Thank you for allowing me to contribute to this debate today. The issue of the Welsh language is an important one. I wonder whether it might have been better to spend a little more time on this issue than the half hour allocated. We’re doing Brexit again—it’s like groundhog day.

I agree with the principles supporting this motion, but I feel that it may well fall short of what it seeks to achieve. I will therefore be supporting the amendments put forward by the Welsh Government, though I support the first three points of Plaid Cymru’s motion. I’ve read carefully the letter that all Members have received from Qualifications Wales, and I’ve also followed the arguments advanced today by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg. In their letter, Qualifications Wales say:

‘substantial changes to qualifications must be managed carefully to allow sufficient time for teachers and learners to prepare; changes made too quickly are likely to pose risks to learners and ultimately to the success of any new qualifications.’

I don’t think that they’re suggesting 800 years, though, but I do think that it does reflect—if I’ve understood correctly—some of the realities that were identified by Suzy Davies, I think.

In my previous occupation, I designed, validated, monitored and delivered qualifications. My view, based on that experience, is that the key to success is to place the learner at the heart of the programme that you are creating; what are the learners’ needs, what are their motivations, what are their hopes for the future? I feel that point (a) of the motion has at its heart an aspiration for our language, but not necessarily for our learners. It’s a good aspiration and one that also raises a political question: why aren’t we further advanced than we are today? That’s a reasonable question to ask, and it should be asked and, indeed, answered by the Minister, but it’s not one that is helpful to the learners that we want to support, in my view. In practical terms, point 4(a) could do the opposite of what it seeks to achieve, which is to bridge the gap between aspiration and practical achievement.

I learned Welsh as a second language up to GCSE level, back when the option in English-medium schools was basically, ‘Take it or leave it’. I achieved an A grade but didn’t go on to take A-level Welsh because I still lacked the confidence to study further. That confidence I feel I still lack in Welsh. The very fact that I’m making this speech today in English demonstrates a longer-term failure that the Welsh Government has actually taken steps to address, and we are asking the question today: what more can we do? But there is a deep cultural issue that I’ve seen often in my community that requires any Government intervention to be fully thought through. To give you an example, when I hear Members speaking in this Chamber and I have to pick up the earphone, I feel frustrated that my knowledge of the language is not good enough and it’s a feeling that perhaps fluent Welsh speakers may not always appreciate in that context. Yet it is a classic barrier to learning that we’ve all experienced. When something is difficult, how do we motivate ourselves, how do we avoid giving up and rejecting something—in this case, the Welsh language—that is too tough to achieve?

A good teaching and learning strategy grapples with this challenge but it also takes time to develop, sometimes through trial and error. The motion recognises this in parts, and you could say that sections (b) and (c) perhaps do, but in setting a 2018 deadline for the design and development of the qualification, it limits the time that we have to consider appropriate assessment approaches. I don’t think that additional resources on their own, such as spending money on teacher training, are going to be enough. Time and cultural development are key issues as well.

As I’ve said, I support the principle of the motion but feel that we cannot realistically achieve the aim in point 4(a) before the necessary curriculum reforms are in place. For these reasons, I’ll be supporting the motion as amended by the Welsh Government, which itself commits to publishing a realistic timeline for change.