Can I thank the committee? Obviously, I’m not a member of the committee, but I thought this was a really focused and forthright piece of work, so I’m not surprised it’s been influential already. I thank the Cabinet Secretary as well, because judging by the quoted evidence in the report, you certainly took a very open and responsive approach to the evidence that was heard there.

With regard to support for Syrian refugees in particular, I think it would be fair to observe that any government—and, you know, we’re talking about more than two Governments in this; there are several just across the continent of Europe—they had a very short time to try and manage a major displacement of people. They’re faced with a huge challenge, and with the best planning in the world, I think the early and very urgent days when demand was outstripping the capacity to meet it is—. You know, obviously it comes as a shock to us, but we need to understand that that’s almost inevitable.

But even so, John, you might remember me asking you back in September if you were going to have a look at why Wales had taken in only a 112 Syrian refugees, and 13 local authorities at that stage hadn’t taken any at all. I can see in the evidence that Unison told you that the preparedness of local authorities effectively dictated the pace of response. But I’m just wondering if the committee really got to the bottom of that, to establish why councils like Torfaen—who deserve great congratulation in this—were able to get their acts together far more quickly than other councils, because that would certainly have affected the ability of the UN and the ancillary workers to match individuals that they verified before they left Syria with the local authorities in Wales. From the report, it seems that once the streamlined system got going, it seems to have proven to be a much better experience for those who went through it.

I can certainly see the attraction of removing the distinction between the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement scheme and the standard asylum route. I appreciate that’s not a matter for this place. But there is a question, I think, whether the distinction can be removed safely without the beginning of the process being located in, or at least very near, the country of origin. Nevertheless, I really do wish the Welsh Government’s operations board only the very best in trying to square that circle, if, in fact, there’s a circle there to be squared. It does, kind of, sit a little at odds with the concern that you raised, John, about the future of the cohesion co-ordinators. You know, it seems a little bit out of kilter, when you’re talking about equalising two systems, that that doesn’t stretch as far as the co-ordinators.

The point made about the 56-day move-on period certainly caught my eye, as did the various recommendations to help with integration from the perspective of the asylum-seeking refugee, and members of the community, of course, into which they’re coming. It goes without saying, I think, that the community cohesion plan needs to get to grips with the myths that are surrounding asylum seekers and refugees—their rights, their financial support, their ability to work and so on. But I think it also needs to be really bold and unshakeable when we’re talking about children, accompanied or otherwise. Yes, there are children in Wales who have serious needs and lives that we—. We should feel culpable that we still have children living as they do, but children are children, and I don’t care where they’re from—their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are rights we’ve all committed to observe. The patch of earth on which you come into this world should not really determine the level of support you can expect if you happen to find yourself a child in Wales. An unaccompanied child will have no responsibility for the decision about why they came to this country and the way in which it was done. They will probably have endured tremendous trauma before the journey had even begun. They cannot be overlooked just because a child who lives here already also has grave needs. Cabinet Secretary, it’s these later recommendations in the report that I hope have really made an impression on you, as they have on me. I recall that it was actually Leanne Wood, I think, who brought one example of a story that you’d heard about an unaccompanied child, and the horrors that they’d gone through—coming in from Calais, that was. That is a child—I don’t care where they’ve come from. Nobody should go through that experience.

I thought it was very telling, actually, that people coming to this country in chaotic circumstances often saw the acquisition of functioning English to be just as much of a priority as decent housing and access to social and financial support. The inability to communicate has to be the most isolating experience in the world. I know this is expensive, Cabinet Secretary, and I appreciate it’ll take time, but there are recommendations in this report about using students and volunteers, under professional guidance, that really might just help to speed this up a little bit. Of course—you know, co-production—let’s use some of those refugees and asylum seekers who’ve acquired some skills themselves, because their volunteering more generally is also key to improving their communication skills, their confidence, their networking and other skills that improve mental resilience, which I know we’ve spoken about before.

I’ve plenty of other words of congratulations for you, John, and the committee, but I’ll leave those for another day as I’m out of time. Thank you.