I just wanted to make a brief contribution in this group of amendments, but before I do that I would like to take this opportunity just to place on record my heartfelt thanks to the clerking team and the research team for the Children, Young People and Education Committee, who have done an absolutely fantastic job of work on what has been a complex and long-awaited piece of legislation.

As the Cabinet Secretary has said, placing the due-regard duty to the UNCRC has been an issue that the committee has felt very strongly about throughout this process. For me, that was about sending a very clear and unequivocal message to those implementing this legislation that children's rights are at the heart of this new law.

That said, I am really pleased that there has been some movement. I welcome the concession that was made by your predecessor in Stage 2 of this legislation and the fact that Government amendments have been brought forward today, which obviously I will be supporting. I would have preferred that the amendments had gone further, I'll be absolutely frank about that, but I think it is progress that we've made.

The Welsh Government and this Assembly have been lauded throughout the world for their approach to children's rights, but I think we have to be absolutely clear that we cannot rest on our laurels on this issue and that we have to be pushing forward on an ongoing basis to make sure that children's rights are mainstreamed. And as Darren Millar has said, there's a great deal of excellent work going on in schools and colleges on this even as we speak. 

But I hope that if we take forward this legislation today in the way that has been suggested, there will be the opportunity for us to do further work on this in the committee and, when we come to scrutinise the code, that we can look again at how we can see that implementation actually delivered at the coalface.