The next item is the short debates. The first short debate to be presented is by Llyr Gruffydd. If those who are leaving the Chamber would do so quietly, and I will ask Llyr Gruffydd to speak to the topic that he has chosen. Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. It's my pleasure to introduce this short debate this afternoon on the topic of early language development, and I have agreed for Mark Isherwood to have some of my time so that he can make a contribution to the debate. In the debate, I want to highlight how early language development is crucially important to the development of children in the early years, and in preparing them for school, of course.

Now, skills make a core contribution to a child's ability to deliver his or her potential in an educational sense, and the social mobility of that child and their life opportunities. Communication skills are crucially and fundamentally important in that regard, and they include not only expressive skills—our ability to get other people to understand us—but also our receptive skills. That is, our ability to understand.

A minority of children do have a disability that will mean that they won't develop the expected language skills for their age, but most children can achieve that by having the right assistance and support. Research demonstrates that there's a strong link between poverty and delays in language development, and there is an ongoing gap between the language skills of those from the poorest backgrounds and their peers from more affluent backgrounds. So, encouraging early language development is crucially important to close that attainment gap and to improve the life chances of our poorest children.

It's very timely that we are discussing this issue today, following the publication of the plan for the early years workforce and play by the Welsh Government—at last, if I may say so, because it was published in December, and you will recall that I and others have been calling for its publication as it has been in draft form for around two years, I understand. But it has now been published. It's also timely in light of the announcement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education, of course, on the campaign Take Time to Talk, Listen and Play in January.

First of all, I want to present the evidence as to why this issue is so important.

Suzy Davies took the Chair.

As I mentioned earlier, there's strong evidence to underline the relationship between poverty and early language delay, with children from the most disadvantaged groups more likely to have weaker language skills than those in more advantaged groups. And that means that language skills are a critical factor in the intergenerational cycles that can actually perpetuate poverty, as poor communication skills are passed down from parent to child. Indeed, the statistics are quite frightening and, in fact, speak for themselves.

Over half of the children in socially deprived areas may start school with impoverished speech, language and communication skills, and by the time that they're three years old, children from the poorest 20 per cent of the population are nearly a year and a half behind a child in the highest income group in terms of language development. Now, let's just think about that: already, by age three, children from the poorest 20 per cent of the population are a year and a half behind. Now, 80 per cent of teachers have reported that they often see children join their schools struggling to speak in full sentences, and I have no doubt that all of us here in this Assembly are united in our ambition to bring children out of poverty and to give them greater life chances, but so far neither the Government nor this Assembly have found a way of properly achieving that ambition. Yet we do know, of course, that vocabulary at age five has been found to be the best predictor of whether children who experience social deprivation in childhood were actually able to buck the trend and escape poverty in later adult life.

Compared to children who had normally developing language at five, five-year-olds who have normal non-verbal skills but a poor vocabulary are one and a half times more likely to be poor readers or have mental health problems and more than twice as likely to be unemployed by the time they reach 34 years of age. So, children's poor speech, language and communication skills therefore have a profound impact on a wide range of outcomes, including behaviour, mental health, school readiness and employability.

Six out of 10 of the young people in the youth justice estate have communication difficulties, and 88 per cent of long-term unemployed young men have speech, language and communication needs. We also know that, without effective help, a third of children with speech, language and communication difficulties will need treatment for mental health problems in adult life. Now, that's astonishing. All of those statistics tell us the same story. By improving children's verbal skills at five years old, we could be greatly enhancing their life experiences and life chances and further down the line, of course, freeing up our limited resources to tackle other issues in our society.

Speech, language and communication needs are particularly prevalent in our most vulnerable children and young people, of course. Many looked-after children have unidentified or unmet communication needs. Indeed, recent analysis found that 81 per cent of children with behavioural problems had undetected speech, language and communication needs, with very little specialist provision in place to identify and support these needs.

Given the importance of this issue, it's positive to see an increasing focus on children's speech, language and communication skills within early years policy in Wales. To date, we've seen a speech and language therapist being employed at every Flying Start team in Wales, which is an important step in the right direction. Part of the therapist's role is to both upskill the early years workforce in these areas and, of course, to improve parents' knowledge and skills to support children's early language development.

This relatively small investment in terms of the numbers of speech and language therapists employed is having a big impact on the outcomes of young children in Flying Start areas. In 2015, the Bridgend Flying Start speech and language therapists won an NHS award for their work in reducing language delay in two and three-year-olds. They worked with Flying Start nurseries there to significantly reduce the number of children with delayed language skills. Out of 600 children screened on starting nursery, 73 per cent were assessed as having significant language delay, which, as we know, would impact on future learning development. After the interventions delivered by nursery staff, which were planned and supported by the Flying Start speech and language therapists, over two thirds of the children with the worst language delay had improved. That's over 400 children in Bridgend alone who have had their life chances significantly improved thanks to the intervention of the speech and language therapists.

