Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start by thanking Lynne Neagle for leading this debate today? It is a topic that’s close to my heart too, and I’m very grateful for the very powerful contribution that you’ve brought to the Chamber this evening.

First of all, I’d also like to recognise the work of the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee. The committee has already undertaken some important work and consultation on the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, and I look forward to seeing the committee’s report and recommendations. Members will be aware that I am intent on doing all I can to increase the resilience of communities, so that they can be better equipped, as Angela Burns says, to deal with the challenges that they face.

I listened carefully to the contribution. I am slightly off script at the moment, because I listened carefully to what you’re saying, and I absolutely agree. And I’ll go on to explain about what my thoughts are, but I think you presented part of the jigsaw, part of the solution to the rounded approach that we need to build into the resilience of an individual. I think the schooling factor of that is an important one, and you’re pushing at an open door with me in terms of our ability to do that, because, whereas children face adverse childhood experiences, while the direct effect is critical to all children, some are more resilient than others and can deal with it better. We can get into that space, and I’m absolutely convinced that, if we don’t do this early intervention and prevention, our health service will collapse—our mental health services will collapse in the future. We’ve got to get into that space of doing something different. But the politics of this is even more incredibly difficult, because the things that Angela talked about, the expectations of individuals—the five O-levels or the five GCSEs, or the attainment level of chasing targets—are all unachievable if we don’t have a resilient young person. So, you can want all the five GCSE results you want, but, if you’ve got a broken person, they’ll never, ever achieve academic success unless you fix that.

So, the good news is that resilient skills can be developed and learnt, and early age is an important factor, and I take on board the contribution that Members have made this evening.

Building resilience—the ability to adapt to adversity, trauma or significant sources of stress—can help our children and young people to manage feelings of anxiety and uncertainty and, in turn, this will help them to thrive, as Angela says about contributing as members of the community as they reach their full potential, but the risk is huge if we don’t get this intervention right.

The onus is on all of us. It’s on all of us. And that’s why I said the jigsaw effect of what you’re suggesting here is only part of the solution to resolving this issue. And to foster an environment in society where our young people are not held back by circumstances or place, but are supported to become resilient, is something that we should all strive upon, including all departments of Government, all the public sector, but, importantly, all of us too. Many of you know of the focus I’ve been giving on early years, and my absolute determination to give children the best start in life. That in itself causes friction amongst colleagues, because I’m committed to making sure we get the best deal for our young people; it’s the best investment we could ever make. If we get this right now, it saves us money; it’s fiscally right to do, but morally right to do, too. We get two wins here if we get this embedded. There is a widespread agreement that early childhood experiences are crucially important to children’s development long-term and their achievements later in life. And evidence does tell us that early life experiences affect a child’s development and influence behaviour in adolescence and adulthood. Adverse childhood experiences have a long-term damaging consequence, and I’m determined to prevent and mitigate the impact of ACEs in everything that I can do. My whole department has a focus on delivering this—from housing to community safety, we have to get underneath this and see that this is more than just warm words. We need delivery.

That’s why programmes such as Flying Start and Families First are really important to us. The investment of £77 million in Flying Start and £42 million in Families First are things that we get into our communities and underneath the very difficult situations that we’re found ourselves in—the submission around children zones, the introduction of that in Wales, and the introduction of an ACEs hub that is being developed with CymruWellWales now, making sure that the things that you talked about, Lynne, about making sure that we can get beyond the educational aspect of this, but, in everything we do, we consider the resilience of an individual—rather than a place-based approach, a person-based approach, and how do we need to support them. This goes for all children through a system and, in particular, I’m very concerned about our looked-after children—the most vulnerable in our communities that, actually, we let down. I’m a parent, as well as many in this room, and I am embarrassed sometimes about the circumstances we place our young people in—the vulnerability of that challenge. I did a conference/seminar/question time with David Melding the other week, when we froze to death in the Senedd, but actually it was a really effective piece of work, talking and listening—more importantly—to young people who’ve had real experiences of the system that we have presided over, and we’ve let young people down. It’s something that we cannot afford to do in the future.

Lynne, the work that you’ve done to bring this to the Chamber is important, but more importantly for me as a leader in the public sector, I have to make sure that all my interventions and all my colleagues’ interventions focus on the prevention and early intervention process to make sure that we get this right for the future. And I’m grateful for the—