8. Pa gamau y mae Llywodraeth Cymru'n eu cymryd i hyrwyddo mabwysiadu diffiniad Cynghrair Ryngwladol Cofio'r Holocost o wrthsemitiaeth gan sefydliadau sy'n derbyn arian gan Lywodraeth Cymru? OQ59334

Well, Llywydd, I thank Darren Millar for that. The Welsh Government has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in full and without qualification. Our 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' provides the framework through which we will take concerted action to tackle antisemitism, including our ongoing support for victims of hate crime.

I’m very grateful for that response, First Minister, and I applaud the leadership that the Welsh Government had shown back in 2017 when it did adopt the IHRA definition in full, but we are six years on, and there are still organisations across Wales that are in significant receipt of funds from the Welsh Government that are yet to adopt the IHRA definition; and indeed, some of them have outright rejected it.

This is particularly concerning, I think, in our higher education sector. We have eight universities in Wales; only one, Bangor University, has adopted the IHRA definition, and that compares extremely badly to the higher education system in other parts of the United Kingdom. Can I ask you, as a condition of funding being given to organisations like our universities, colleges, other places of learning, and indeed, the wider public sector, that you require those organisations to adopt this very important definition of antisemitism, which will help to put to bed some of the horrors that we’ve seen in our society in recent years?

Well, I share the Member’s view of the horror of antisemitism and there’s no doubt at all that there has been a rise in such incidents, and that we all have an obligation to play our part in resisting that. Universities, in the end, Llywydd, are autonomous bodies. The Welsh Government cannot instruct, but the Minister has made it clear in his dealings with universities that while he respects their autonomy, the Welsh Government is keen for them to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

We don’t intend to pursue this through the funding route to which Darren Millar referred, but this is how we intend to take that conversation further forward: higher education institutions in Wales have an obligation to carry out their functions in full recognition of their obligations under their public sector equality duty. We are to carry out a review of that duty here in Wales, and in that review, we will make sure that we engage with those organisations in Wales in receipt of Welsh Government funding—including the university sector—to make sure that the review of the equality and human rights duty in Wales includes consideration of relevant definitions such as the IHRA, so that that definition will be part of the review, universities are obliged under the public sector equality duty to have regard to their responsibilities, and we will be exploring that with them as part of that review.

Diolch i'r Prif Weinidog.