Thank you, Minister, for your statement. I would also like to put on record the thanks of the Welsh Conservative group to Professor Diamond, and indeed all of the panel members, especially our nominee, Professor David Warner, for his contribution to the excellent work that they have done. We certainly welcome the publication; we welcome wholeheartedly the recommendations that have been made to move away from tuition fee support, and towards a system of means-tested maintenance grants. This is something, of course, that our party has been advocating for some time, and I’m pleased that you’ve referred to the fact that there are some planks of each individual party’s commitments that are embedded within the recommendations that have been made. We as a party, of course, have always believed that no-one should be denied the opportunity to go to university on the basis of their background. We want as many young people who want to go to university to be able to access a university education.

One thing that I’m very keen to hear from you on, though, Minister, is—obviously, there are people who are already embarked upon their university education, embedded within the current grant system. There’s a very clear recommendation from Professor Diamond to continue to allow those individuals who’ve already embarked upon their education in university with the current support package to still have that maintained for them throughout and not be disadvantaged, perhaps, by any changes as a result of any new arrangements that come into force. Can you confirm that that will be the case for those individuals in order that they are not disadvantaged?

Some of the areas where there was clearly a discussion still ongoing within the panel and no firm conclusions reached were in respect of support for parents who want to attend university—people who might be single mothers or single parents or have other caring responsibilities. I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, whether there’s been any consideration in advance of the publication of the report by the Welsh Government as to what sort of support might be available to help individuals with caring responsibilities to access university education. I note and welcome the recommendations that have been made around part-time support. I think they’re very welcome indeed, in order to give a more level playing field and, indeed, encourage more people into part-time study. We all know that part-time students are more likely to pay their loans back, for example, so there’s a good financial incentive to encourage people to study part-time, and, of course, they play a very active role in contributing to the Welsh economy while they are studying, if they’re working alongside. So, I’d particularly like to hear from you, Minister, about how rapidly you hope to be able to implement the part-time study proposals.

I was also very interested in the recommendations that have been made around investment in knowledge transfer. There’s a significant recommendation about increasing investment on that front. We know that there’s a note in the report about—every £1 invested in the higher education innovation fund at the moment returns £7 to the Welsh economy. I think that’s very good value for money and, therefore, I would hope that you would take fully on board the recommendation that has been made about further investing in knowledge transfer.

There was no specific reference to the current bursaries that have been made available to nursing students here in Wales. You know that there’s all-party support in the Chamber for the existing arrangements to continue at present, but I wonder, Cabinet Secretary, whether you might give consideration, as you’re looking to see what skills might be retained in Wales and how to attract people, particularly into those parts of the public sector where we’ve got skills shortages, such as the NHS, whether there might be other bursary options that could be considered and extended, particularly given that the figures in the report seem to suggest that there’s going to be a net saving as a result of the implementation of this package of reform that is being proposed by Professor Diamond and his team.

And just finally, you’ve made an indication that you, obviously, want to go away and consider the recommendations more fully before announcing a full response on behalf of the Government. There’s a clear indication that Professor Diamond feels that these are recommendations that can be implemented in 2018, for the start of the academic year in 2018. I wonder whether you feel that you’re able to hit what I think is quite an ambitious target, given that all of the ducks have got to be in a row in terms of the discussions that you’ve got to have with the UK Government, the Student Loans Company and others in order to embed what is a significant change into the system without any big problems.