I’m grateful to the Plaid Cymru spokesperson for his words of support. Let me say this as a general point before attempting to answer the particular questions: I think it’s important that we do have a wide-ranging debate on these matters in the way that the Member has sought to commence, and it is important that we do look at the issues that he and others will raise this afternoon. I want to listen to those concerns and those questions. I want to seek to answer them today and during the Stage 1 scrutiny, but I’m also prepared to listen again if those answers are not sufficient. I think it is important that, as a Government, we not only listen to what is said here but across the professions and listen to practitioners and continue to listen. So, this is the first start of a process that will involve significant debate, further debate, and, at all times, I can give an undertaking that we will seek to actively listen and to hear what is said and then, if necessary, make the amendments that we need to make.

The Member began his substantive comments in relation to the health service, and he will recognise a significant strengthening in the Bill that was published yesterday as opposed to the draft that was published last year. I hope that goes some way, or goes a long way, to answering the concerns that were raised during the committee’s consideration of this matter before the election this year. It is clearly a matter for the health service, if they identify and diagnose particular issues or conditions, to ensure that those conditions are treated and treated according to the diagnosis made by health professionals, and I would expect and anticipate that to happen. There is no threshold in this Bill or this legislation for conditions that would enable a request or enable an individual development plan to be written for an individual learner. We understand that other legislation does include those thresholds. This does not. This seeks to be a comprehensive response to the needs of learners at whatever age or in whatever setting. So, there is no threshold for treatment, there is no expectation that this will involve an additional administrative burden on the schools, and, certainly, the experience that we have had so far in piloting this system is that practitioners found it a system that enables them to work more effectively together, that provides a far richer person-centred, child-centred, if you like, plan that is delivered by agencies working together, and that is certainly our ambition. It is not to create additional bureaucracy, but to bring people together and in doing so reducing the burden on individual practitioners.

So, yes, there will be new responsibilities, and yes, there will be additional responsibilities on the staff identified in section 54, as he’s pointed out. We will ensure that there is training provided, and this is why I try to be very, very clear, in debating and discussing this legislation, that the Bill we published yesterday is an element of, and a part of, but not the totality of, the transformational programme that we are seeking to undertake at this time. We will be ensuring that training is available for the professionals delivering the legislation. We will ensure that the statutory guidance, which will be published in February, is available for consultation so that those people who will need to work with it understand it and have an opportunity to scrutinise it before we actually bring it in front of this place. And we will ensure that, when we do have new responsibilities, training is available for them.

On the issue of resources, which has been raised by the Member, he understands that £2.1 million was made available in the statement I made some weeks ago. We will be looking, and we will continue to look, at the issue of resources. He’s absolutely right in his analysis—unless we have the resources available to support the introduction of this system, it will not work and we will not achieve our vision, therefore we will seek to ensure that resources are made available. And in doing so, let me say this and make this absolutely clear: it is absolutely wrong that parents and families have to fight, fight and fight again to get the support needed for their children to learn effectively and to achieve their potential. It is absolutely wrong. The purpose of this legislation is to move away from that system, which has not delivered in the way that we would expect and anticipate, to move away from the adversarial nature of all too many of these cases, and to move to a child-centred system where people work and collaborate together and don’t have to fight and campaign for education that should be delivered as a right. The tribunal system is there where there are issues that need to be addressed, but I think that if this Bill is to work and the transformation programme is to deliver our vision, then we want to see a reduction in the need for legal representation and legal support. That is one of the criteria against which we will judge this Bill in the future.

Whenever I debate and discuss any of the services available to children under this legislation, take it as read that I expect those services to be available bilingually and in the Welsh language where necessary. I hope that the wording we have found in this legislation is sufficiently strong to deliver that, but it is not my expectation in any way at all that we will deliver a system that delivers for people in the English language only. This has to be delivered bilingually across Wales, and children have to be given the support they require in either one of our national languages where necessary. I’m absolutely clear in my own mind that, in pursuing this legislation, our expectations as a Government are that service providers will deliver the services required in the English or Welsh languages as necessary, and that all children who require services in the medium of Welsh will receive them.