Thank you, Minister, for bringing this debate forward today in Government time. I think it’s always very useful for us as a National Assembly to reflect on the annual report of the children’s commissioner, and the excellent work that she and her team do across the whole of Wales. I want to put on record my thanks to her for making regular visits to north Wales, including to places in my constituency, to engage with children and young people there.

I think it is important that we reflect on the many recommendations in the commissioner’s report, and I’m pleased that Plaid Cymru have drawn attention to a number of them in the amendments that they have tabled. I support wholeheartedly their calls for a greater focus from the Government on dealing with some of the appalling waiting times for access to mental healthcare for children and young people in Wales. We’re halfway through a programme that is supposed to address these excessive waiting times, and yet those waiting times are exactly the same at the moment as they were at the start of that programme. There have been some changes in some parts of the country but, unfortunately, they’re stubbornly too long. Frankly, it’s not good enough that we’re treating our children and young people as second-class citizens when it comes to accessing some of these very important services. I benefit in my constituency from having a flagship CAMHS unit in Abergele, alongside the hospital there, and it is a great tragedy to me that that unit is not full—not all of the beds are in use—and yet local young people from north Wales are being sent out of the country in order to access services many miles away from their support network. So, there neds to be a greater focus on addressing some of those things, and I’m pleased that Plaid Cymru have brought that amendment forward.

I also note, of course, the conversation that has been going on around the death of Dylan Seabridge, and note the Government’s response to that earlier in the year and, indeed, the comments that the Cabinet Secretary has made today about the way in which he is approaching taking forward some of the learning from that very, very tragic case. I think that the Government is taking the right approach here in terms of cautiously moving forward without leaping to a conclusion that there needs to be compulsory registration of home-educated children. The Cabinet Secretary no doubt will be familiar with the facts that home-educated children are twice as likely as schoolchildren or under-fives to be investigated by social services, yet half as likely to be placed on a child protection plan. So, it’s a clear indication that there appears to be less of a risk associated with home-educated children, and not a greater risk, which is what Plaid Cymru seem to be asserting. So, let’s not have a knee-jerk approach. I think that the cautious approach that the Government is taking is the right one, and on that particular issue, it’s not something that I agree with in terms of one of the recommendations that have actually been made by the children’s commissioner.

We know as well, of course, that, particularly in Dylan Seabridge’s case, this family were known to statutory authorities; they were known to the professionals in different organisations, and a whistleblower did contact the local authority to express concerns about the family, and these things did not trigger, in my view, the appropriate responses from the authorities. So, we don’t know what the outcome would’ve been had things been handled differently, but I suspect very much that simply having a compulsory register would not have made that much of a difference.

I too share Plaid Cymru’s aspiration, though, regarding the need to ensure that there is accountability to this National Assembly for the children’s commissioner. We have a number of commissioner posts now here in Wales, in addition to other corporations sole, such as the Auditor General for Wales, and all of the ways in which they are appointed are inconsistent. That cannot be right. We need to have more consistency about these sorts of roles, and therefore, I would welcome the Government taking a different approach to the appointment of the children’s commissioner. I know from previous conversations with the Government that there is an appetite to have more consistency, but for some reason, nobody appears to be actually moving forward with making any changes. So, we will be supporting the amendment 2 that’s been tabled by Plaid Cymru on that matter.

But it is important that we’re having this conversation. I’m grateful to the children’s commissioner for the work that she does. There are lots of recommendations in this document. I’ve highlighted just a few that we’ve got the time to discuss this afternoon, but I very much hope that her powers also, as part of any review, will be extended, so that she’s got bigger teeth to bite people with if necessary.