Diolch yn fawr, Siân, and I'm so sorry for the disruption in making you start again. My Welsh is improving, but it's a blwyddyn 2 or blwyddyn 3 standard, and not good enough for the Chamber.

I think what I absolutely welcome is your understanding that without excellence in the teaching workforce, we cannot realise, I believe, a shared endeavour across this Chamber to provide first-class education. That's why the committee stressed so much the importance of finding these resources. If we look to past Estyn reports, it has highlighted the need to invest in the quality of our teaching as a priority, and that's why it's absolutely right to find this money.

We can have a debate about the mechanisms by which this money will find its way to the frontline, but, as you've recognised yourselves, often the first thing to go is investment in staff and training. And, therefore, if we are to invest in our staff, I have made the decision that the only way that we can be absolutely sure that that will happen is via a hypothecated grant. I don't think it should be a binary choice either—that this is either about money for the RSG or money for professional learning. We need to do better than that, and I would also reiterate that the Government continues to look at what more it can do to support the RSG going forward.

But, Presiding Officer, Siân Gwenllian used the word 'crisis'. What I believe will be a crisis is if our new curriculum is introduced on a statutory basis in 2022 and our teachers are not in a position to deliver it. Now that, indeed, would be a crisis. And unless we prioritise this expenditure on support and professional learning, the new curriculum will not do what it needs to do. I think that indeed would be a crisis that we would find ourselves in. That's why I have made this decision to prioritise and make these resources specifically available to invest in our staff. As I said, it's been done in conjunction with our teaching union colleagues and they have welcomed this resource. 

You're also absolutely right to recognise that both teaching assistants and supply teachers have an equal right to access professional learning opportunities. They are much valued and valuable members of our education workforce and have a significant role in developing and delivering on education, on our national mission. Therefore, we will be, as part of the monitoring process, looking to consortia to report on the amount of training that is taken up and made available both to supply teachers, but also looking and giving schools flexibility on their ability to use their resources to support their teachers but also their teaching assistant staff. Some schools already do that; some schools say they're not in a position to do that. So, there will be flexibility for individual schools and clusters to make arrangements for both teaching staff and teaching assistant staff and we will be monitoring issues around supply.

I know issues around supply continue to be of concern to Members across this Chamber; they are of concern to me. That's why we continue with our work to look to enshrine better terms and conditions via our national procurement of these services and look to ensure access to professional training as a prerequisite to agencies working in this area. As I said, I'm under no illusions about the challenges facing the RSG, but, if we're serious about getting the profession ready for the new curriculum, and we are serious about the curriculum being successful, then we have to invest in our workforce and we have to do that now, at this point. It'll be too late if we wait for a couple of years' time, if and when the financial system may or may not be—the financial sector, financial atmosphere, may or may not be better. We have to take this opportunity right now.