I do think this is a very worthwhile and significant report that we're discussing today, because education is so vitally important and because history is such a big part and must be such a big part of education. Obviously, all of us need to have as good an understanding as we can arrive at in terms of the history of the world, our local history, our national history, if we're really going to understand the past and, of course, its relevance to the present and the future. It's also very important, I believe, for our sense of place and sense of identity, which is really important in terms of having a base from which to sally forth into the world, that we have that sense of history, and particularly, I think, that sense of local and national history.

What I'd like to emphasise today, Dirprwy Lywydd, is that I do believe that in many respects teaching history should begin with local history before building up to regional and national history, and from there European and international, because I think it's easier to engage children and people generally in history if you use their local surroundings, place names, names of areas, industrial history, and, indeed, the history of diverse communities.

Growing up in Newport, and going to a primary school in a multi-ethnic area, it's disappointing, I think—I know it was a long time ago—but disappointing to look back and reflect on the lack of any of that in my education at the time. There was very little that I remember about local history even though we had the industrial history of the docks, the industrial history of coal and steel coming through those docks, the chartist uprising in Newport, which was so significant in terms of the fight for democracy much further afield than Newport itself, and, of course, the diversity where we had waves of inward migration, such as my own mother coming to Newport as part of the Irish emigration and immigration, and, of course, West Indian and Asian.

None of that was reflected very much, if at all, as I recall in my education in primary school. And in terms of the Welsh language, as I recall, I don't think we even learned the national anthem in Welsh. So, so much was lacking, and I know we've made a lot of progress since then, but I do believe there is still quite a lot of work yet to do and I think this report encapsulates much of that and sets it out in a very concise and focused way, and I do believe the recommendations are very important and I welcome the response from Welsh Government to many of those recommendations, though not all.

I think it is important in terms of diversity that we reflect on the evidence that the committee received, Dirprwy Lywydd, and that we do involve Ethnic Youth Support Team and Race Council Cymru in helping tell that history of the inward migration and the experience of those ethnic minority populations to our children today, not just in the most diverse schools, but in schools generally.

I also think that we can make cross-reference here to another report that the culture committee has carried out on 'Count me in!' and using the arts and culture to address social exclusion. Because our museums, I think, are obviously very relevant, and our cultural and arts organisations more generally, in that effort to educate our children and that should be very much the case in terms of history. So, we should be getting the children out into the museums as much as we possibly can and to other organisations' bases, and, indeed, getting those organisations into our schools. So, I think we need to make those what I think are fairly obvious connections in how we take all of this forward.

So, for me, Dirprwy Lywydd, it really should start with local history, I think, in terms of the progress that we need to make because I think it is much easier to engage our children and young people on that basis and we can then develop the stories from that point.