May I also thank everyone who was involved with this inquiry, including our witnesses and staff?

The Minister had already given some indications about his vision for a bilingual Wales, and that had created a level of consensus, as we know; so, we believed that it was useful to test that consensus by asking some preliminary questions in order to steer the Minister in the direction of some of the early details. Although one of the early details, the White Paper, failed to get consensus in the debate yesterday, things are looking a little more promising in terms of our report.

As per usual, the Government is eager to accept committee report recommendations, and we welcome that, but we also note that it is easy to accept recommendations when they come without cost to Government. But let’s be clear on this: the cost implications of agreeing to these recommendations will be met by ‘re-prioritising budgets for current programmes’. I’m eager to understand what will change, and over what period of time. The departmental budget for the current year is £36.2 million, and we know that £5 million of that goes towards workplace training and promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language. I assume, although it isn’t clear, that the £2 million referred to in response to recommendations 3 and 21 is part of that £5 million. Either way, it leaves a great deal of room for re-prioritising the budgets of current programmes, I believe. I do hope that the Government can give us some idea of what the likely cost of implementing our recommendations will be, and what will change in terms of that provision. What programmes will be dropped, or cut, and what evidence is he relying on to justify decisions taken in that regard? I’d like these details because, next year, it’s likely that an additional £10 million will come to the department for key priorities. Now, will that £10 million be used entirely for improving Welsh in the workplace, promoting the Welsh language and supporting the education sector, or will a penny of that be provided in terms of funding our recommendations to avoid relying on re-prioritising those mysterious programmes?

Some of the recommendations in the ‘Cymraeg 2050’ strategy are included there, and we will have to monitor provisions against our recommendations once the strategy is in place. The risk is not in the ideas, but in the actions, and workforce planning in terms of teachers will be a huge challenge. Minister, you recognise that in your response to recommendation 4, where you say that different strategies will be required to ensure a sufficient supply of teachers. That sounds expensive, and expensive over a period of many years until we reach a critical mass of bilingual skills in the general population. I would be most surprised if re-prioritisation of programme budgets would provide that ongoing income stream to fund this. Only some of the £10 million for next year will go to supporting the education sector, and it isn’t clear whether supporting the education sector even includes workforce planning. I accept that you can’t commit funding in the long term because of the annual budgetary cycle, but could you provide us with some indicative figures for this particular area of work—this key priority—because we haven’t seen that in response to recommendations 4, 6 or 14?

Now, most of our recommendations related to education, as you might expect. That’s the Minister’s starting point too. So, to conclude, I would like to highlight some of the recommendations at the bottom of our list, perhaps—those that refer to promoting the Welsh language as a community language and a language of the workplace, and providing support for adult learners. In future, these will be less of a problem because of a growth in bilingual skills in the general population, but we must reach that point, and the change of culture in that transition period will require patience, determination and funding.

I do hope that it will be an improvement process, rather than a lowering of aspirations, but progress in the face of disadvantage and resistance may be slow. That will make this work open to cuts or reprioritisation in ensuing years. And budgetary pressures will be there, whoever is in charge. So, recommendation 22 asked a very difficult question about the effort that should go into Welsh for adults. Is it possible that the Government may have to actually close its eyes on today’s adults to ensure that tomorrow’s adults are truly bilingual?