There was no children's rights impact assessment prepared for the budget proposals, not even for the three important areas that have been subject to budgetary cuts, which are the school uniform grant, the minority ethnic attainment grant and the all-Wales schools contact programme.

The commissioner’s report, which will be discussed on Thursday, raises major questions, and I do look forward to hearing the Government committing to taking specific steps to increase and improve its performance significantly.

I turn specifically, therefore, to the commissioner’s annual report for 2017-18, and refer specifically to the traffic-light system of monitoring the progress of the Welsh Government in terms of taking action on recommendations, which is an excellent system for scrutiny. Yes, this is scrutinising work emerging from the 2016-17 annual report—that’s what the commissioner is doing, but she also provides live updates on her website. In our amendment, we quote from a report from September 2018, which shows a lack of progress, unfortunately, with only four of the recommendations categorised as green and five categorised as red. This does raise major questions about the Welsh Government’s commitment to the rights of the child.

The red recommendations include childcare, with the commissioner stating that

'The Welsh Government should ensure through the childcare offer pilot and any subsequent scheme that the children of non-working parents do not miss out on the increased childcare being offered to children of working parents.'

She goes on to say that the current proposal would mean that the children who would benefit most from childcare would miss that opportunity to develop key life skills at an early stage. With the most disadvantaged children starting school 10 months behind those from wealthier backgrounds, Plaid Cymru shares the commissioner’s concern.

Another issue that’s flagged up as being red by the commissioner is Government deficiencies in terms of elective home education. Again, I quote the commissioner

'the Welsh Government needs to amend the current guidance to give it statutory force and include a compulsory register for all home educated children to ensure they do not end up “off the radar” from even universal services.'

Every child has a right to an education, and local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that they receive an education. We must enable local authorities to do this work.

According to the children’s commissioner,

'Since this recommendation was made, the Cabinet Secretary made a statement in the Senedd in January 2018 outlining the intention to consult on changes to secondary legislation to strengthen the existing powers of local authorities.

'To date no consultation has been introduced and the anticipated timeline for this is spring 2019.' 

Again, those are the words of the commissioner.

Whilst the Welsh Government is dragging its feet, there is a risk that many children will miss out on their right to an education, and there is a risk that there are children who are going under the radar, in terms of the receipt of basic services.

Briefly, another issue that the Welsh Government has failed to take action on is British Sign Language. According to the National Deaf Children’s Society Wales, last year deaf pupils were 26 per cent less likely to receive A*-C grades in the core subjects, as compared to their peers who don’t have a hearing impairment. This gap exists because of the barriers that those with hearing impairments suffer, and this, again, is flagged up with a red light by the commissioner.

There’s no time to pursue the other two areas, but Ministers do need to address these issues as a matter of urgency—those that have been flagged as red by the commissioner, but also those that are amber. The Government must publish a timetable in order to convince us that things will be different—that things will improve—when we come back to this place next year.