But Bridgend, of course, isn't an outlier. In Torfaen, over half of the children at 18 months of age were assessed as having significant language delay, but following the intervention, the children were screened again at three years old, 85 per cent of children screened were assessed as having age-appropriate language skills, with only 8 per cent recorded as having significant language delay. 

These are genuine success stories and we'll reap the rewards of these interventions in years to come. Sadly, however, the Flying Start speech and language therapist services are facing cuts, and therapists are increasingly worried about the future of such important support services for childcare practitioners and for parents. It's essential that such services are retained. In fact, given the limited geographical focus of Flying Start, and given that the majority of children living in poverty in Wales actually live outside of these defined areas, surely the aim must be for the Welsh Government to roll this service out to every part of Wales.

So, I'd like to ask the Cabinet Secretary, when she responds to this debate, to at least commit to continuing to ensure funding for these existing valuable services, and, given the importance of early language skills, maybe also to comment on her plans for how other young children living in poverty in Wales may be able to access the quality support that they need for good speech and early language development.

As well as ensuring the continued prioritisation of speech, language and communication within Flying Start and areas of social disadvantage, there's a need to ensure that all opportunities are exploited to make sure that parents, carers and the wider workforce understand the importance of speech, language and communication, and that key public health messages around this area are shared effectively as well.

The strongest influence on the early language skills of young children are their parents and their carers. Poverty can strongly reduce parents' ability to respond to their child's early language needs and offer a home learning environment that enhances language skills in the early years. So, supporting parents to foster a communication and language-rich home environment is fundamental to improving children's early speech, language and communication development.

Positive steps have already been taken in Wales, as I mentioned, for example, as well, the recently launched Healthy Child Wales programme has a specific focus on speech and language development at the 15-month health visitor family health review. The recent Take Time to Talk, Play and Listen campaign, which promotes oracy, is to be welcomed as well, as is the extra funding and support for schools in the next financial year through regional consortia to help improve the language skills of learners. However, the Take Time campaign has a primary focus on older children, and the evidence suggests that we must ensure a relentless focus on promoting these key messages across portfolios at the earliest stage possible to make the most impact.

Beyond the home environment, there's strong evidence of the benefits of high-quality early education and childcare from the perspective of vocabulary and literacy development. Early years practitioners have a crucial role in supporting children's development; they share the early learning and skills that provide the foundation for school readiness, and support good future progress through education and later life. The early years workforce is also vital in closing the language gap between children from high and lower income families, which begins in infancy, promoting social mobility, of course, and offering children the best start in life.

It's welcome that the early years childcare and play workforce plan recognises the importance of early language development within the new childcare qualifications, and details opportunities for practitioners to specialise in this area. It's also positive that speech and language therapists, as the experts in this area, have been involved in these developments. However, given the importance of the issue of early language development, we need to ensure that training is accompanied by appropriate ongoing professional development and governance. The Flying Start approach, where nursery settings are able to access speech and language therapy support, is a very helpful model in this regard.

Looking beyond training, early language development needs to be mainstreamed, considered as part of inspection regimes, for example, and outcome frameworks need to be adapted to reflect progress in speech, language and communications. In Northern Ireland, a strategic post has been created to ensure a cross-cutting approach to early language development across portfolios. Maybe the Cabinet Secretary could comment on how early language development is being prioritised across Welsh Government portfolios in her response. What leadership is there in place to ensure the necessary focus and expertise on this key area here in Wales? Also, will the Cabinet Secretary commit to looking at learning from that strategic approach that we are seeing in Northern Ireland?

So, in summary, there have been many positive developments with regard to supporting early language development in Wales. However, as I've outlined, the profound consequences of not supporting children's early language skills and not identifying long-term or persistent speech, language and communication needs necessitate a broader cross-Government response and a greater strategic leadership across Wales. It's vital that, as a nation, we do more to ensure that children develop strong language skills by the time they start school and ensure this area has sufficient focus. Failure to do so will mean more of the same economic, health and social challenges in years to come. Success, though, would transform the prospects of tens of thousands of Welsh children and with them, of course, the prospects of our future generations and of our nation. Diolch.

Having battled 17 years ago as a parent to secure speech and language therapy, I know how critical it is for young lives and life chances. We know, over eight years ago, when the Communities and Culture Committee here did an inquiry into the youth justice estate, that the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists told us then that a high proportion of people in the youth justice estate had speech, language and communication needs. We understand that, even today, 60 per cent of them still have those communication, speech and language needs in the youth justice estate.

