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.