate and to support the empowerment of communities to find solutions together, but as the council being the enabler, but also the deliverer. So, in the case of Ely, a community action plan was developed with those communities and is now being delivered; the same in Mayhill. In both cases, councils were able to help third sector. It's very important that communities have a voice not just as individuals, but through their own collective organisations, but supporting them to access funds, and also drawing down funds from the Government to address these issues—the underlying issues that very often are not funded through core settlements.

So, another learning point is, when you look at the underlying causes of the unrest that took place, it came out of decades of entrenched multigenerational poverty, of feeling marginalised and excluded, where the built environment appeared run down, where access to support to get jobs and jobs that are fair, and access to other opportunities, seemed less than in other parts of the city, where trust over decades has broken down, with public services—particularly the police, to be fair—and that it takes time to build up, and that building up is done collectively across the public service, and that point is where local authorities have a key role to play, because, at the end of the day, community inclusion and community engagement and community and social cohesion is the bedrock of what we do.

Thank you. I'd now like to bring in Mick Antoniw.

If I could just ask a number of questions about the broader role over local government and its engagement at both Welsh Government and UK Government levels, because much of the decision making that's taken at the UK Government level relate to non-devolved matters, but, obviously, the consequences are, essentially, devolved matters and much of the burden falls on local government. I wonder if you could tell me what your experience is in terms of engagement, really, with both Governments and any problems you see in terms of, I suppose, the strategic framework.

Thanks, Mick. That's a really good question. You'll know the social partnership that operates in Wales, which is an extremely important one. I personally, because I'm still a fairly new leader, had no experience of how that operated during COVID, but I know from colleagues within the WLGA and across councils that that relationship was very strong, based on what was happening on the ground—an exchange of information that actually was really important at a time of an emergency and crisis to ensure that there was community cohesion.

Then, if you look at the appalling tragedy in Southport, we should not be complacent in Wales, as we're not without cases of hate crime, as we know. But we did not experience the same level of riots. In fact, we didn't experience riots in Wales after that, and I know from my own council and talking to colleagues across WLGA, all of us, including the WLGA, went into action with those already existing networks, with Welsh Government, to make sure that we got the message out to all our residents, but also reached out to those residents feeling the most vulnerable—minority communities, particularly our Muslim minoritised communities. And that was effective. I know, from my own feedback within Gwent and the work we did with the Government, that that was really effective, and that’s because it wasn’t based on an event, it was based on a process and a structure and a framework that may not be perfect and certainly can be strengthened, but was in place and working on a routine basis and allows learning to take place and carry on. That kind of commitment I think we’re seeing changing from the UK Government, but we don’t have the same as local authorities, we don’t have the same connection with the UK Government. Where we do have connection is working with the Welsh Government on the joint migration group and as a nation of sanctuary. But often—. And I think Stradey Park Hotel was an example of that, where the Home Office did not connect with the local authority and took decisions that undermined community cohesion, but also existing networks of engagement and support. I’m glad to say, as we all know, that that decision was taken back, but, nevertheless, we do need strong partnerships with different ministries within the UK Government, working with Welsh Government and the WLGA to deal with the pressure points of social cohesion, which are not always around race; they are equally around other pressure points such as class, and we see it now, don’t we, with sexuality.

Thank you for that. Just pulling that together a little bit, I suppose the area I’m getting at in terms of local government—. Local government is, in many ways, ultimately the front line, so you’re very dependent on the social partnership and the ability to engage with Welsh Government on that and on the co-ordination of that. The other part, of course, is that UK Government, with—. For example, you mentioned Stradey Park, and so on, where previous evidence we’ve had was really about the fact that there was almost no advance engagement whatsoever, so there was no capacity to actually prepare to engage with the community, to basically be prepared to anticipate and to respond to concerns or questions that might get raised. In terms of your relationship with Welsh Government, I think you’re describing that as working very well so far in terms of your experience, but, of course, the other part of the cog is, of course, the decisions that are taken by the Home Office. Do you have any experience or concerns around that part of the chain of engagement?

I think, undoubtedly, we need greater engagement with the Home Office and Welsh Government, working together as a tripartite relationship, and I don’t think that that is happening as effectively as it should do.

Okay. Well, listen, I think that really answers the point. You’ve answered in earlier questions some of the other points I was going to raise. Thank you.

