Can I thank the Member for her questions? With regard to the independent sector, officials have been in touch with the Welsh Independent Schools Council to outline our intentions to legislate in this area, and they are very supportive of the approach that we are taking. They have no qualms at all and are happy to play their role in addressing these issues. I'm grateful to the Welsh Independent Schools Council for their initial welcome of these proposals and their willingness to engage with us in this regard. I appreciate that.

This is not about imposing a curriculum on our home-educating parents, but there is already existing legislation in Wales that says that every child has the right to a suitable education. Now, you're quite right, there are probably many different views around this Chamber about what constitutes a suitable education, but I'm sure we could all agree that ensuring that a child is literate and ensuring that a child is numerate are the basic building blocks that any person needs to go on to fulfil their potential and to live successfully, and I don't think that's about imposing a state-run curriculum on a child. But those skills that I believe are necessary are the ones that we'll be focusing on. What's important is that there is a consistency across Wales—that we don't have 22 different approaches to what a suitable education looks like, and that there is fairness, and that there is transparency in that process. That's why it is necessary, I believe, to introduce statutory guidance to local authorities about how they should carry out their functions in this regard, because I don't want 22 different approaches, I want there to be a consistency across the piece, and I want that to be clear about what our expectations are. There will be an opportunity via the consultation, which will happen later on this year, for Members to feed into that consultation on what the statutory guidance looks like.

I thought I had made it very clear in my statement that I respect the right of a parent to choose home education for their child if they believe that is in the best interests of their children. I am aware that parents do that for a whole host of reasons. One of the things that Darren mentioned is whether some parents feel forced into that choice, and I think there's a job of work to do—. If people have felt that they're being forced into this choice because of a lack of provision in mainstream education, we need to work harder to address that. There's been some horrible anecdotal evidence about schools encouraging parents to deregister their children just before the exams, so that issues around attendance and issues around exam performance don't count against the school's performance measures. That's clearly not acceptable. There's a whole host of other policy interventions we need to make with regard to how we manage performance in schools, to address those things. So, this is not about making a judgment on those choices that parents make, but it is about saying, 'In balancing the right you have as a parent to home educate your child, we, as a state, need to know where those children are.' I think most people out there will probably be surprised, listening to this debate or watching the news this evening, that we don't already do it—we don't already have this information. It's just knowing where those children are and being able to satisfy ourselves that those children are in receipt of a suitable education, balancing the rights of parents, but also the rights of the child.