Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservative spokesperson, Suzy Davies.

Thank you, Llywydd. Minister, last night, both of us attended a CollegesWales event to learn more about the upshots of Work Welsh. Again, hidden skills were acknowledged, not only within the workforce, but within the student body too. The majority of lecturers, students and apprentices noted that, in their view, they don't have any Welsh language skills or fundamental second language skills, and that they prefer to study through the medium of English only, which is disappointing.

Almost all of the students and apprentices will have attended schools in Wales, and Welsh would have been a compulsory element of their education. So, I welcome the coleg Cymraeg's proposals for further education and apprenticeships, and the work ongoing with Work Welsh, but there's a long way to go to overcome the impacts of the education system and a working environment that makes Welsh speakers shy in using the language. How will you measure the success of the scheme in FE and apprenticeships, and how long will long term be?

Thank you very much. It was good to see in that meeting last night. I do think that we have a problem in relation to a number of people who've been through Welsh-medium education who don't have the confidence, perhaps, to use the language, in particular in the further education colleges. And that's why this group is so essential, I think, so that we do have the coleg Cymraeg, which encourages people to use the Welsh language. But, also, one of the things that they've done is to create ambassadors to try and get people the same age as the students to convey that message themselves. And I think that is extremely important, and a step forward.

One of the things that we have to do is to ensure that we know who can speak some Welsh, and one of the things we're doing in the education field, for example, is that we have undertaken an annual census so that we know now who in the education field can speak Welsh and is teaching in schools that aren't Welsh-medium schools. So, I do think that, ultimately, we may need to do that in these further education colleges.

I do think that Work Welsh—it is quite a new project still, and we're just starting out on this journey, but the feedback we've had is very positive, and I think that we have to give some more time to see what the impact is, and whether there's anything that we need to do to improve the way that we're undertaking this work. But what we've done to start with is to concentrate on those areas where we know that the Welsh language is completely essential, such as care and childcare and so forth.

Thank you for that response. Personally, I welcome the idea of ambassadors, particularly as it was a idea Welsh Conservative idea to have them within the workplace. And if it can work in FE, then that can only be positive. Now, I accept what you said on how to proceed in this area, but one of the core elements of the programme is to secure sufficient numbers of bilingual staff to teach throughout Wales in all priority areas, such as those you've already mentioned. But the coleg Cymraeg is calling for a staff development programme on a national basis to support bilingual learning over the medium term.

Your proposal notes that 300 additional secondary school teachers will be required to teach Welsh, and another 500 to teach through the medium of Welsh by next year to be on the right track to for 2050. And it's clear that that isn't going to happen. So, it's unlikely that students and lecturers of the future will get a meaningfully different experience in terms of the use of the Welsh language after they leave school and go to college or undertake an apprenticeship. Eighteen coleg Cymraeg tutors are introducing Cymraeg Gwaith/Work Welsh, so how can you expect FE and the coleg Cymraeg to introduce a national programme and transform Welsh-medium provision in the post-16 sector when staff and students will come into that sector with skills that are no better than those they currently have?

Thank you. Clearly, this is something that is a challenge for us. And I think it's important that we acknowledge that. I will be interested to read the strategy that the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol has launched this lunchtime to see what they foresee as the best way forward. But I do think that what's important is that we do what we can to increase the numbers in this field, and we are taking very specific steps.

I've mentioned the annual census in the workplace. Initial teacher training courses now include 25 hours of Welsh, and that is a step forward. We have Iaith Athrawon Yfory, which has an incentive of £5,000 to encourage people to act and to train through the medium of Welsh. There is a sabbatical scheme also. We have work in terms of collaboration with the regional consortia. We have all sorts of steps that we're already taking. There are about 15 things that we're doing to take these steps forward. I don't think that it’s one thing, and that’s why we're taking advantage of the opportunity. Each one of these, of course, will feed in, I think, ultimately, to how many people are available to work in this field.

Thank you for that response, but the question remains: what does the medium term look like and what does the long term look like?

Just to conclude on that: yesterday evening, we were discussing the regional skills partnerships, and the fact that Welsh language skills have been a theme that has emerged through these partnerships. If I understand things correctly, I would expect that in the public sector, of course, because of the standards, but I know that your Welsh in business officials have recognised the need to normalise the Welsh language in parts of the private sector too. I’ve asked on this issue in the past, but what’s the emphasis of the skills partnerships, or what emphasis do they place on this?

Thank you. Just to finish the previous point, I do think that we're likely to reach the targets in terms of the primary sector. I do hope that this annual census of the workforce will perhaps allow us to see whether it’s possible to move people perhaps who aren't teaching through the medium of Welsh into areas where they can teach through the medium of Welsh. We'll have to see what that census shows.

In terms of Welsh in business—and thank you for your interest in that—I do think that we have to do much more in terms of the partnerships, to ensure that they feel that they have something to offer, and that they are taking the reins. In terms of business, we don't have standards in the private sector as a whole, but I do think that perhaps we can look more at the ambassadors that you mentioned. If that works in the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, perhaps further to what we're doing with the 12 officials that we have who are going around Wales, providing advice to people, perhaps they would be able to help to see who could be champions on our behalf.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Dai Lloyd.