Jane Dodds.

Thank you.

Jane Dodds.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to ask you a question, please, about what happened in Southport. You said that there were no riots here in Wales following that event. Could I ask you to just look back and tell us a little bit about what happened here in Wales and the relationship with local authorities in order to help—.

Oh, I don't think you've got—. It's okay; I think you've not got translation. Is that right?

I have and I can answer. I just noticed that my computer wasn't charging and I couldn't work out why. That's why I was looking.

No, I'm sorry. I thought that you were looking for something else. Okay.

Yes. Could I just ask you, please, what happened after that incident, in terms of the relationship with local authorities? Are there things that could be learnt, perhaps, following that event? Thank you very much.

Yes. Events like that, we all need to take pause and learn. We should never be complacent to think that it can only happen in Southport, or it can only happen in England. There is always a possibility that it can happen here in Wales. As the WLGA, and also as individual councils, there was a framework already in place through our regional social cohesion bodies, so that we could immediately react to our own communities and work with our communities. In Gwent, for example, the police, with other agencies, visited mosques to talk to them. We learnt, I think, the importance of reaching out to mosques, yes, but also of reaching out to other parts of the community, like women, who wouldn't necessarily be at the mosque but also play an enormous part in supporting and engaging and managing community relations, as we know.

Sorry to interrupt; I'm just really interested: was there anything across Wales that engaged the WLGA or different local authorities? Do you recall if there was anything that happened across Wales?

Certainly, we had a discussion with the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government and local authority leaders had a meeting to discuss how we were going to respond, and how we would inform each other. Local leaders were keeping in touch with each other and sharing practice that we thought would help, and that was ongoing and constant.

Thank you very much. That's great.

Does that help? Okay.

Yes. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you.

Now, could I call Julie Morgan to ask some questions, please?

Prynhawn da. I was just continuing the theme, really, of asylum seekers and refugees. Of course, Wales is a nation of sanctuary, and I wondered how you work together across the local authorities, about how you respond to the fact that Wales is a nation of sanctuary?

You'll know, as the WLGA, and working together with local authorities, that we absolutely do support the nation of sanctuary, the reaffirmation by Cabinet Secretary Jane Hutt of the 10 principles. Therefore, we have regular discussions in our executive meetings, as leaders, relating to how we work around asylum seekers and refugees in practical terms—housing, inclusion, integration—and sharing good practice between us.

We also work at a local level, as you know, with many councils, my own included, becoming councils of sanctuary and supporting our schools, in many cases, in becoming schools of sanctuary. We recognise that there is more to be done, but we also recognise that doing more requires a collective and collaborative effort and an understanding of the way in which local authorities fund and resource much of the integration work, because it is the right thing to do, through our own resources, because it's non-statutory. That, in the current climate, is incredibly challenging, particularly for some councils that receive more asylum seekers and refugees than others.

Thank you. In terms of addressing this issue, do councillors receive training about asylum seekers and refugees, nation of sanctuary and those sorts of issues?

Could you say that again, Julie? Sorry.

Do councillors, elected people, receive training about asylum seekers and refugees and nation of sanctuary?

Yes. I can talk about my own council and other councils that go through the process of becoming a council of sanctuary. It requires a motion through council, which engages councillors in debate, but it also requires training. It's quite a rigorous process. I think, for a council like myself—and I believe this is true for most councils going down this route—we're not trying to win this like a Brownie badge. Becoming a nation of sanctuary is us committing to a way of working and committing to an approach that is embedded across our services in terms of cohesion and integration, and that does require training and awareness, and I as a leader am committed that we do that.

[Inaudible.]—generally that councillors throughout Wales have training on these issues?

I would have to go and check that, Julie, rather than give you an authoritative answer.

Thank you.

Training is available, but, whether it's taken up, I wouldn't know without checking.

Well, that's the other issue, isn't it: whether training should be mandatory for elected representatives.

Perhaps we can get that answered in writing.

Yes. Okay. Fine. If another situation arose like in Llanelli, would you think there's been enough learning to cope with such a situation—learning between authorities?

