Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to begin by thanking Suzy Davies for bringing this debate to the Chamber today and begin by stating that I believe in Wales becoming not just a trilingual but a multilingual nation. Irrespective of the current political changes that we face, I recognise the importance of teaching international languages within our education system. I'm committed to ensuring that our learners experience the range of benefits from learning international languages, especially at a time when it's more important than ever that our future workforce have the language skills to be able to compete in the global marketplace—a case that was made by Suzy in her opening speech.

I also accept that there are very real challenges associated with international language learning, and that's why, under Wales's new transformational new curriculum, all learners will start experiencing international languages from a much earlier age. As was stated, the new curriculum brings language learning together into one area of learning and experience, languages, literacy and communication. This will provide an opportunity for teachers in Wales to develop and share expertise in language learning to give our children and young people the best opportunity to develop communication skills in Welsh and English and in international languages. In our new curriculum, modern foreign languages is included within the international language section and learners will be experiencing international languages with clear expectations of their progress whilst at a primary school.

Our new curriculum structure will offer exciting opportunities to create a rich and effective multilingual policy for language education in Wales. Learning about languages and culture will play a crucial role in our aim to develop ambitious, capable learners who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world. This area of learning and experience will encourage learners to be aware of the links between languages as they develop an appreciation for the origins of words and an interest in language patterns. They will be encouraged to transfer what they have learnt about how languages work, for example in English or Welsh, to learning and using that experience while acquiring and learning international languages. This multilingual approach will, I believe, ignite learners' enthusiasm and provide them with a firm foundation for a lifelong interest in learning subsequent languages and literature from Wales and the world.

To build capacity in the system, this year I provided £188,000 to regional consortia for them to support primary schools to develop their language provision ahead of the introduction of the new curriculum. I'm really encouraged that our primary schools are already increasing their MFL provision, and I've supported this with further additional funding for primary school teachers to take part in the Open University's LXT learning to teach languages in primary schools scheme, which offers beginners' courses for French, German, Spanish and Mandarin, but I am also acutely aware of the decrease in the number of learners studying modern foreign languages in secondary schools in Wales. And Suzy is right, we are not alone in this, it's part of a general decline across the United Kingdom, and the reasons for that are many and sometimes quite complex. Now, that is why, since 2015, over £2.5 million has been invested in the Welsh Government's Global Futures programme to improve and promote foreign languages. This funding has resulted in new centres of excellence, where schools work in partnership with universities and partners to improve the teaching and learning experience. This year, in addition to the continued funding for our award-winning MFL student mentoring programme, which is aimed at increasing uptake of languages at GCSE level, I'm also funding a pilot for a modern foreign language student mentoring programme aimed specifically at increasing uptake of language also at A-level.