Thank you, Llywydd. I would like to make it clear at the very outset that Plaid Cymru will be voting against the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill on the basis that we believe in the principle of free childcare. This is consistent with our approach at Stage 1, but we have introduced amendments in order to seek to strengthen the Bill in the hope that they can be agreed, even so late in the day.

Amendment 6 was tabled by Plaid Cymru in order to extend the right to parents in education or training to be included in the childcare offer, and amendments 5, 9 and 10 are supplementary to that. Our amendment 8 seeks to ensure that the right to free childcare for parents not in work is also included in the childcare Bill. We believe that 30 hours a week of early years education or free childcare should be offered to all children between three and four years of age, and that would ensure that children from all backgrounds would have the best start in life.

We have tabled these amendments in order to generate the far-reaching change that is required to the childcare offer, in line with our own vision, and in order to provide us all with an opportunity to vote to extend the scope of this Bill. Perhaps what is contained within the Bill was in the Labour manifesto, but our manifesto as Plaid Cymru went further, because our focus was on the interests of all children. It's appropriate, therefore, that we bring these amendments forward today in order to honour our manifesto commitments.

But even if you don't believe that universal free childcare is the way forward, we move amendment 6 in order to give you the opportunity to express the opinion that parents in education or training should be included in the Bill. We will be supporting amendment 11, although it doesn't go as far as we would like to see, because we believe that it still strengthens the Bill.

Our amendment 9 allows the restriction of the Bill to those who need the free provision, and stops the better off, or the most well off from, from taking advantage of the free offer when they have the means to pay. It isn't fair and it isn't just that this childcare offer doesn't provide for a child whose parents are not in work, whilst making the provision for a child where both parents are working and are earning £100,000 a year. In my view, this is erroneous, it's unjust, and it is wrong. The Welsh Government's childcare offer, as it currently stands, would actually exacerbate the attainment gap.

According to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, on average, children from the poorest 20 per cent of our society are over 17 months behind a child from the highest income group in terms of language development at three years of age. This Bill does not tackle that issue, and indeed it is at risk of exacerbating the situation, because children where one or two parents are not in work will lose out. The children's commissioner endorses and echoes that view and states quite clearly that children who are not in employment will fall behind as compared to their peers—that's the children of parents who are not in employment, of course.

She supports a universal childcare offer for all three- to four-year-olds and says further that there is strong evidence that, if you invest in early years education and quality childcare, then you will make a substantial difference to the life chances of children from the poorest backgrounds. If you support our amendments today, you will improve this legislation and create that far-reaching change that is truly needed in the lives of children who need support.

Yes, there are other schemes available, and I'm sure that the Minister will refer to Working Wales, the FE financial contingency fund, the higher education childcare grant, and so on and so forth, but there is confusion. People don't know that they qualify for these various schemes. There are no assurances that these schemes will remain in place if the funding sources dry up. And, for me, it makes sense to bring everything together in one simple proposal where everyone who fits into the criteria clearly knows what their rights are rather than having the confusion that we have here. Thank you.