Two things on that, Julie: one is—I refer back to my earlier answer—that there needs to be greater engagement with the Home Office and Welsh Government in a tripartite agreement, and if we can't get that right then the possibility of another Stradey Park Hotel is very real. I believe we are moving to get that right, but we have to be vigilant, because the issue there is with not using the local knowledge and intelligence of local authorities, seeing them in a leadership position, before making a decision about where to settle asylum seekers, where are the appropriate places to do it and how to do it, ensuring that the entire package is in place, which works not just with the asylum seekers, but also the host communities.

Thank you.

And we have learnt that lesson, but we have to put that into practice and show it.

Thank you. Could I ask Heledd Fychan to come in?

Thank you, Chair. If I could ask some questions with regard to social media and the role it plays in terms of spreading misinformation and disinformation, how are you as a local authority addressing these issues, and do you receive any support?

It's a good question. Again, it comes back to the understanding and being in regular, routine, known engagement with different parts of local communities, because community is not homogeneous. Whether it's a social community, a geographical community or an interest group, they're never homogeneous, so it's always being able to reach out and do that.

If I talk about my own authority, Monmouthshire apparently isn't that diverse; I'm here to tell you it is. For example, our Muslim community is made up of 23 different nationalities at least, and probably growing as more people come and join our authority. We thought long and hard about how we were going to respond to ensure that we did not fan the flames. We did that through statements that myself and the chief executive put out jointly. We wanted to make it clear this was a whole-authority approach. We put one out to the whole of council. We also went through WhatsApp groups, which we thought was a more effective way of reaching our communities and letting them know that we stood with them, but also what support we could offer. That was very well received.

In an authority that appears homogenous and where we have much smaller communities, I think that was the right thing to do. With our neighbours, like Newport, it was a different way of working, where they visibly went and walked and talked with different communities who felt under threat and very frightened.

I can give you an example in my community, where I personally went to attend a youth club, a Muslim youth club, because of their fear. And it was a genuine fear. They stopped their summer holiday in Pembrokeshire, which is just both distressing and wrong, isn't it, where a group of young people can't go and have fun in the summer holidays together? At a community level, to be seen to be there in places that are open and inclusive is really important, getting that message across. And each council needs to respond to the rootedness and understanding of their place and how it operates in their place.

Thank you. Do you think any further support is required for councils in order to be able to do that? It seems from the example you gave, obviously, you had a chief executive that was willing to work with you, to take that role. Is there anything further, from a Welsh Government point of view, that you think would be needed to support local authorities? I’m also conscious that with councillors as well it’s obviously very different to how we operate as Senedd Members. You're far more accessible. You don't have teams of staff—unless, of course, you're on the cabinet—to support you. So, it can be quite lonely sometimes for councillors to take an individual stance. I'm just curious to perhaps hear your views on those.

Firstly, we've taken the example of Southport, we've taken the examples of Mayhill and Ely. These are different examples with different rootedness and causations. There are overlaps, and we should remember that. Community and social cohesion are both affected by global trends as well as national trends and local trends. We have had in Wales a national strategy in place, and that national strategy, I think, absolutely needs refreshing and resourcing. The way it needs refreshing is through working together with local authorities and other agencies—I would include the third sector here—so that we have a jointly agreed strategy that we can, because it is resourced outside the settlement, deliver.

If I come back to the work that we do with settling asylum seekers, I'm very proud of the fact that in Monmouthshire, despite the size—we're fewer than 100,000 residents—we were second only to Cardiff for the number of residents who opened their homes to Ukrainian refugees. Where we had the use of a hotel, for example, in the local community, we were absolutely engaged with working on the integration. Many of those refugees have moved on, partly because there are particular challenges living in rural areas to access jobs, your own community et cetera. Others have stayed and made their life with us and others have gone back. We were supported through that very generously by the Welsh Government.

As other asylum seekers and refugees come in, but also as some other issues arrive in communities around the built environment, access to jobs, youth services—. These are not statutory obligations and yet they are absolutely essential to the preventative agenda. And thought needs to be given to how local authority—. If I come back to my earlier point, we are in a leader position. We do understand our communities. We can deliver that preventative ongoing social inclusion, as well as a cohesive agenda, but there are costs and challenges involved when the resources we have to hand, which are not only money but also people resources, are constantly being stretched as we meet our statutory obligations, but we can do that so much better when we do the non-statutory integrated in what we have to do.

