It's not right that families earning up to £200,000 a year can get free childcare when, of course, the poorest children from workless households are excluded from enjoying those very same benefits. We know that the poorest children, by the time they're three years old, are already 10 months behind their better-off peers in terms of vocabulary, literacy and speech development. Indeed, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists tells us that the poorest 20 per cent are, in fact, 17 months behind the highest income group by the time they're three years old.

Not giving those poorest children access to high-quality childcare entrenches inter-generational poverty. It doesn't break the cycle; it makes it worse. That's not a sentiment that just I and others hold here in this Chamber—the children's commissioner shares those concerns. She's described the policy as a 'large subsidy for some of Wales's highest-earning families' that is 'likely to reinforce inequalities in outcomes for different social groups'. Save the Children and other children's organisations have expressed concerns, as have, in fact, some of the teaching unions as well.

Now, we've heard it said a number of times that Flying Start is there for the poorest areas to support them, and the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee has already reminded us that the majority of poor children in Wales live outside of the Flying Start areas. That's a huge cohort of young people—or children, I should say—who fall through the gaps in this Government's policies, and that isn't acceptable to me or my party.

There have been references to the evaluation of the pilots that will be available this autumn, and I'm grateful that the Minister is saying that he will give us early sight of the evaluation. But, of course, he's already tabled the Bill, so we don't really have the evidence to back up the anecdotal stuff that we're being told in committee and in this Chamber that it is the right policy and that it does work. I want to see the evidence before we approve this piece of legislation. In fact, another committee in this Assembly has—and we have, as a committee, as well—heard that targeting three- to four-year-olds isn't necessarily the right place to target this investment, that we need, maybe, to look at doing it before and that, actually, from one year old onward is where the greatest need is in terms of investing in allowing those parents to get back to work. That's a challenge back to us a party, as well, to look at our policy, but that's something that we're willing to do, and not just plough on regardless with our eyes closed and our heads down.

I have to say, as laudable as the Minister's pitch to lead his party was, he made it clear that his big ambition was universal preschool provision. Well, we have an opportunity to do that, and you were perfectly right to say that that provision would address the impacts of poverty. You were perfectly right to say that it would narrow the attainment gap when children start school and that it would transform the life chances of those children. Well, do you know what? Had you voted for Plaid Cymru in the last Assembly election, we may already have started delivering that.