Thank you, Llywydd. I follow Darren Millar and endorse what he said, and welcome his contribution to this debate, which has been very positive, if I may say so. We’ve heard this afternoon just how positive the leader of UKIP can be to our debates here. During the course of a 10-minute speech, he didn’t mention a single policy that would lead to an increase in the number of Welsh speakers—not a single policy. He only opposed, and despite his warm words he was only trying to stir things up once again in one particular community in Carmarthenshire.

Let’s state clearly that being bilingual provides many cognitive, educational, economic and social benefits. There is evidence in all parts of the world demonstrating this. It doesn’t matter which two languages you have—the benefits extend across the curriculum when you have bilingual skills. The same is true in Spain, Canada, parts of France, and it’s certainly true here in Wales. So, the educational benefits of bilingualism are clear. The Government is working not only for the Welsh language in promoting this policy, but for higher standards in education.

The only concern I have here is that we haven’t seen from the Welsh Government what we were promised when we discussed the WESPs the first time round, namely a campaign to promote the benefits of bilingual education. There’s been some work from Government, but it wasn’t the type of campaign that we’d hoped to see. I hope, in responding to the debate, that the Minister can give us more details as to how the Government is going to promote bilingual education in terms of educational standards, as well as pure linguistic standards.

Let’s be clear, because this has been said a number of times and there’s an opportunity here to put on record, about the specific steps that were taken in the case of Llangennech school. This all emerges from the approval by Carmarthenshire County Council, which at the time was Labour-led, when they approved the WESP back in 2014. Included in that WESP was a reference and a commitment by the county council, which read as follows:

That the County Council works closely with the staff and Governing Bodies of Carmarthenshire’s dual stream schools in order for them to become Welsh schools’.

Now, there were three such schools at the time in Carmarthenshire, and Llangennech was one of them. So, the county council has agreed to work closely with staff and governing bodies. If they hadn’t followed those steps, I would have some sympathy with the burden of today’s debate. But, these are the steps taken by Carmarthenshire County Council under Labour and then under Plaid Cymru, and those steps were approved through a vote. The cabinet agreed—the democratic body established under legislation—to do this. Llangennech Community Council voted in favour of the proposal in September 2016. On 21 November 2015, the scheme was supported by the education scrutiny committee. So, the cabinet has agreed and the council’s education scrutiny committee has agreed, as has the community council involved.

There was support from the governing body within the school also. Then, in the plenary meeting of the council on 22 December 2016, the cabinet voted in favour of the proposal and then, in January, the full council voted in favour—this was the specific proposal on Llangennech. So, the WESP was approved by the cabinet, it was approved by the governing body, the community council and the staff had approved this—the vast majority of staff. It then went back for approval by the scrutiny committee. It went back to cabinet, and then went back to the full council.

I venture to say that this decision has had more documentation and more democratic decision than the decision to leave the European Union. [Laughter.] That’s the truth of the decision in the case of Llangennech. It was decided—I know that UKIP wasn’t part of the Assembly when the legislation was passed, but this body passed legislation that put the right to make this decision in the hands of the local authority, because we believe that these are local decisions to be taken by the local council according to the specific steps outlined. So, there is no room to question the decision.

We can work with the community locally, of course, far more than, perhaps, has happened on occasion in this case, but we must respect and take hold of the spirit of this decision and ensure that we learn lessons from this—that the Minister learns lessons, that the Government learns lessons and that all councils learn lessons—in order to ensure that no mistakes are made in future, but, more importantly, to ensure that we do treat the Welsh language as something that respects education standards and raises us all above political argument, and ensures that we debate the Welsh language in this place, which needs to be done now and again, in a way that respects the language and in a way that shows that the language belongs to all of us.