Thank you for that. If I could just follow up, therefore, in terms of looking at how you're working with the third sector, we were hearing from Hope Not Hate that one of their concerns is that cuts can perhaps affect the third sector to be able to collaborate and undertake this work with local authorities. Do you think that the funding side of things is one of the issues that we really need to look at, therefore, if we want to ensure the continuation of this work?

I think there are two separate questions, aren't there—funding towards the third sector as well as whether you think funding in general is needed. Yes, of course funding is needed, and everybody knows more funding is needed to the third sector as well as to local authorities. To some extent, they're both described as broken. I'd like to say, if you look at what is delivered by local authorities and third sector working together with other agencies, it is remarkable what can be delivered under such appalling constraints that we have found ourselves in after over 15 years of lack of funding for both sectors, particularly for communities that are marginalised and particularly for women and black and brown people, actually. It's where most of the cuts have really dug deep. So, yes.

But it's not only funding in itself or people in itself, it's also how we work together and how we work and reach out to our communities, recognising that you need to start somewhere, but also recognising that to reach those people who feel they do not have a voice, and when they try and raise their voice, it is ignored—and that was one of the causes of Mayhill and Ely—you really need to work systematically with clear objectives, with clear outcomes, as to how you reach those voices, and recognise that it's a long-term process. None of us, whether we're third sector, local authorities, other agencies, get it right all the time.

Indeed. Thank you very much.

Very good. Thank you. I just want to talk about the ability of local authorities to predict and prevent problems. You talk about social cohesion often being hidden in plain view as part of the daily work and preventative role of maintaining community cohesion, but we've had several other witnesses calling for more to be done to measure and monitor social cohesion and community tensions. Is this something that local authorities are able to do systematically, or is it done in pockets? What could you tell us about our ability overall to be able to spot issues before they become major problems?

Good question, Jenny, and again I’m going to divide that into parts. Monitoring and evaluating social processes that are dynamic is really hard, full stop. Governments don’t get it right, let alone local authorities. Monitoring around intended outcomes is something that is difficult for local authorities—recognised to be difficult across a whole range of outcomes that we want to see, because of the investment needed in getting the data right, but also having the analytics and being able to use the analytics. So, there’s that side of things, which is bigger.

And the second is that part of what you do on the ground, working with local communities, can be done both regionally and locally, and I think both is needed to ensure that you get that cross-sharing of information and that intelligence in a circular feedback loop between local authorities.

Thirdly, I think, is the way in which we can use networks and to embed that and institutionalise that in what we do. For example, if I can give an example in Monmouthshire, where, in the south of our county, bordering on Newport, two to three years ago we had a growing and quite significant anti-social behaviour problem, which was making residents feel scared, undermining the feeling of community safety and security. Lots of reasons for it—the usual about young people not feeling heard, not having places to do, not feeling they’re having opportunities et cetera; long term—the cost-of-living crisis et cetera. The multi-agency network in place galvanised, and is still in place. We no longer have that issue, and it still is in operation as a preventative network, with the intelligence in place that they can move fast and support different initiatives.

If we look at the packages that have been put together after Mayhill and Ely, it’s still early days, but those packages were determined through workshops and working with local communities to determine what needed to be done on a whole series of fronts that, in and of themselves, built the kind of trust that would allow information and intelligence to be shared and response to be early and preventative rather than reactive and late. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. And just to follow up on that briefly, Oldham Council talked about the need for a thriving communities index, to be able to measure the strength of social cohesion up to a ward level, which is obviously quite demanding resource-wise. But, notably, they'd had some very significant disturbances earlier on, but didn't have any last summer after the Southport murders. Are there any examples of this happening at that sort of systematic level in Wales, or nothing that springs to mind? If it comes out subsequently, you're always able to write to us.

I think the Cardiff community action plan, which was published and is in the process of being delivered. I think that plan of 2024 was a direct result of the Ely riots and came out of a long process. I think, also, the work being done in Swansea around Mayhill—

Thank you very much.

—that is continuing. The community resilience index. I think various councils under different names are thinking of ways in which they can monitor and bring different groups in, to think through what that looks like and how it is felt and perceived by different communities.

Thank you very much. Jane Dodds now has some questions to follow on with the role of Government in all this.

