Can I say how much I absolutely agree with the points that have been made by Lee Waters? As a Minister, you tend to visit a number of different schools and institutions. I visited a school in your constituency about six months ago. I visited my old infants school with the education Secretary. It’s always a curious experience to go back to your own school. When I started in Glanhowy infants, I think it was about 1968, 1969, something like that, the only Welsh I heard was once a year on St David’s Day, when we had an eisteddfod, where we were taught how to sing a particular song, and we sang that and then we went back to our daily lives. It was a real joy for me to spend time talking to teachers and talking to people there, where children in the foundation phase were having Welsh words introduced to them. So, they were introducing colours and numbers and introducing the concept of the language to them, in a way that would have been unthinkable when I was growing up in Tredegar. So, I hope that we’ll be able introduce more Welsh into—and the continuum of language acquisition that we’ve debated and discussed as part of the new curriculum in—the English language sector in a way that isn’t confrontational, which doesn’t create the cliff edge, which doesn’t force and compel people to get everything right in every aspect of grammar and of the language, but to be able to feel comfortable listening and learning and speaking the language, and to do so in a way that encourages language use, not discourages people by being overly aggressive on different aspects of it. So, I hope we will be able to do that.

You mentioned the workforce. It’s absolutely critical that we’re able to do that. Something like a third of teachers in Wales at the moment are able to speak Welsh, and not all of them are able to teach through the medium of Welsh or to teach Welsh as a subject. So, we do need to invest in training for teachers, to make teachers feel comfortable and able to both introduce aspects of our language as well as teach the language. But, overall, my concern is absolutely the same as yours. I do not want to create an education system where some people learn and speak and are able to use Welsh fluently and easily, and then the other half of the system is unable to understand even the basics. That tends to be what we have today, and that’s what we have got to move away from. I hope that children and young people, when they leave school at 16, will be able to speak and to use Welsh—some to a greater degree than others—but will be at least able to feel comfortable with the language, and hearing the language around them, and understanding the basics. Some will choose, of course, to go on and study at greater length, and the best of luck to them. Others will chose not to do so, and the best of luck to those as well. But, certainly, what I’m anxious to do is ensure that we have a bilingual education system where everybody is able to have the same opportunity to acquire the language and to understand the culture that underpins as well. So, the English language sector is as important and, as you say, perhaps a bit more difficult than perhaps the Welsh language sector.

The Welsh Government itself has to recognise that you can’t change the world without changing yourself. I hope that the Welsh Government itself recognises this isn’t a policy for Wales, but a policy for us, as well, as a Government. We will need to look again at how we operate as an administration to ensure that we operate bilingually as well, and not simply send missives out from Cardiff Bay or Cathays Park telling the world how they should operate. We need to do that ourselves, and that is something I’m confident that we will do.