As a member of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, I would like to start by praising the efforts of our Chair, Bethan, and fellow committee members and the clerks for their industrious and important work in producing this report. I'm often asked why do I prioritise so highly the issue of music education, and while I'm not alone, during September 2016, before I served on the committee, the public, as you know, was asked what the committee's priorities should be, and, of course, it topped the poll. That's because the public understands the worth of music education in our schools to our young people—not just for those young people, but for us a country, for us a nation, and for us as a culture.

Like the Chair of our committee, I'm a musician and I thank my colleagues in the corridor at Tŷ Hywel, including Lee Waters and Jack Sargeant, who have been known to comment on my playing, and as a lifelong learner I am still a music student and I promise to reach that right note for them, but more so for my constituents. [Laughter.] And if it matters so much to me personally as an Assembly Member to learn and perfect and play a musical instrument, I cannot tell you how critical it is to me to know that no child in Wales is denied the opportunity to pick up an instrument and have the chance to learn to play it, not based on an ability to pay, but based on an ability to play. 

This is not just about learning an instrument. This is about equality of opportunity for all of our students across Wales, and our identity internationally that we must continue to be, in the words of the report that was commissioned from my office by Professor Carr, 'the land of song'. It cannot be in name only. We have to have that infrastructure underpinning the services that we need in order to deliver for all of our pupils. So, I look forward very much to hearing how the Chair and the Cabinet Secretary are going to work through these recommendations, and I'm particularly gratified that recommendation 13 has been accepted in principle by the Welsh Government, which ensures and seeks to ensure that music services continue to exist, to ensure pupils from all walks of life can potentially reach the level of excellence required for a place in the national ensembles. And as we've already heard, that is increasingly not the case.

It is right that all of our pupils, regardless of income, should have the same ability and opportunity to access the right to learn a musical instrument—equality of opportunity for all of our students. We approach a very critical time for music education performance in Wales. We know that we have had too many years of austerity, and it is right now for us to assess and recognise the real impact of the loss of music support services across Wales, that we recognise the inequalities that exist, and that as politicians we come together to provide those solutions. The safeguarding and provision of music education and the music support services are so critical—they provide the beginning, elementary, intermediate, and more advanced ensembles, which deliver those opportunities for those who can't pay—and has to become a national mission that Members of all of our parties, and those of none, can unite behind. I think Bethan, as a Plaid Cymru politician, myself as a Labour politician, and the Cabinet Secretary as a Liberal Democrat, show how we seek agreement across that political divide. I'd also, too, like to thank the contributions from others within the committee.   

But I think the theme today is that it is time to act now for Wales and now for our pupils. This is clearly evidenced in recommendation 1, which calls on the Welsh Government to transfer responsibility for the delivery of the service to an arm's-length national body. Now, there's still a debate around this, and I know that whatever the mechanism, it is heartening that the Welsh Government have accepted this recommendation in principle to fund music support services. I look forward to the Welsh Government reporting back to the committee on the progress of the feasibility exercise, but I wish to score and underscore the fact that it is now that music support services are crumbling as non-statutory services. If they are to remain non-statutory, then we have a responsibility to fund music support services across Wales, whatever that mechanism, and that has to be taken at pace. Thank you.