So, we agree on the challenges facing us, but it is completely evident that we do not agree on the way forward. In our recommendations, we focused on not only what needs to change but how that change should be delivered. We wanted practical solutions that offered the big changes needed if we are serious about breaking those low-skills traps. We set ourselves the ambition of being constructive, offering the Minister practical, helpful and grounded recommendations. So it was very disappointing that the Welsh Government spent £10,000 on an independent review of RSPs, a review that was commissioned after our inquiry had started. And if you read it, you’ll even see it uses the evidence that we collected from witnesses. So it is hard to reconcile this action by Welsh Government and its response with the respect it should have for an inquiry of this Assembly. 

But moving back to our report, I want to talk about three key themes that the report presents, and the Welsh Government's response to them. Firstly, we wanted to offer clarity and focus. We recommended giving the partnerships a new name, regional skills advisory boards, to reflect a new role as expert advisers. The point here was that the advisory roles be the thinkers, not the doers in a wider skills system. They were to advise not only on skills supply, but also on stimulating employer demand, which, as I've already said, is absolutely fundamental to breaking low-skills traps. Here, we are not alone in our recommendation. Professor Phil Brown, in his 'Wales 4.0' review, also recommended that RSPs play a role in stimulating employer demand for higher level skills.

But where we wanted clarity, the Welsh Government’s response has offered confusion. In its response, the Welsh Government accepted the recommendation on the advisory role, but then goes on to say that it rejects the point that they should advise on addressing the traps and it should not be their role to stimulate future employer demand for higher level skills. Who, other than a partnership already made up of employers and training provider representatives, is better placed to offer that advice? Whether the recommendation has been accepted or not, I don't think that's entirely clear. The response to this recommendation also provides an example of the carelessness apparent throughout the response from the Welsh Government, I'm afraid to say.

The Government explains that it rejects the rebranding to 'regional skills advisory boards' saying that the word 'board' implies decision-making powers. Then, what about the Wales Employment and Skills Board and the Wales Apprenticeship Advisory Board? Or, indeed, that RSPs themselves already exist as boards.

It doesn’t get much better in the Government’s response to our second key idea. We set out two ways of improving the ability of the partnerships to collect and use data to engage with businesses. These two ways firstly draw on the extremely valuable assets Wales has in our world-class research at our universities, and secondly, on the network of business contacts that our publicly funded apprenticeship providers have. Any business knows the value of a ready-made network of contacts and good consultancy. But the Government rejected the recommendation for a more formal partnership with universities, and I'm afraid the bigger picture was missed here again. Lost to, I'm afraid, a petty response patronisingly explaining that universities are already represented on the—as the Government response calls them—boards. 

It is frustrating to see that the point of this recommendation that RSP boards harness the expertise of our scholars and researchers flies so far over the head of the Welsh Government, and it does a disservice, I think, to our academies of researchers that work in our universities. It is clear to us that, with the £15 million Higher Education Funding Council for Wales fund intended to support university and business co-operation, there is a clear opportunity for universities to be helped to bring to bear their research expertise to strengthen RSP research.

Finally, we set out to empower our further education colleges to meet the challenges set out by the new boards, stepping back from micro-managing college curriculums to an extent that no other skills provider is subject to. Instead, we wanted to see colleges given the space to wield their considerable expertise and experience to respond to the advice of the partnership boards in innovative ways. When we launched the report, I visited apprentices at Cardiff and Vale College, and I was struck and impressed by the deep links the college had forged itself with local and regional employers.

This recommendation—one of the most important in the report—received one of the shortest and most dismissive responses, arguing that it would impact on a Welsh Government funding process that they themselves have changed several times in the last decade. That a change would upset a Welsh Government process is no argument for the status quo. Our colleges have close and deep business links. They help develop the transferable skills employers are crying out for, no matter what courses the learners are on. And they have a social mission that must be balanced with the need to respond to industry skills demand. We should respect their expertise and we should trust their judgment and, in return, we expect them to meet the challenges set out in future skills plans using that expertise and judgment. Once again, the bigger picture, that space for innovation, missed by the Welsh Government, in my view.

So, I'm sorry it's been a very negative response, but the response from the Welsh Government was a negative one to our committee report. But, I do hope that the Minister might be able to respond positively, ultimately, in the Government's response. It has proposed that it is not going to change a single thing about its approach, but I hope the Minister will take a different view in his closing remarks later on, and I look forward to Members taking part in the debate this afternoon.