About Joyce

Cymraeg

Elected in May 2007, Joyce Watson has firm links with Mid & West Wales, and has served her community for many years.

She is married, has three children and one grandchild.

Joyce was educated at Manorbier School, Cosheston School and Cardigan Comprehensive. She has run several businesses, including public houses, restaurants and retail outlets in Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

In 1990 she went to Pembrokeshire College, then in 1993 she read Politics at Swansea University, gaining an honours degree whilst running Labour's successful parliamentary campaign for Preseli Pembrokeshire.

She has been active in the Labour Party all her adult life, and was leader of the Labour group on Pembrokeshire Council for six years. She was the only female member on Pembrokeshire County Council representing a ward within the Preseli Pembrokeshire constituency from 1995 – 2004.

Joyce was Manager of the Wales Women’s National Coalition with an all Wales remit and was a senior member of the Wales Gender Budget Group and the NHS Equality Reference Group.

She is a Welsh learner, and her children were all educated in Welsh medium schools.

As an Assembly Member, Joyce has been actively involved in a number of high profile campaigns on behalf of her constituents in Mid & West Wales and Wales wide. These include launching the Women in Construction campaign (www.womeninconstruction.co.uk); campaigns to highlight the risk of undiagnosed high blood pressure and the risk of stroke; a campaign to change the planning laws in Wales to deal with Surface Water Flooding through the proposal for a Legislative Competence Order (LCO); and a campaign to highlight and tackle the issue of Human Trafficking in Wales. On the 25th May 2010, as Chair of the Cross-Party Group on the Trafficking of Women and Children, Joyce published a report titled, ‘Local Solutions to an International Crime: Trafficking of Women and Children in Wales 2010’.

She is currently a member of the Equality of Opportunity Committee, Communities and Culture Committee, Children and Young People Committee, Sustainability Committee, Legislation Committee 3 and the Rural Development Sub Committee. Joyce is also Rural Affairs spokesperson for Labour in the Assembly, a member of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly and Chair of the Cross Party Group on the Trafficking of Women and Children, which she set up. She is also Vice-Chair of the Cross Party Group on Eating Disorders and Vice-Chair of the Cross-Party group for Looked-after Children.

Her political interests include Sustainability, Economic Development, Local Government and Equalities, Rural Transport and Road Safety.

Click here to watch Joyce's video biography.