Diolch, Llywydd, a diolch, Siân, hefyd. Can I just thank you for the constructive discussions that I've had with you, and also with Llyr as well, previously on this issue? And we do indeed have a great deal of sympathy with the spirit of the amendments that have been moved and we welcome, actually, the opportunity to put on record some of the things that we can do to achieve exactly that, and Members—if they're content to bear with me, because I think it's important to lay out the scope of where we can go with this.

The starting point is we absolutely agree that increasing the availability of Welsh-medium childcare in the round is vital if we're going to achieve our ambition of Cymraeg 2050, and we need to find a way to make this happen. Now, the amendment that you have is slightly different in the drafting from the earlier amendment that was tabled at Stage 2, and the focus has moved slightly from placing the duty on the Welsh Ministers to meet the Welsh language needs of children accessing the offer to ensuring that the importance of the Welsh language is considered in the provision of childcare under subsection 1 of the Bill. Now, this is helpful in getting us to debate this now, but, actually, the amendment is, in its drafting, slightly ambiguous in terms of its purpose and its effect, and I'll come to that in a moment. It's not ideal as an amendment, but I think you've put it there in order to get to this debate and I welcome it.

I fully support the objective, and that's why I appreciated the opportunity to discuss these issues with Siân and Llyr. Now, I would suggest, however, that the best way of achieving these objectives is to actually bring some additional energy and focus to the mechanisms that we have in place rather than by creating a new duty in this Bill. Now, we've already got duties on local authorities in terms of the planning and the delivery of provision across the early years. Under the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities must—and I repeat must—have regard to the needs of parents for childcare involving the Welsh language in ensuring the sufficiency of childcare provision in their areas.

I'm going through some of the things that are in place before I move on. Under the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013, local authorities are required to set out, in their Welsh in education strategic plans, the WESPs, how they'll improve both the planning of provision for and the standards of Welsh-medium education in their area. But, again, we know the reality is that there isn't enough Welsh-medium capacity and this is why, as a Government, we are actually now investing, as we speak, in the expansion of the Welsh-medium childcare sector, in Welsh language training for the childcare sector, and, importantly, in greater data collection and analysis around the demand for and the capacity to provide more Welsh-medium childcare.

Now, through the early implementation of this offer, we are testing further where the gaps exist and, from this, where we can look to work with the sector and with partner and umbrella organisations—not just one, but all of them—to build the capacity of this market. We will continue to monitor parent intention to access and, actually, take up Welsh-medium provision, and we'll consider this, by the way, in year 2 of the independent evaluation. Part of this is based on the feedback that we've had from committee members and from the discussions that we've had. 

Now, in the meantime, back in September, the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning announced £46 million, allocated from the Welsh-medium capital grant and childcare offer capital grant—the two of them—to support the growth in Welsh-medium education. Now, actually pulling those together and encouraging local providers and local authorities to access them in that joined-up way shows that cross-Government approach we need to deliver the objectives that we have for the Welsh language. Now, this grant on its own will support some 41 projects across 16 local authorities. It'll create just short of 3,000 school and childcare places for Welsh-medium learners, and that's what we want—that smooth pathway all the way through there.

Now, back in the summer, I also announced, in light of discussions we were having, a £60 million capital grant programme across the years of 2018 to 2021. A key aim of this programme is to support the expansion of Welsh-medium provision in line with the Cymraeg 2050 strategy. 

As a Government—you mentioned, Siân, Mudiad Meithrin—we've also awarded Mudiad Meithrin an extra £1 million a year over the next two years to help establish new settings in areas where there is a lack of Welsh-medium provision, to fill in some of those gaps. The first group of the new settings are due to open during this academic year, and we've committed to increasing the number of Welsh-medium nursery groups by 150 over the next decade. And as we discussed, by the way, at our recent meeting, it is really encouraging to see increasing numbers of local authorities bringing together, now, different strands of funding and doing some joined-up thinking of their own on how they actually enhance and expand early years childcare and education in a joined-up way. We would encourage that as a Government in the way that we put our funding together, and put our incentives together.

But, in addition, there is an advisory board currently looking at WESPs, and it's been considering how to strengthen the links between the planning of Welsh-medium childcare provision and statutory education, using the data derived from the childcare sufficiency assessments. I’ll be keen to see to what effect this data can be used to strengthen Welsh-medium provision. Specifically, we believe there is scope to do more to establish a clear link between a local authority’s childcare sufficiency assessment and how that information is used to plan for Welsh-medium early education. 

It is important—I put on record—that local authorities view the growth of the Welsh language through a long-term lens, starting with the very youngest children. I will explore further with the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning how we can encourage local authorities to more actively respond to what their assessments are telling them about gaps and supply issues in their area in respect of the Welsh language. 

Now, amendment 7, if passed—and this is where the ambiguity and the narrowness of it causes problems—would only relate to childcare provision under this offer: that is, childcare for the qualifying children of working parents, as described by the offer. It wouldn't be relevant to childcare provision more broadly, and that's a flaw in the amendment. I know it's not an intentional flaw, but it actually narrows what we should be aiming to do with Welsh-medium childcare. I would argue that looking at the connections that can be made between existing assessments of sufficiency and plans for the future provides a much more strategic way forward that is broader but also deeper as well. 

And, on that basis, with those remarks, I would urge Siân and fellow Assembly Members to work with us in identifying and using the most powerful levers I've described, not only to support the spirit behind this amendment, which has an element of ambiguity around it, but actually deliver our shared ambition for the Welsh language as we go forward. I hope those remarks are reassuring to you, Siân, in our openness to continue to work on this, to look at what we are evaluating from the roll-out, and to use all the levers at our disposal in the way that we look at the join-up between Welsh-medium education and childcare, and the way that we use WESPs and the way that we use funding streams to actually drive local partners and local authorities to enhance and expand Welsh-medium childcare.