Yet we've seen the closure of Afasic Cymru, forced on its trustees by the Welsh Government's decision to end the children and families delivery grant and switch the funding elsewhere. This was the only charity representing families of children with speech, language and communication needs in Wales, supporting hundreds of families in north Wales alone over the last year, taking pressure off statutory services and improving lives. When I wrote to the Minister for Children and Social Care about this, he replied

'I can assure you that Local Health Boards are committed to working in partnership with Local Education Authorities to make sure schools continue to be able to provide support for these families.'

Well, yes, health boards and local authorities are often happy to work with the third sector, and they do generally try their best, but they don't offer the support strategies and impartial advice in people's homes that was provided by Afasic Cymru. I have to say this misguided Welsh Government approach is damaging lives and imposing additional and avoidable costs on public sector providers when they should instead be asking these front-line change makers how they can help public services deliver more for less and ensure these young children have the life chances they need and deserve.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Education to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by thanking Llyr for bringing forward this important short debate today. Early language skills are indeed central to children's early years development, and these skills provide the springboard for school readiness and their ability to achieve their true potential and to give them a real chance in life. We know, as Llyr has outlined today, that, too often, children living in poverty suffer to a greater extent from impoverished speech, language and communication skills, much more than their more affluent counterparts. It's absolutely fundamental, in my view, that children should be school-ready and be able to fully benefit from the education that they receive.

To that end, Flying Start has made, I believe, a really positive contribution and continues to make progress. This programme has had a transforming impact on the lives of many thousands of young people since its inception. The programme contains four core elements, which include free quality childcare, parenting support, intensive health visitor support and support for speech, language and communication—

Will you give way?

Of course.

When you say people should be school-ready, what I'm hearing from people in schools is that people are arriving at school without being able to read on any level, and many parents not communicating with children as they potentially would have, because of new technology. It does help, in many instances, with reading, but often it militates against their development. What are you doing to try and encourage parents, through various schemes, to interact with their children before they get to school, so that they can be school-ready, as you describe?

Well, as outlined by Llyr earlier, and as I will outline later on, there are a number of parenting programmes, support toolkits, et cetera, that the Welsh Government make available, and an important part of that core offer of Flying Start is parenting support, so that parents are able to work with professionals to understand what they need to do, as individuals, to best support their children.

As you know, Flying Start targets some of the poorest, most disadvantaged communities across Wales, and the 2017 qualitative evaluation report notes that parents who had accessed speech, language and communication support thought that it had indeed made a significant difference to their child’s speech and language. They reported that their children were more talkative and learned and used new words, and spoke more clearly, and it is in Welsh Government guidance to local authorities that all Flying Start programmes have access to speech and language therapists.

So, to answer your question more directly, Bethan, to further support parents more widely, the Welsh Government's campaign, 'Parenting. Give it Time', supports the vital role that all parents play in supporting their children's development, and in their speech, language and communication skills in particular. There is a speech and language parent pack on our website, and there are very helpful and interesting support materials available free of charge to parents, including a factsheet on brain development, which explains to parents why it is so important. So, rather than just saying, 'You need to do this,' actually giving those parents the explanation as to why they need to carry out these activities with their children. 

However, we know that parents aren't the only influence on a young child's life, and that's why the Welsh Government has focused keenly on the quality of the early years workforce—as mentioned by Llyr in his contribution—in our 10-year plan. We want to attract the right people into the early years and childcare sector, with the skills and behaviours needed to provide high-quality early education and care. Underpinning this ambition is the development of a new suite of qualifications for childcare and play practitioners, which will be introduced in September 2019. We have recognised the importance of early language development, which is why the new qualifications will include a career pathway and clear progression routes to specialise in this area within that suite of qualifications.

Of course, this is the support that is offered in the very earliest years of a young child's life. Once they reach school age, there is a wide range of comprehensive and coherent support to make sure that all learners develop excellent language and communication skills, and it is a key part of my national mission for education in Wales. There is strong evidence that oracy is a vital building block for developing essential life skills, and importantly for me, a vital building block that all learners need if they're to go on to access the whole curriculum, regardless of their background. 

The Welsh Government has developed the national literacy and numeracy framework for three to 16-year-olds, where oracy is a strand within the literacy component, sharing equal status with reading and writing. The regional consortia are providing direct support to schools on literacy and numeracy, and to strengthen early language and communication provision across Wales, we have invested nearly £900,000 in the foundation phase oracy programme for 2017–2018. Indeed, Estyn's annual report, published in January, notes that the provision for literacy has improved and, overall, that this has had a positive impact on pupil standards.

