4. Pa gamau mae'r Gweinidog yn eu cymryd i hyrwyddo gwirfoddoli yng Ngorllewin De Cymru? OQ59350

Diolch yn fawr, Altaf Hussain. I'll just find the answer to your question. It's very, very important that we do recognise the importance of the voluntary sector in Wales, and I think it's also very important to recognise that the voluntary sector in Wales in your region has been playing a key part and role. It's just looking at this in terms of our network of county voluntary councils and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, that network, of course, is complemented by Volunteering Wales, our free-to-access online portal.

Thank you, Minister. I recently attended the centenary celebration at the Maesteg division of St John Ambulance Cymru. My colleague Luke Fletcher was there as well. The Maesteg division was the very first St John Ambulance unit in Wales, and for 100 years, children and young people from Maesteg and the surrounding areas have signed up to become St John Ambulance Cymru cadets. The cadets provide a place to learn first aid, develop leadership and communication skills, and volunteer to help others. They provide valuable transferable skills to young people and help them become active citizens. Minister, will you join me in congratulating the Maesteg division, and will you work with your colleague the Minister for education to explore ways to promote the opportunities of the St John Ambulance Cymru cadets to young people?

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you so much, Altaf, for bringing us news about this wonderful centre in Maesteg that you visited with your colleague. Just to say, it's an inspirational example, isn't it, about the volunteering spirit of our children and young people. I think what's very important is that our volunteering is very intergenerational, and it is supported, of course, by our county voluntary councils in the way that I've described. But also we will look—and I'll certainly look with the Minister for Education and Welsh Language—at ways in which we can particularly learn from those examples. Just to note that this is something where you will be recognising that children and young people are coming forward in so many ways to support each other, older members of their communities, but also learning skills, and that's crucial in terms of their development.

Minister, earlier this month, it was a pleasure to welcome you to my constituency of Bridgend, so that you could visit the Sussed Wales fantastic shop in Porthcawl as part of Fairtrade Fortnight. Sussed is completely run by volunteers, and is a co-operative model shop, offering a wide range of products, including clothes, food and accessories, all of which of fair and equitable trade. I know that you and I really enjoyed buying some of those products. One of such is Jenipher’s Coffi, which is produced by an African fair-trade co-operative organisation supported by the Welsh Government. So far, Jenipher’s Coffi has supported 3,664 farmers and planted over 25 million trees, both promoting fairer work and fighting for change, and I'm sure the Senedd will join me in saying that that is remarkable progress. Also, it was wonderful that we had Jenipher here recently in the Senedd as well to show everybody the coffee.

But fair trade doesn't just have to happen outside of Wales. In 2008, Wales became the first fair-trade nation in the world, and since then, 83 per cent of consumers surveyed by Fair Trade Wales stated that they have faith in fair-trade products, and a further 99 per cent have said that they wanted to see Wales continue to be a fair-trade nation. So, Minister, whilst fair trade is becoming more and more common in Wales, there are only 34 fair-trade towns left in Wales out of an initial 63. Whilst I am glad that Porthcawl is one of those remaining towns, what more can we do to promote fair trade across Wales, which is primarily led by our wonderful volunteers, campaigners and co-operative members? Diolch.

Diolch yn fawr, Sarah Murphy. It was a great pleasure to visit Sussed Wales. Can I also encourage Members across the Chamber to visit this fantastic fair-trade shop in Porthcawl, run entirely by volunteers—back to the previous question as well? To know that Sussed, the fair-trade business in Porthcawl, has had a huge impact on the town and made it truly a fair-trade town. Margaret Minhinnick, who is one of the key people in Sussed is also—I think she was telling me—either has been or will be president of the chamber of trade. Now, that's the kind of influence we need to have to get fair trade embedded in our towns, because, actually, we have got a number of fair-trade towns in Wales, but we need to make sure that we move forward.

We're formally renewing the status with the UK Fairtrade Foundation, and we continue to fund Fair Trade Wales. I issued a statement on this a couple of weeks ago. But I don't know if colleagues will remember and recall that it's the fifteenth anniversary of Wales becoming a fair-trade nation. We will have some celebrations later this year and we'll be announcing new and stronger criteria, and we're actually working with Scotland on this, because we want to make sure that we can learn together, to get more people in Wales to hear about the importance of fair trade. In fact, on Friday, I'm looking forward to judging a fair-trade competition that children and young people have put forward, on the themes of fair trade. I look forward to doing that in my constituency on Friday.