Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and, of course, I move the motion. First of all—and I know you will all join me in this—can I offer my congratulations to all the students, teachers and staff for the commitment and work that they've put into this year's exams? This debate is no criticism of them. It is about holding Welsh Government to account on how they're making—sorry, and how they're making it perhaps a little more difficult for us to do that. Let me congratulate also all those who passed non-A-levels and non-GCSEs too. Time and time again, we stand up in this Chamber and we talk about parity of esteem between academic and vocational qualifications, but the focus is pretty much always on the former. So, let's begin with this as an example of uncertainty dressed up as good news.

The Welsh Government amendment to our debate abounds with whataboutery, exactly as it did in last year's debate on this subject, but there is one statistic of which it looks like we should be proud, and that's a modest increase in the number of students attaining A* to C in science subjects. Now, Members will recollect that the number of entrants for GCSE sciences is increasing, partly due to the deliberate insistence that some students move from BTEC to GCSE, as the BTEC course limited students to a maximum attainment of a GCSE grade C equivalent. Yet it's not possible to establish how many of those students who would formerly have entered a BTEC course got a C or lower at GCSE, and, conversely, Qualifications Wales tells me that it is not possible to break down the figures for those who did take the BTEC this year to see how many of them attained the C equivalent. In short, at this stage, we can't tell whether moving students from one qualification to the other has made any difference to the standard of attainment or, indeed, whether staying on a BTEC course may have been better for particular students. The reason I'm raising this particular smoke and mirrors right at the beginning of this debate is not just to highlight that obfuscation surrounding what looks like, at first instance, good news, but to challenge you, Minister, on your failure to act on the status of qualifications that bring out different strengths in pupils.

In 2014-15, 19,775 pupils obtained a BTEC qualification. In 2017-18, which is the most recent figure I can find, only 8,425 learners sat BTECs. I want to know what that says about your ministerial confidence in so-called vocational qualifications. There is no point, as you did last week, advising Nick Ramsay that all schools in his area are offering an appropriate number of vocational courses, when your decisions have done nothing to convince parents and pupils that vocational qualifications are valuable. And inflating those non-general exam figures further by including the skills challenge from the bac is something of a sleight of hand, which I think needs pointing out.

With teachers as well as parents now looking to the GCSE and the A-level as the only gold standard, there is an even greater risk that those who could reach excellence by teaching to different aptitudes will be denied routes to achieving their potential. And, anyway, let's face it: waving apparently shiny science results in our faces doesn't disguise the fact that there was again a fall in the proportion of learners securing A* to C grades in English language, maths and second-language Welsh. You can't be pleased about that, Minister. These are the gateway qualifications to just about any next step into training, work or further and higher education, and it is the very point that I raised in the debate on the motion to annul the School Performance and Absence Targets (Wales) (Amendments) Regulations 2019, back in July. These are the regulations that remove the requirement for school governors to set targets for these subjects and the need to report on the percentage of pupils who achieve these targets in the years pre GCSE. Now, unfortunately, as that piece of secondary legislation was part of a suite of changes, it wouldn't have made sense to pull out that regulation, but you've singularly failed, Minister, to answer the point about the crucial nature of those particular key skills. It's why we've tabled point 4 of the motion.