I thank John Griffiths for his contribution and, again, I have had a full report back from my team in regard to the meeting that he mentioned on Friday. I’m grateful for his feedback and that it was of use to him and his colleagues.

I think the Member’s right to raise the issue around empowerment and resilience. I use those terms a lot because I think that’s what communities are about. How we get there is another interesting one, because financially challenged organisations—ourselves as Government and local authorities—we have to forge a new way of doing business and taking some responsibility. Whereas Communities First, I understand, in your particular area was a funder of community centres, in other areas that wasn’t the case. So, there probably are ways of getting through this, but we need to have a longer-term discussion about what that may or may not mean. I haven’t made the decision, as the Member is aware, on Communities First, but I don’t think it’s unhealthy to have those discussions about making sure that long-term sustainability of organisations is at the forefront of all our discussions as we move forward.

Community-focused schools—I’m really encouraged by the Member’s enthusiasm about this. I agree with him. I think there’s a great opportunity there for a community focus for building beyond what education is, with a much more holistic look to what we can deliver in our communities. I did a visit in Ely about two weeks ago, and it was a fantastic opportunity—there was a great school there, doing so much more than just education. This was doing a great piece of work with families and children beyond what their normal remit would do. I’d say to all of my partners that you have to look beyond that now—beyond what is our normal day job—to look at what extra we can do. There are so many organisations already doing this. What we have to do is join them up, and make sure that all of these bodies come together. That’s why the principle of children’s zones is something that I’m excited about, about bringing these experts in around an individual to know what they may or may not need for the future.

I made a commitment last week—indeed, it was in Newport, actually—in the Flying Start and Families First joint conference, where I committed to taking both those programmes forward with finance, because I think they are critical to shaping the way our environment works. How we integrate them with the early years is going to be an interesting discussion, but I think it’s a must.

The final point—I’m very conscious of the time—is the issue of ending the defence of reasonable chastisement. There’s a suite of tools around that too. Positive parenting is something that we’re starting to push out very hard and, by the way, we’ll be legislating too. I cannot give the Member the date of when we’re going to introduce that, but I will write to him when I’ve got the detail.