Thank you very much. I think that you've answered most of the questions, but I just wanted to know, in your view, what role the Government here in Wales should take in terms of this area. And also—just a final question from me—we have heard about democratic health: what is your view on that? In your experience, in Monmouthshire, have you done anything to do with that? Have you taken part in that, for example? It would be interesting to hear what you have been doing. Thank you very much.

On your first question, Government plays an enormous role in social cohesion, enforcing the regulatory framework and laws, ensuring that they are clear and being monitored, playing a leadership role in the Wales we want to see, and also showing a leadership role in who they work with and how they work. That's why social partnership in Wales is so important, and we have to, together, make sure that it is effective. The work, working with local government, as you know, in a way that is jointly collaborative, respectful, recognising the different roles we play, I think that is essential for social cohesion, and I think the anti-racist national action plan, it's absolutely essential that's in place. The work we do as a nation of sanctuary, that is being set by the Welsh Government. It's something we should all be proud of, and that leadership role is absolutely essential.

I think 'democratic health' is a more positive way of saying 'democratic deficit'. In my sense, when I look, for example, at the last Senedd elections, we had 16-year-olds being able to vote, and they didn't in droves. Engaging at different levels and understanding what democracy means is an important part of how we think in Monmouthshire, because I'm acutely aware that how you meet the state, your experience of democracy, for most of us, not all of us, happens when you step outside your front door, whatever that front door looks like. For some of us, sadly, it's inside the front door, for various reasons, which are normally not great. So, that feeling of local decision making—[Interruption.] You wanted to interrupt.

Sorry to cut across. You've got limited time, so it's things like participatory budgeting.

I was just coming on to that.

Great. So you've got experience of that. Great, thank you.

Participatory budgeting on its own, we do it in Monmouthshire, it's a great small thing, and it is a small thing. It's a way of engaging, but it's often on the terms of the local authority or the state. So, how do we find ways in which local communities feel empowered and enabled within decision-making processes on a more regular and routine basis, so that we have a big toolbox? It's not an either/or. Yes, participatory budgeting, I think our communities have been very pleased. We are grappling. We've just set up a website that we call Let's Talk Monmouthshire, and we're starting to think of different ways that we can engage. We have local forums, and the use of citizen forums we've explored. There's a lovely example from Blaenau Gwent when they held the climate crisis forum, as you probably know. There are all sorts of tools that we can use, and embedding them in how we work and the approach we use, I think, for us in Monmouthshire, is moving from service-looking to people-facing, and how we change the nature of that engagement is something that we are working through at the moment. I think that's true for most local authorities in Wales. It's a work-in progress, as it should be. It's dynamic and changing, but it's absolutely essential if we are going to play that leadership role in inclusion and cohesion and resilient communities. It's about working from being just a deliverer to a facilitator and a collaborator.

Thank you very much, Chair. That's all.

I just want to squeeze in one last point, if I may. The Wales Safer Communities Network, back in February, in its written evidence, mentioned an uptick in problems for the LGBT community in relation to hate crime and hate speech, and obviously things have not got any better from the Supreme Court ruling more recently. I just wondered if there’s anything you wanted to tell us or whether there's no particular information that you have at the moment.

We are monitoring. Being aware that I was coming to give evidence I did ask for the data, and there isn't the data available yet to tell us exactly what the impact has been. I know as the WLGA, but also as a local authority and myself, we are reaching out to our LGBTQ communities to make it clear that we respect the rights of all people, their right to dignity and privacy and respect in the services that we deliver. We are waiting with the Welsh Government to see what the implications will be, but nevertheless we will support the human rights of all people within Wales as a WLGA, but also as leader of a local council.

Thank you very much. Our door is open if there's anything you wanted to add on that front.

Thank you very much indeed for your participation today. It's really, really useful to have you as the lead member for social cohesion across Wales. We will send you a transcript, which, obviously, you can amend if we've captured some information incorrectly. Otherwise I'd very much like to thank you for your time today.

I would like to say thank you. I really appreciate, on behalf of the WLGA, you taking the time to take our evidence. This is really important to us all.

Okay, thank you. Well, we hope that our report will be of use to you.

Members, there are nine papers to note. Are there any issues you wish to raise before we go into private session? Jane Dodds.

I have two issues, but I'm happy to discuss those in the private session.

Okay, fine. So, we note those nine papers.

Could we now go into private session and exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting?