Thank you very much for the statement. I agree entirely with what you say, namely that language transmission is one of the most important elements of language planning. In March 2017, myself and Plaid Cymru published this, which is 'Reaching the Million, which was commissioned by Iaith, the language planning centre, one of the main policy and independent language planning agencies in Wales. The intention of this document was to outline some of the main strategic priorities that need to be adopted in order to increase the number of Welsh speakers to 1 million by 2050. There was quite a bit in this document on language transmission and that particular element of the work, because we did feel it was so very important. We did state in this document that:

'So that a more sustainable future can be ensured for the Welsh language' we need to set

'an initial national target' and what we were suggesting was

'to ensure that 35% of 3-4 year olds speak Welsh as a consequence of language transfer within families and socialisation in the community. In terms of numbers, this could mean ensuring that more than 25,000 children, annually, are raised to speak Welsh by the time they are 3-4 years of age. This would also require significant efforts to substantially increase both the number and percentage socialised to speak Welsh in households with only one adult Welsh speaker and also in those households where there are no adult Welsh speakers.'

So, I would like to know: will your new policy set a similar target, and do you agree with the target of 35 per cent that I've just mentioned? Our document is still a living document, and it's still very relevant. It did go on to propose a number of steps that could be taken in terms of delivering this. I have no time to go into that in detail this afternoon, unfortunately.

You do also state in your statement that this work or this draft policy is ground-breaking. But with all due respect, you contradict yourself because you also say, and I quote:

'Work has been done to support the use of Welsh in families for 20 years and more.'

Yes. As Suzy mentioned, there's been the Twf programme. I'm highly aware of the entirely innovative work that that project did, and it was a Welsh Government programme. For once, I will praise the Government to the rafters for bringing this programme forward. It did encourage parents to speak Welsh to their babies and young children, and their target audiences were families of mixed language where only one parent was a Welsh speaker. I remember seeing Twf in operation when my own children were younger, with midwives working with families where one of the parents was a non-Welsh speaker. So, this is something akin to déjà vu in reading this statement today. Would you agree with me that bringing the Twf programme to an end was a huge mistake? I know that Cymraeg i Blant has replaced it, but the budget for the programme was £200,000 less than the budget for the Twf programme, and in my view, making all of those changes was a retrograde step in terms of language planning.

Finally, I would like to understand what this new policy’s relationship will be with the siarter iaith framework within the new curriculum, because this is another innovative approach that encourages children in schools the length and breadth of the country to speak Welsh outside the classroom. Therefore, clearly, those children could go on to being parents that transmit the Welsh language to their own children. For me, the continuation of the siarter iaith is crucial. There has been great delay with the evaluation work and as I understand it, the guidance for implementing the siarter within the new curriculum won't be published until the summer term, whilst there is guidance on all of the other areas of the curriculum already published. For me, this is a signal that perhaps this is not a priority for Government and in a way, it contradicts what you are trying to deliver.

To conclude, I am very pleased that you will be giving specific attention to this particular issue, because as I've explained, I do think it's crucially important if we are to reach the 1 million Welsh speakers.