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, you state in your international strategy that, and I quote,

'The Welsh Government has a network of 21 overseas offices in 12 countries'.

Will you therefore publish a specific strategy for these offices, and identify where exactly it is that our presence needs to be developed?

Diolch. We have 21 offices around the world. They have targets that are set out. I don't think they all need strategies, but we have somebody managing those offices centrally from here in Wales. And of course, every office is going to be slightly different, because what we do in China may be very different from what we need to be doing in Germany. So, all of the offices need to be tweaked and need to be slightly different. We now give a read-out of what those activities are to the committee that monitors the work that we're undertaking within the department.

Your strategy goes on to say that you will raise Wales's profile by working with Welsh diaspora, alumni and partner organisations, focusing in the first year on the USA and Japan, and identifying influential Welsh people around the world. You say also that you will create a comprehensive database of Welsh links, with an aim to create 500,000 contacts in five years. However, the international strategy doesn't go on to elaborate what exactly you'll do with those links once they've been forged. For example, will you be looking into twinning arrangements? You will recall there was a business and university enterprises trade mission from Oklahoma state here last year. And may I just say, my youngest son lives in Oklahoma—I know the state well. And they wanted a twinning arrangement: Oklahoma City with Cardiff, and their second city, Tulsa, with Swansea. Are there moves to suggest that sort of thing? And also, for example, would you be willing to look at, in the USA context again, state-level joint-working co-operation, say, with Wisconsin? Back in the day, Wisconsin had 300 Welsh language chapels. It had a huge inpouring at the time of Welsh people, as did Ohio and New York state. So, Pennsylvania—you name a US state and those 1.8 million people there of Welsh descent are liberally sprinkled everywhere. So, are you looking to forge state-level co-operation as well?

I think the important thing in relation to diaspora, first of all, is we've commissioned some work on this, because there are a lot of people who are active in this space already, and the challenge for us is how to get them co-operating and working together so that they're not competing and that it's easy for people in Wales and abroad to understand where is the best platform. So, we've commissioned some work on that and we're waiting for that to come back. 

But I think that, within the diaspora strategy, there will be different levels of what we're expecting to do. So, it may be that we could use some very famous Welsh people simply to shout on behalf of Wales and that would be something great in itself to raise our profile. I am pretty focused also on the economy. So, I think there will be a very clear diaspora strategy in relation to how we drive the economy and that could be how we help companies in Wales to link up with members of the diaspora abroad or even chambers of commerce or whatever—any help they can get, if they want to export. And the same thing with inward investment, it may be that we can use that as a channel. I think that will need a lot of resources. If we're going further towards what you were talking about, that would really demand a huge amount of additional resource. And I think, if I'm honest, I don't think we have the capacity within the department to take on that kind of thing. But what I would like to do is to try and create a platform where people can get on with that themselves, rather than the Government being a go-between constantly. This has got to be a strategy that is owned by the people of Wales as well.

And finally, the strategy also mentioned the success of the recent Rugby World Cup in Japan in terms of promoting, and I quote: 

'Wales' technology and digital, creative, healthcare and advanced manufacturing sectors'.

So, what is the Government's plans to continue to promote Wales as a place to visit and co-operate on culture in the Japanese context now, especially bearing in mind the strong interest in all things Welsh that exists in Japan? Would you, for example, consider inviting the Japanese ambassador to the Eisteddfod? And thinking of the next big sporting enterprise, which is the football—the Euro 2020 this summer—as Wales march into the finals and win that competition, what is the Welsh Government doing on the back of that anticipated success to promote Wales?

Thank you very much. As it happens, this morning, I have had a meeting, along with my colleague, to talk about how we can bind the cultural and sporting assets that we have in Wales and we can use those to promote Wales internationally. So, that was an important meeting. 

Part of what we're trying to do is to see how we can really work as team Wales and to build and work from each other. Certainly, the Football Association of Wales let us know today that they're very open to working with us in relation to the European cup. I think we'll probably, if we're honest, have more interest in promoting ourselves in Italy than we would in Azerbaijan, so we've got to work out what is the best way to do that. It was interesting to have a discussion on the weekend with the British ambassador to Italy, who happens to be Welsh, who is very, very keen to help us. So, we'll be working up a programme now, hopefully similar to what we did in Japan.

On top of that, one of the examples that was given this morning is that the National Museum Wales are hoping to do an exhibition in Japan in 2022, and I think that's what we need to be looking at: what is the long-term framework that we can be looking at? The Welsh National Opera work about three years out. If we know that, can we build a trade mission around that? So, it's about how we can get the best for team Wales, but that needs a bit of co-ordination and that's what we were starting to thrash out this morning. 

And just in terms of inviting people here, the Japanese ambassador is coming to Wales very shortly but, on top of that, one of the projects we have organised this year is we're inviting ambassadors to Hay-on-Wye for the literature festival. So, that's going to be our first attempt to bring ambassadors here for a cultural event, where we'll have an opportunity to sell Wales on the back of that. It's probably worth just mentioning also that the German ambassador is coming to Wales next week, and that is a really important visit for us in terms of really underlining the fact that Germany is our key export market.  

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Question 3 [OAQ55051] has been withdrawn. Question 4, Mark Isherwood.