Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank the Minister, also, for his statement? Can I put on record the fact that my party welcomes the appointment of Margaret Jervis to undertake this review of ‘Extending Entitlement’? I think that that’s an excellent appointment, given her experience with Valleys Kids and other organisations. I think she’s a very strong person to take on that role and that challenge, and I hope very much that she’ll be engaging with all political parties in this Chamber as well, about the way forward.

Can I also express some surprise about the role that this board is being asked to undertake? I think I would’ve liked to have seen a much stronger board, frankly, not just independent in terms of providing you with some independent advice, but a board that had some teeth, that perhaps had some commissioning powers, that had the ability to commission the mapping exercise that needs to take place at a more detailed level to determine where those gaps in provision might be, and to look at best practice and then hope to have that rolled out and helped to share it with other parts of the country. The Minister and I share the view, I know, that it’s not just about the money; it’s about how best to spend the resource in order to maximise the impact of youth services on the ground.

And I’ve cited on many an occasion in this Chamber and, indeed, around the committee table, the fact that youth services in Conwy, as a local authority, are thriving in spite of the fact that they spend less there than in other local authorities, simply because they’ve had a partnership approach and grown the voluntary sector on the ground to deliver services that, traditionally, the local authority had been providing. So, I’m a little bit surprised that this board isn’t one with more teeth, more clout, and the ability to commission services and the ability to establish that framework and do the research that’s required in order to hang services upon. So, perhaps, Minister, you could tell us whether that might be something that this board could take on in the future.

I do welcome the fact that the appointments are being made via the public appointments process. I think that’s a very sensible way forward, as well, in order to give some confidence to the sector that that board will be completely independent in terms of its views. But, clearly, if it’s going to be a very broad remit that that board’s got—not just for youth work but for lots of other aspects of youth support services—then there is a danger that it will become a large and unwieldy board because there will be different interests that will need to be represented around the table. So, perhaps you could tell us just how many members you envisage the board actually having when it’s got a full complement of members so that it can take its work forward.

Just on quality, Minister, obviously the Education Workforce Council now is responsible for registering youth workers across Wales. We are yet to see the development of any professional standards for youth workers in the country. That is something that ought to be left, I believe, to the Education Workforce Council. At the moment, of course, the responsibility for developing those standards sits with the Welsh Government, with Welsh Ministers. Perhaps you could tell us when and how you envisage those professional standards being developed and by what timetable you expect them to be in place, because we’re never going to see any sort of quality arrangements being put in place without being able to hold youth workers to account for the standards that they are expected to deliver against.

Just finally, in terms of interim arrangements, obviously it’s going to take some time for the review that Margaret Jervis is being asked to conduct to be completed, it’s going to take some time for this board to be put in place, and, in the meantime, you’ve got organisations like CWVYS and others who have been filling in the breach, as it were, really, in terms of engaging with stakeholders and being the voice and representative voice of the voluntary youth work sector. I wonder if you could tell us whether the existing funding arrangements for those organisations that are funded by the Welsh Government in terms of youth work will continue in the interim, and, if so, how long do you think that that might be? Because, obviously, it’s important that these people can plan ahead for the future, and I would appreciate it if you could just put on record what your view is in terms of those financial commitments that they might be able to have.