My apologies, Llywydd, I was so busy concentrating on what was going on on the screen and making sure that I'd unmuted myself there, I forgot to move the microphone, I'm very sorry.

And I couldn't properly see the microphone, because it was in your hair, so—.

Lockdown hair. [Laughter.] I'll start again. My apologies.

1. Will the Minister make a statement on the future of the higher education sector, following the Wales Governance Centre's report about the financial impact of COVID-19 on universities in Wales? TQ429

Thank you, Helen Mary Jones, for the question. I'm very proud that our universities have all stepped up in the fight against COVID-19, and their contribution to research, innovation, skills and employment will be vital for our economic recovery as a nation. We've taken steps to provide practical support to the sector, and we will continue to do so.

I'm grateful to the Minister for her reply and for the confirmation that she gives, of course, that she fully understands the importance of the sector. But I wonder if she can tell us a bit more about what the nature of the support that's been provided is. The Scottish Government, for example, as we know, has provided £75 million of research funding to its universities. Now, obviously, its model of funding universities is different from ours, and I wouldn't necessarily expect our Minister to respond in exactly the same way, but she has acknowledged herself the huge importance—5 per cent of Welsh gross value added, 17,000 direct jobs, 50,000 jobs in the wider economy depending on our academic institutions. So, can she tell us a little more about what efforts the Welsh Government are making, and are planning to make, to ensure the longer term sustainability of the universities? Because I'm sure that she will agree with me that the Wales Governance Centre report made sobering reading—not surprising reading, I'm sure, to her—and that it is essential that we protect this vital sector of our economic structure as well as our academic structure here in Wales. 

Indeed, and Helen Mary is correct to say that universities will need to be there to help us climb our way out of this economic emergency. As we've said before, this is an economic emergency as well as a public health one.

We have published a policy statement outlining the actions that we are taking to support financial pressures. We've provided an indicative annual grant to the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, which is an increase on last year's grant. We are bringing forward Student Loan Company tuition fee payments to institutions so that a greater than usual proportion of that funding will be available to them in the autumn. We have sought to introduce admissions restraint measures that work for the Welsh sector and can be regulated by HEFCW to bring some much needed stability to our institutions moving forward. And we are working with Ministers from across the United Kingdom on the research and innovation taskforce to address the impact of COVID-19. Perhaps more close to home, we are continually in touch with HEFCW and Universities Wales to explore the options for any possible additional financial support that the Welsh Government may be able to be in a position to provide to help stabilise the sector ahead of the next academic year. We want to do that in a way that is really thoughtful, doesn't pick favourites, is transparent and ensures that we underpin the infrastructure that Helen Mary has rightly said will be important for this nation going forward, both in terms of academic excellence, but also the economy. 

Minister, there's a particularly brutal aspect to this part of the consequences of COVID-19, and that's that the most successful and research-based universities are the most vulnerable, because they have so much reliance on international economic patterns underlying a lot of their research, and their opportunities out there with global partners. But they also attract a lot of foreign students. That model, for at least a year or two, has now completely been removed, and has been instantly. What rapid response measures do you now propose to take, or are considering, to shore up our great universities, Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor—the ones that have research capacity? It's really important that we look at this and move quickly. 

David, you're right: we have to be particularly concerned about the impact on research. We know that the fees from international students have often gone a long way in providing support for research activities in our universities.

Earlier today, I was very pleased to announce in excess of £1 million to further support the Sêr Cymru programme in supporting research in a direct response to the COVID-19 crisis. As I said in answer to Helen Mary, we continue to have discussions with HEFCW, but I'm sure that David would recognise that the scale of the financial support required to address, potentially, shortfalls as a result of a potential drop in foreign students goes beyond what is available within the devolved Governments' budgets, and that's why I'm very pleased to work alongside Ministers from Scotland and Northern Ireland and the English Government on the research and innovation taskforce. My message to them is very, very clear: universities will be making decisions about their research capability not in the autumn, when indications around student recruitment will become clearer. We need to be able to do that now. There are established mechanisms for where we can hold universities accountable for spending research money, QR money, and we continue to look to work together to be able to respond positively in a timely fashion to address these decisions, which institutions will be making in the next couple of months. 

Thank you, Minister. The next question is to the Minister for Housing and Local Government, and Delyth Jewell will ask the question.