Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. The first words that most of us speak usually come as a result of listening to our families and copying them. By speaking Welsh with their children, parents can create language practices that last a lifetime. The use of language between parents and their children, or the transmission of language, as it’s called, is one of the most important elements of language planning. Work has been done to support the use of Welsh in families for 20 years and more. Now it is time for us to take the next step as part of our journey towards doubling the use of Welsh and reaching 1 million speakers by 2050.

Our draft policy on transmission and use of the Welsh language in families sets out what we propose to do over the next decade. Today I’m asking everyone who wants to see an increase in the use of the Welsh language to contribute to the consultation on this important policy. As is set out in our Cymraeg 2050 strategy, Government can’t control which languages families speak, nor would we wish to do so. But we can do more to help parents to speak more Welsh.

I recognise that the linguistic situation varies from one family to another. In my case, I spoke Welsh with my mother, but English with my father. Welsh is the language I use with my children, and I even made it a condition of marriage that my husband learn Welsh. You need to relax: I'm certainly not suggesting that in this policy.

In our family, the language that we spoke to our children was a very conscious decision, as is the case for some other families, too, I'm sure. But that's definitely not true in all instances. The situation also varies across Wales, and we must be aware of that. Even in areas with higher percentages of Welsh speakers, we need to pay close attention to the language practices within families. Doing so is important in order to sustain Welsh-speaking communities. The 2011 census shows that, even in households where both adults in a couple are Welsh speakers, about 20 per cent of children aged three to four do not speak Welsh. In homes where there are two adults and where one of them is a Welsh speaker, fewer than half of the children aged three to four can speak Welsh.

So, this draft policy focuses on four aims: to inspire children and young people to speak Welsh to their children in the future; reignite the Welsh language skills of those who may not have used Welsh since their school days, or who have lost confidence in their language skills, to speak Welsh with their own children; support and encourage the use of Welsh within families where not everybody speaks Welsh; and to support Welsh-speaking families to speak Welsh with their children.

The actions that we are proposing include: developing new support for families based on the latest thinking in behaviour change; trialling a language use programme based on a successful project from the Basque Country; helping the education workforce to encourage pupils to speak more Welsh in order to create the language transmitters of the future; and creating networks for parents to be able to support each other. This is innovative work, not only for us in the Welsh Government, but also internationally. While I want us to lead the way, we also need to work together. We need to learn from other countries and other sectors, as well as share our findings with them.

We'll be consulting on this policy until 5 May, and we'll publish a final policy later this year. It is vital that we hear a range of voices on the proposals in this draft policy. I am particularly keen to hear the views of parents who lack confidence in their Welsh language skills so we can better understand what would help them. I want to hear from parents who had Welsh-medium education but who no longer use Welsh, or who might not have spoken Welsh socially while they were in school. There are also those parents who can speak Welsh but do not consider that speaking Welsh with their children is an option for them. We need to support all these parents to speak more Welsh with their children.

It's going to take time for us to see the results of this work. I'm talking here about intergenerational behaviour change. But we must also act now to help families speak more Welsh, and that's the aim of this policy. Thank you.