Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. I'll be giving a minute of my allocated time to my colleague the Chair of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, Bethan Sayed.

Members of this Assembly will know that this is a profoundly important issue for me, but it is also a matter of significant importance to Wales. My passion as a child was music and my profession as an adult was teaching and performing music, and I'm determined as the Assembly Member for Islwyn, at the heart of the Welsh Valleys, to do all I can to ensure that Wales's musical future leaves no child behind. Wherever in Wales a child is born, they should be able to have access to music education and funding; it should be available to ensure that this transpires.

I would like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for Education for her continual willingness to listen to my urging of the Welsh Government to find ways to do more, to go further and to challenge the assumptions that, in an age of politically motivated austerity, there is little we can do in Wales to arrest the decline of support for music education, and in particular the decline in music support services across Wales. Despite the cuts to Wales since 2010, the Welsh Government have announced already in this fifth Assembly additional funding, including the endowment fund for music and the Cabinet Secretary's musical amnesty. The national endowment fund for music, with £1 million of seed funding given to the Arts Council of Wales, is aimed specifically at extracurricular activities, and this fund is aimed at encouraging further donations, with an aim to raise a further £1 million per year in the future. These are very welcome initiatives and useful spokes in the wheel, but we need, as I have stated previously, to be both more radical and more ambitious.