Thank you for those questions, Llyr. I’ll start with the apprenticeship levy, just to be clear. I do feel, deputy Llywydd, that I have made these remarks several times in this Chamber but I’ll just make them again. The figures that have been released by the Treasury do not mean that significant new money is coming to Wales, because they don’t take into account reductions made to comparable English programmes including apprenticeships and, therefore, need to be considered as part of the bigger picture, which shows—you’ll not be surprised to learn—real-terms cuts to the funding available to Wales over the next few years, nor do they show the effect of some £30 million-odd that will be paid back to the Treasury by Welsh public service providers through the levy. So, just to be clear: the levy is nothing more than a UK Government employment tax. It directly conflicts with areas of devolved competence. We have our own distinct and very popular approach to apprenticeships, which the Member knows about and has been very supportive with, and this just cuts directly across it. So, not only do we not have any new money but, clearly, all our public services have to pay the levy and so they’re deprived of funds. So, it makes no sense at all and we’re very cross about it. I don’t think I’m saying anything new: I’ve said that several times before. I’m mystified about how we can be any clearer. There is no new money. We are continuing the programme we had before. I think this has got to be at least the tenth time I’ve said that in public and to everybody else who’s asked me. So, I don’t understand how I can be any more clear, Llywydd. So, that’s the position we’ve found ourselves in. The autumn statement will, of course, clarify the position completely and, if things change, I will, of course, keep Members updated but we’re not expecting a change and this is the position as I understand it to be. So, that’s the apprenticeship levy point.

In terms of all the rest of it, what I’m announcing today is the start of a policy programme to develop this programme and I’m really asking Members for their input into the framework of the programme. I’m not yet in a position to tell you how much it costs and all the rest of it because we haven’t got the policy completely put to bed. There has been a process of consultation. They are very welcome, all AMs who want to input into that personally on behalf of their constituents, and I will come back in the new year with a proper proposal for the overarching policy. But the fundamentals of it are that, at the point of contact, the individual should not have to wrestle with what kind of funding that they’re getting. So, rather than now having to say, ‘Well, you haven’t applied—you applied for Jobs Growth Wales but, unfortunately, you’re 25 and you should have applied for something else’, we’ll do away with that. What we’ll have is this employment advice service, which will broker the individual’s ability to say what they need and then help them to get what they need.

I’ve been extremely clear that that has to be completely divorced from the actual support that they get, because I frankly—and I’ll be absolutely clear about this—do not want any links at all with the kind of assessment that has been associated with benefits sanctioning and so on, which I think is abhorrent and really only drives desperate people into more desperation. So, what we’re looking to do is broker for the individual a way for them to express their own needs to Government, and for us to provide them with the services they require. That might be skills and it might be training—employment training or in-employment training—but it also might be health provision or childcare or travel or whatever. So, I will be convening a cross-Government group to look at this, and we will be looking to see how we can seriously holistically look at the barriers that an individual faces towards sustained employment, or indeed towards the steps towards employment, which might include volunteering and community work and so on, to get them along that path, because we know that it drives people out of poverty and into health to have that kind of connection.

So, this is really a very early update for the Assembly in terms of our policy direction, because I very much wanted to know what Members thought about that policy direction, and then I’ll revert to you once we’ve got the thing in a more comprehensive form.