Minister, can I also thank you for today's statement and welcome you to your new role? Congratulations. Also, I follow other Members in paying tribute to Carl Sargeant for his important work in this area over many years. It's not an easy area to deal with, but he did it with determination and panache. It's strange him not being in this Chamber when this issue is being discussed. 

I just want to say a few words, given that the Public Accounts Committee will be launching our inquiry into looked-after children, or care-experience children as we prefer to call them, in the new year. It will be a far-reaching inquiry that will primarily consider the effectiveness of spend on this area of the Welsh budget, because as you said, it is a considerable area of spend and we want to have the maximum benefit for those children in need that you've identified. It's also a subject that the Public Accounts Committee intends to return to in stages over the remainder of this Assembly term, rather than it being a one-off inquiry that will then just be left. We think that it's important enough to revisit. 

The figures that you've mentioned justify the approach. The number of children in care in Wales is 90 children per 10,000 people, compared to a lower rate of 60 per 10,000 people in England. So, if you combine that with the statistic that spending on services has increased markedly since 2011, there are clearly many questions that need to be looked at. 

Turning to your statement in particular, you've hinged your statement on delivering the programme for government. Can I ask you—? You cite collaboration extensively in your statement as being all-important in helping the Welsh Government achieve its objectives. How are you going to ensure that effective collaboration between front-line professionals, managers and decision makers really works on the ground in practice? It's a noble objective for a strategy, but it needs to be more than that. We've heard many noble objectives in this Chamber and many strategies over many years—I can see the finance Secretary will agree with me—but it's about converting those objectives into real progress on the ground that all of us would like to see. 

And crucially, I suppose, what resource will be committed to delivering this aspect of 'Prosperity for All'? The cost of promoting cross-Government working is not always an easy one to estimate, I know, but we do need to have some basic idea of what the cost is going to be and how that is going to be funded over the years to come—beyond your comment earlier, I think in response to Michelle Brown, that you shouldn't just see this as slivers of funding in different budgets, but you should be looking at the holistic whole.

Can I welcome, as you have, the work of my colleague David Melding and the ministerial advisory group over some considerable time now? I know they've done a lot of good work in this area. Over time, we'd all like to see a reduction in the number of children coming into care, but of course this must be balanced by a need to provide those children who do need to be cared for with the support they need, in the way that they need it, and when they need it. So, how do you intend to ensure that, in these circumstances, care is individually tailored to young people's needs and we avoid a one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf care package?

I think you anticipated my question earlier, when you spoke about—well, I don't think you called it 'co-production' but certainly the principles of putting the citizen at the centre and tailoring care to the particular needs of the individual is I think uppermost in your thoughts. And I think that can be a big difference here, above and beyond funding issues. If you can actually put the care-experience child at the centre of that process, not just at the centre of care, but at the centre of the decision-making process about deciding how they're going to be looked after, then you can make a big difference as a Minister by achieving that aim.

And finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, we do, of course, need to address the issue of what happens after care, again, something you mentioned. I welcome your ambition to remove the council tax burden from care leavers up to the age of 25. I think that's got a lot of potential and really is worth exploring. That's a good development. We know, statistically, that adults who have been through the care system are more likely to suffer problems, including drug misuse, and are more likely to be in prison. The proportion of the prison population who have been in care is marked and is clearly trying to tell us something.

You've also said in your statement that up to 30 per cent of homeless people have been in care at some point. So, how do we ensure that care continues in some form, as long as possible, and that the curtain doesn't simply come down when a young person reaches 18, because they're too often viewed as adults at that point, and we know that, actually, you don't suddenly go from being in care to being out and left to your own devices in the world when the clock strikes 12 and you suddenly become 18. People need support after that. And I don't think that's always been there or always been pre-eminent in the past. I think that this is again an area in which you as a Minister can really make some big changes to the way that care-experience or looked-after children are cared for in Wales. And I wish you success in that venture and look forward to working with you next year when the Public Accounts Committee begins our inquiry into this important area.