May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement and welcome it? You will know that Plaid Cymru was committed to offer full-time childcare for all, but I do accept that this is a positive step in that direction, and one that we clearly support. And it’s good to see the Government beginning this work on the ground, as it were.

One thing I would like to raise about the tone of the statement is that it does suggest that the approach and focus of the Welsh Government is an economic one, mainly. You mentioned in your statement the drain on family incomes and releasing parents to go back to work, and looking at the impact of the childcare sector in economic terms. These are all valid considerations, but I would ask the Cabinet Secretary to confirm that the core motivation for this policy is to ensure the best possible start in life for children and to ensure the influence and best early learning opportunities for them. Yes, there are other benefits, but surely that is what drives this policy and, perhaps, that hasn’t been given due attention in the statement as it currently stands.

There are two aspects that are centrally important to the success of this policy, in my view. First of all, quality—and I don’t think I actually get up and speak to the Cabinet Secretary without mentioning that—but also accessibility to the provision. One would expect that these pilot schemes would be a means to test the accessibility of the provision, as we’ve heard, in various contexts—the urban, the rural, the linguistic differences, and so on and so forth.

But, in terms of quality, that perhaps is a little more problematic, and I would acknowledge what the Cabinet Secretary said at committee last week, that there’s a great deal of thinking that still needs to be done in terms of what good provision looks like and what quality looks like in reality.

Clearly, the workforce plan will make an important contribution to that, but I would like to hear, Cabinet Secretary, whether you anticipate that these pilots can also provide us with some guidance when it comes to understanding what quality provision looks like and how we can create more of that and build on the strengths that are identified.

Any childcare policy should, of course, as the Cabinet Secretary has acknowledged in his statement, contribute and create firm foundations for the Government’s aims for a million Welsh speakers by 2050. It’s an opportunity to start children on that journey in becoming bilingual. I understand that some 86 per cent of those who attend ‘cylchoedd meithrin’ go on to Welsh-medium education, and the majority of the others don’t because there isn’t provision in their particular area. But, we have to be proactive now. We have to move from being reactive and responding to demand to being far more proactive and ensure that that growth does happen in a more dynamic manner.

So, we do need to generate that demand in a number of ways, and I would like to know—. They say that if everyone who had a right to take advantage of this when it’s fully implemented were to do so, then we’re talking about some 20,000 children. So, I would like to hear, not necessarily the numbers today, but when the will Government start to outline how many of those 20,000 children the Government wants to see going on to Welsh-medium provision and how many of those who they want to see going on to primary Welsh-medium education.

That’s important, because that will determine how much additional workforce is required to provide for those children, and if we don’t get answers to that—and I don’t expect answers today—but unless that is aired and discussed, how can we be confident that it is a co-ordinated part of the Government’s aim to move towards that 1 million Welsh speakers?

Finally, of course, in developing new provision, we have to recognise that there is concern about something that could undermine the current provision. I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary will be aware that HMRC are going to insist that all childcare providers and all playgroups, and so on, have to have their own pay as you earn reference number, and without that, parents who use those services won’t get the vouchers, which correspond to £2,000 on the cost of childcare per annum. Now, that has far-reaching implications, particularly for many of our smaller providers here in Wales. May I ask, therefore, what the Government is doing to assist these providers in light of that threat, although it’s a non-devolved issue? There are serious implications, I would have thought, to what we’re trying to achieve here. Because it would be regrettable as we try and create new provision on the one hand that the sector that is the foundation on which we will build that new provision is going to be undermined by something else.