I think Bethan Jenkins has very fairly summed up the recommendations of the report, so I don’t wish to repeat what has already been said. So, I’ll make just a brief contribution, first of all to highlight the consensus there was in the committee and the way that we all worked together on a cross-party basis to reflect on the Government’s proposals and to point out what we thought of some of the practical points that now need to be addressed. I think it’s worth stressing what a bold and radical cultural policy this is, set against the backdrop of 100 years or more of decline in the Welsh language. For any Government to come and say it’s going to attempt to double the number of Welsh speakers is a brave one and I think that boldness should be applauded.

But I think in doing so we need to recognise that this is a stretch target, and also it’s a target that is evolving. The Government clearly hasn’t come to this policy with a detailed blueprint in advance; it is something that it’s thinking through as we go. Frankly, had it been done in the other way, we’d probably not be setting out on this course, because it is so difficult. So, I think it’s right that we’ve taken the leap with the ambitious target and we’re backfilling as we develop. The committee’s report is a sincere attempt to try and suggest some things the Government may consider as it comes up with this plan.

It’s worth recognising that we have in the First Minister and the Minister for the Welsh language two deeply committed politicians to seeing this through, and a Welsh Labour Government that is making a bold commitment for many generations to come. I think we do need to see this as a multigenerational project.

So, I just have two observations in chief: one, as has already been touched upon, the big challenge here is not simply to focus on the Welsh-medium sector, but to look at the non-Welsh-medium sector. Some three quarters of pupils are educated in schools that are not Welsh medium, around 16 per cent of pupils are in Welsh-medium schools and 10 per cent are in bilingual schools. We know there are issues of getting pupils in those settings to use the Welsh language more fully outside of the school setting. But I think the big challenge for hitting this target is the three quarters of schools that are currently English medium, which we know through law are required to teach Welsh, but those of us who have experience of those schools in our constituency or as pupils of them know that, in practice, the level of Welsh of the young people coming out of those schools is often negligible.

I speak as somebody who, before I was elected, was chair of governors of an English-medium primary school who worked very hard to try and recruit teachers who spoke Welsh in order to upskill the staff and the pupils and to make Welsh a vibrant part of the school environment. We succeeded for a short time, but retaining skilled staff proved impossible. There simply aren’t the teachers available currently in order to make this aspiration meaningful, and I think we had reference in Bethan Jenkins’s speech to the fact that the number of students enrolling in Welsh PGCE courses is declining.

So, we have a staggering turnaround job to do to achieve this, but I think our focus really must be on how we can get the continuum working in a meaningful way in schools that are currently English medium, and that is very difficult. I visited a number of schools in my own constituency over the last year where the headteachers have varying levels of enthusiasm, I think, to be fair. But even those who are fully behind achieving this really struggle in practical terms to know how to do it without the resource or the staff to draw upon. So, that, I think, needs to be a key focus.

There’s a temptation to go for quick wins to try and show some progress in the short term, and I think that’s understandable. When you look at the figures on the number of teachers in our classrooms who are able to speak Welsh, 33 per cent currently speak Welsh but only 27 per cent of them teach through the medium of Welsh. So, our report talks about the temptation to look at that 5 per cent to 6 per cent who currently speak Welsh to some degree but don’t teach in Welsh in order to reach that target. And, of course, that’s an understandable starting point, but that still leaves us with the problem. Having been to a bilingual junior school, in the Welsh stream for the juniors and the English stream for the comprehensive school, I know that, in a bilingual environment, even children who are taught in an English-medium setting are still exposed to a huge amount of Welsh; it’s part of their ‘awyrgylch’, it’s part of the setting of the school, and it imbues their feeling for the language. And I think we should be looking, as part of developing the continuum, to spread that spirit into as many English-medium schools as possible so that every school in the short to medium term aims to become a bilingual school and, that way, I think we can achieve this target and bring the hearts and the minds of the people with us. Diolch.