Thank you once again, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the motion to approve the Qualifications Wales (Monetary Penalties) (Determination of Turnover) Regulations 2019. The titles don't get any snappier, do they? [Laughter.] The regulations will allow Qualifications Wales to impose a monetary penalty where recognised awarding bodies are non-compliant with regulatory requirements. This will give Wales a stronger and more robust qualifications system in which we can all continue to have confidence. It addresses a gap in Qualifications Wales's range of sanctions. 

The Qualifications Wales Act 2015 established Qualifications Wales as the independent regulator for non-degree qualifications in Wales and provides Qualifications Wales with the power to impose a monetary penalty on an awarding body that it regulates for non-compliance with its standard conditions of recognition or other regulatory requirements.

The Act provides that the amount of the penalty is to be determined in accordance with regulations made by the Welsh Government. These are the regulations we hope to make today, which are intended to limit the range of financial penalties Qualifications Wales may impose on the bodies it regulates. Until these regulations are made, Qualifications Wales cannot exercise their powers to impose a monetary penalty.

The regulations cap any monetary penalty imposed by Qualifications Wales at 10 per cent of an awarding body's total UK turnover in the financial year preceding the issuing of the monetary penalty notice. The regulations also set out how Qualifications Wales will determine the turnover of an awarding body for the purposes of the cap. 

Last year, we set out our intention through a consultation exercise to allow Qualifications Wales to impose such a monetary penalty. In order to be consistent with Ofqual, the English qualifications regulator, and other regulators, I believe 10 per cent of an awarding body's UK turnover is an appropriate upper limit for such a penalty. This upper limit is not new, but a long-established principle, and was the upper limit when the regulation of qualifications was undertaken by the Welsh Government prior to the establishment of Qualifications Wales in 2015.

I would like to take this opportunity, Deputy Presiding Officer, to thank the CLAC committee for their useful contribution to the work on these regulations. Monetary penalties are a significant sanction that will only be considered if other actions to prevent or, importantly, to mitigate an adverse effect on learners has been insufficient. As long as awarding bodies remain compliant with regulatory requirements and protect the interests of learners, they should not consider themselves to be at risk of monetary penalties. And, therefore, I would ask Members of the Chamber to approve these regulations this afternoon.