At this point, I must mention the sterling work being done by the foundation phase practitioners and its approach to teaching and learning. It has been identified by practitioners as a significant strength of our current educational practice in Wales, and rightly so. All our evidence shows that where the foundation phase is being delivered well, it is raising the attainment of all of our children—and I'll say that again: all children—with improvements in overall school attendance, literacy, numeracy and, crucially, learner well-being. Evidence shows that, for early years in particular, it is the quality of teaching that is so influential, and we need to ensure that we're raising the capability of those working in the foundation phase, which is fundamental to developing children's oracy skills. This is therefore a key focus in the foundation phase action plan, which was published in November 2016.

Building on this, and with the aim of inspiring young minds together, we're supporting the foundation phase excellence network to the tune of £1 million-worth of Welsh Government funding. I had hoped to launch that network last Friday, but was defeated by the bad weather. So, I am formally launching this at the end of the month. The network will include representatives from the education service, schools and settings that deliver the foundation phase, our regional consortia, higher education that brings a crucial research element to the network, and third sector organisations. They will all come together to share expertise, experience, knowledge and best practice. We are pursuing an evidence-based approach to this on what works and what works well. I'd like to say, we're not starting from a terrible base.

Llyr, of course, takes a personal interest in all things north Wales, and I would urge him to visit Sandycroft Primary School, which is in Flintshire, identified in Estyn as having a fantastic approach to developing these skills in their very, very youngest of children. We need to use the network to ensure that the best practice that we see in settings like Sandycroft is made available across Wales.

The foundation phase excellence network, and on its online platform, will crucially support professional development. This goes to the very heart of our national mission—what we talked about earlier, in terms of professional learning. I've said it in that debate earlier today, and I will say it again now: we are about raising standards, reducing the attainment gap and delivering an education service that is a source of national pride and public confidence, but it can only be as good as the people who are delivering that in classrooms and settings in front of our children.

We do know, though, that, after the quality of teaching, it is the home environment that is the single biggest factor in educational attainment, especially in the early years. That's why, as the Welsh Government, we have placed so much emphasis on it in developing a suite of programmes across many portfolios. Parental engagement is hugely important and features very heavily in the foundation phase oracy programme for 2017-18.

Llyr mentioned that, in January this year, we launched a national media campaign, 'Take Time to Talk, Listen and Play', which encourages parents, carers and guardians to take time with their children. It encourages them to talk with them, to listen to them, and to play. If you read academic papers, you'll know that play is a crucial element in developing these skills. It's all about helping children to improve their language development, and the campaign provides practical tips to parents to help children—not just children already in formal education, Llyr, but actually, the programme was designed to assist parents in the age group of three to seven; so, in preparation of going into school. As we know, most often, it is practical tips that parents need if we're going to break down some of the inter-generational impact on poverty, as poor communication skills are, indeed, often passed on from generation to generation.

Of course, since coming into office, I have doubled the amount of money going into the early years pupil development grant. Again, this is additional support for the children who are entitled to free school meals at the earliest possible stage of their educational career. We've been able to do that even though times are really, really difficult to find additional resources, but we recognise, just as you did, Llyr, that investing early now in supporting those children's educational experiences would be of huge benefit to them and to society later on in their lives.

There is also, acting Presiding Officer, another dimension to this work that we are doing to address some of the factors that result in poor language and communication development early on. Our ambitious Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 will completely overhaul the system for supporting pupils with additional learning needs, including those with identified speech and language delay. I'm pleased to say that the Act establishes a new role. This is the early years ALN lead officer, specific to children under compulsory school age. Local authorities will be required to designate an individual to co-ordinate its functions in this area under the Act. This will mean that communication issues can be identified early and appropriate intervention put in place. This, of course, could include referral to speech and language therapy. Importantly, this new role will help better link up schools, nurseries, local authorities and the NHS. Better linking up leads to more timely interventions for young people, without the battle that I acknowledge many parents from time to time face.

I do not underestimate the scale of the task in terms of seeking to improve the speech, language and communication skills of some of our most disadvantaged children. Indeed, only last week, I was talking to educational professionals about tier 2 vocabulary and the lack of tier 2 vocabulary and how that may be hindering poorer children's ability to access examination papers at GCSE level—the actual ability to understand what is being asked of them in the question, to be able to have that enhanced vocabulary so that they know how best to answer the question, rather than spotting a key concept and writing everything they know about that key concept because they don't truly understand what's being asked in the question. So, this programme is part of our commitment to raising standards later on in the educational journey of a young person.

Llyr, you're not wrong: there is a human, social and economic cost to not getting it right. We know that the consequences of not supporting children's early language skills can lead to a range of negative outcomes later in life, as you've outlined today, and that's why we have focused so many of our programmes and so much of our resources on tackling this issue. And, as I said, despite the fact that the budgets are strained, we are putting the funding into supporting these programmes, and I believe that, in doing so, we will transform the life chances of these children and help develop us as a nation. 

Thank you very much.