I thank Lynne Neagle for those questions. I've also visited the young offenders unit at Parc prison, and I think the fact that 40 per cent of those young people placed there have been formerly looked after is an absolute reason why we have to do something about this. And that’s why we're taking action, for that very sort of reason, because that is the consequence of the care system as we've been running it so far. So, I feel deeply committed to trying to stop that sort of thing happening. And, really, that’s why we're doing what we're doing.

I know Lynne Neagle says that she’s uneasy about the setting of targets or expectation of reductions—whatever expression we use. And again, as I did with Helen Mary Jones, I'd like to reassure her that this setting of targets is being done by the local authorities—they are setting their own targets. We are going along to support them and discuss it with them. And the whole purpose of doing it is to do it in a co-productive way. I think further along in her statement she said she felt that it hadn't been done in a co-productive way, so I'd be really interested if she could perhaps explain that to me in more detail, because, certainly, the intention has been for the officials from Welsh Government to work with the local authorities in a co-productive way to come forward with something that is jointly accepted. And with the majority of local authorities, that has happened. So, I'd be grateful if she would discuss that with me.

In the care crisis report, yes, absolutely, I know that there is no one simple explanation as to why there had been this big rise in children coming into care. And I think we'd all agree that it’s a whole mass of reasons, including austerity and poverty and many, many things that you can't pin down to one thing. There isn't, as she says, a simple answer. So, what we can do is do our best to prevent that happening by doing what we can to prevent those children coming into care, stop them coming in, and to help some of the other children to be reunited with their families, to prevent the re-entering of care. For example, in terms of extra resources—which I think she mentioned further on—we have put this £2.3 million into the adoption services, which is tremendously important and has been so welcomed by the sector, acknowledging the huge need there is for support to be given after adoption actually takes place in order to prevent re-entry into the care system, which does sometimes happen when adoptive parents take on very difficult, damaged children. So, I think that's a huge step that this has finally been acknowledged and money has gone in and that money is to support the adoption services.

To go on further with her questions, who was responsible for the risk assessing, well, the local authorities are risk assessing while they're doing things all the time. We are not trying to take away anything from local authorities; we want to help support them to achieve the Wales-wide aim of trying to reduce the number of children who are coming in. We have agreed that there would be regular visits and regular monitoring by the Welsh Government. I repeat the co-production. Perhaps I could have a discussion with her about how she would see children’s rights impact assessments and how she would see those operating in these sorts of circumstances.

And, absolutely, local authorities are placing children out of county and out of country because the places are absolutely not available in Wales. One of the things that we are doing is trying to get the children's agenda on the agenda for the regional partnership boards in order to develop facilities within Wales, and also the ICF fund, which is also being used to develop facilities. Some regions have got plans that have been agreed in order to try to fill in the gaps that undoubtedly exist. She's absolutely right: we have to put more resources in. We are providing resources via those boards. Some regions have already started them.

So, I don't think we should get really too hung up on the numbers thing. It's an overall effort that we want to try to reduce the numbers of children in care and I think what we must do is look at it in an overall way in terms of trying to get a movement in this field, which as I say is rapidly escalating.