Diolch. I'd like to start by thanking the children's commissioner for her tireless work on behalf of our children and young people. I know that Assembly Members will agree with me that the commissioner plays a crucial role as an independent champion advocating for children's rights and well-being.

As Deputy Minister leading the work across the Welsh Government on children's rights, I welcome the children's commissioner's annual report, its important recommendations, and her scrutiny of the Welsh Government. And it's particularly important to highlight the work of the commissioner this year, as 2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we have, as a Government, made every effort to mark. In Wales, we're extremely proud of our progress on children's rights, being the first UK nation to appoint a children's commissioner in 2001. We adopted the UNCRC as the basis for our work with children in 2004, and enshrined children's rights in law through the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure in 2011. And the Measure means that all Ministers are required, by law, to consider children's rights before making or reviewing our policies or legislation. This legislation ensures that children and their rights are at the heart of everything we do, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission recently concluded that the 2011 Measure had led to a significant positive impact on policy in Wales. They said:

'We have no reservations in concluding that the Measure has achieved its objective of embedding the Convention in policy-making in Wales.'

A very practical demonstration of our commitment to children's rights is our work to bring forward legislation to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. This is in line with our commitment to a child's right to grow up in a safe and nurturing environment. We believe that physically punishing children is simply not acceptable in Wales. Article 12 of the UNCRC emphasises the central importance of hearing and taking into account the views of children and young people when taking decisions that affect them. It's for this reason that we have introduced legislation to ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the Assembly election in 2021, and local government elections in 2022. I know these reforms are considered as radical by some, even controversial for some, but I think what we're doing is demonstrating our commitment to children's rights by making progress in these really crucial areas.

Let me now turn specifically to the commissioner's annual report and the Government's response to it. In this year's annual report, the commissioner has made 14 recommendations for the Welsh Government across children's services, health, education and transport. We published our response to the annual report on 3 December, which sets out our comprehensive response to each of the commissioner's recommendations as well as the actions we have taken or intend to take in these areas.

Our commitment to children's rights, I think, is clearly demonstrated by the Welsh Government accepting, or accepting in principle, 12 of the 14 recommendations in this year's annual report, and I think this shows the seriousness with which the Welsh Government takes children's rights and our absolute commitment to work very closely with the children's commissioner.

I know that Assembly colleagues will be keen to discuss the annual report and our response in more detail, but I'd like to highlight briefly one important example of the way in which we are responding positively to the recommendations in the annual report. This is in the crucial area of tackling bullying. This is an area that the children's commissioner has done a lot of valuable work in, and I know that many Assembly colleagues have got a very keen interest in this area of work. The children's commissioner's recommendation in this area calls for the Welsh Government to ensure that schools keep a record of all incidents and types of reported bullying. The commissioner would like to see all schools use this information to plan, monitor and evaluate their preventative and responsive anti-bullying work.

Now, the Welsh Government has accepted this recommendation. On 6 November this year, 2019, we published new anti-bullying statutory guidance, 'Rights, respect, equality', to help schools deal with bullying. This guidance sets out the expectation that schools record all incidents of bullying, outlining the specific types of bullying and that they monitor processes regularly and analyse data as part of their self-evaluation. The guidance is clear that schools should respond to specific trends and emerging issues in a swift and effective manner, in consultation with learners and their parents/carers.

I think it is with practical reforms like this and the others in our response that we will ensure that we make progress towards the health, happiness and safety of all our children, because it is their right and it's our responsibility.

Where we have the levers for change, we will act in the interest of children's rights. We have to acknowledge, however, that decisions made in Westminster profoundly affect children's lives here in Wales, and I think that has been amply illustrated in the debate we've had previously—