Isn't it lovely to be able to follow you when you've expressed your gratitude and acknowledgement of the work that our services do to support both the adoptive parents and adoption and our children? Because I've had quite a lot of experience with some families—a family of three siblings, and, along the way, some of the challenges that presented. It was wonderful, really, when we were able to address those and things were dealt with early, and that's where early intervention and prevention is key. So, I would like to join you on behalf of the Welsh Conservative group in expressing our sincere gratitude to those working in adoption services and to those who adopt children and young people in Wales, knowing that they do so, as you rightly pointed out, to complete their own families. Everybody does such fantastic work to provide a better future for hundreds of children every year, and I'm sure that we all join in and recognise this across the Chamber.

On page 2, I note, about adoptive parents, how we do need to actually help now making it quicker and easier for sibling groups, because they do present more challenges than a single child. According to the National Adoption Service's annual report, 300 children were placed in adoptive homes across Wales in 2016-17 and I welcome the improvements made in recent years to our adoption services. The National Adoption Service's annual report has, however, identified some concerning statistics, because, as of June 2018, we do have more than 300 children still waiting to be adopted, and nearly one in five of these have been waiting for more than a year, and when we consider that a year in the life of a child is considerable—. 

Any wait for both the potential adoptive parents and, indeed, the children places extra pressures and unnecessary stress. So, I'm pretty keen that whatever we can do, even though it is fantastic, we look to actually make our systems even better. There is an urgent need to develop and deliver a more targeted approach to finding suitable families for priority children across Wales, and then to streamline that process to encourage more families to come forward and want to adopt.

In your statement, provided to an ITV Wales article published yesterday, you state that you

'want to encourage anyone who has thought about adopting to contact their local adoption agency'. 

I would just ask you and your department whether there is some work that you could perhaps do that actually highlights the need, highlights this issue, because I do know people who find, sometimes, it quite difficult to navigate the system. So, anything that you, as a department, can do to make that link-up and that joining-up, and make those families complete, all the better.

So, really, I would just endorse a lot of what you've said here today, Minister, but just if you could answer that question as to what you think you can do to actively reduce the numbers of children waiting so long to be adopted, and how you think you can then provide more support for families—. But it's about getting more profile for this so that we don't have a situation in Wales where we have children waiting to be adopted and we have adoptive parents, desperate to adopt those children. Thank you.