Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. And can I thank Lynne Neagle and members of the committee for their work in this area?

Given the enormous uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the limited time available to me this afternoon, I will not go into a discussion about the impact of the UK Government's handling of Brexit on the higher and further education sectors here.

I fully appreciate the challenges that Brexit provides for those sectors, their students and individual institutions. That is why, since June 2016, I and colleagues have been proactive in doing all we can to help mitigate those challenges, provide leadership, and identify new opportunities and partnerships. We provided guarantees in 2017-18, in 2018-19, and for 2019-20 that EU students at Welsh universities will continue to be eligible for financial support. We are introducing an outward mobility pilot going beyond Europe that will give Welsh students the opportunity to study, work or volunteer overseas. And we know that it is students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds that too often miss out on those opportunities, and our scheme will reach out to those students.

Through the Global Wales programme, we are supporting the sector to reach new markets and to build new partnerships. I recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnamese Government, and we are in the process of agreeing exciting new partnerships in North America.

Only last week, as has been referenced by a number of speakers, I announced new funding worth £6.6 million to enable Welsh universities and researchers to compete for a greater share of UK funding, as suggested by Professor Graeme Reid’s review.

For Bethan Sayed’s information, within a week of the Brexit referendum result, I convened a HE working group to advise me on the challenges facing the sector, made up of vice-chancellors. That group has been particularly useful. Vice-chancellors are, of course, represented on the First Minister’s Brexit group. Colin Riordan of Cardiff University is also representing the Welsh sector on some UK consultative arrangements. It was this Government that initiated the regular four nations meetings of the university Ministers so that we could work across the UK on these matters, but also hold the UK Government’s feet to the fire on promises that they have made.

Deputy Presiding Officer, this is an uncertain and rapidly changing area, and, of course, this is not helped, I'm sorry to say, by at times limited and often very unclear communications from the UK Government. Although I have been in post for less than three years, I'm onto my third different English education Secretary, and my third different universities Minister. Of course, we all know why Jo Johnson and Sam Gyimah are no longer in the Government.