Thank you very much, and thank you to the Member who opened the debate and to everyone who has contributed too. May I make it clear that, like so many of you, I am disappointed that our public services, including FE, have been under substantial pressure over the past few years? I have to highlight, of course, that it's the austerity agenda of the UK Government that's entirely responsible for this, and this has prevented us from going further than we would have liked to have gone in order to maintain and support this important sector. And of course I am highly aware of the figures quoted by Mohammad Asghar earlier.

It’s important that we recognise that the FE sector makes an important contribution to the Welsh economy, and the sector is in a far better state than the FE system over the border. As a result of the cuts, we do have to ensure that we make the most of the funding available and that we provide services across Wales in a fair manner. And this is one of the reasons why we have changed the way we will fund and agree to effective planning programmes, so that we can respond to demographic changes and respond to the needs of our local economy. We have allocated an additional £7 million in the draft budget for 2019-20 to support the FE sector in tackling these demographic changes.

Now, today’s statement mentioned the additional demand that will come about as a result of the employability programme. One of the things that became clear in the employability plan was that we need to increase the number of courses that respond to the demand from employers. As a result, I will be suggesting that the colleges prioritise these over other courses that they provide today, in the way that Dawn Bowden highlighted. But we must ensure that these are independent bodies, although they are substantially funded by the Welsh Government.