The following amendments have been selected: amendments 1, 3, 4 and 8 in the name of Darren Millar, amendment 2 in the name of Rebecca Evans, and amendments 5, 6 and 7 in the name of Neil McEvoy. If amendment 2 is agreed amendments 3 and 4 will be deselected.

The next item is the Plaid Cymru debate on the proposed new curriculum. I call on Siân Gwenllian to move the motion.

Motion NDM7342 Siân Gwenllian

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Declares its general support for the purpose of the proposed new curriculum, which is to enable learners to develop as:

a) ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives;

b) enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work;

c) ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world; and

d) healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society. 

2. Agrees that introducing the new curriculum offers a historic opportunity to right many structural injustices in Wales.

3. Welcomes the Welsh Government’s recognition that government has a responsibility to take specific steps to ensure that the curriculum guarantees a baseline of provision for young people across Wales as a matter of basic human rights and welcomes that some elements of the new curriculum will be mandatory as a result.

4. Agrees that the mandatory elements of the curriculum should include:

a) black and people of colour history; and

b) the history of Wales.

5. Agrees that the new curriculum should support all learners to be fluent in Welsh and English, but that English does not need to be included in the list of mandatory elements in order to achieve this aim.

Motion moved.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. The past few months have forced each and every one of us to look afresh at what is most important to us. It has also, unfortunately, highlighted the injustice and inequality that still pervade our society.

Before too long, we, as a legislature, will undertake the important work of scrutinising one of the most important pieces of legislation to come before this Senedd in its history—legislation that will give us an opportunity to wipe the slate clean for the first time and to create a curriculum that is tailor-made for Wales. 

Generally speaking, the vision underpinning the introduction of the new curriculum is one that we in Plaid Cymru agree with. It provides opportunities to realise a number of ambitions and to deliver many laudable aims. As we approach the publication of the curriculum and assessment Bill next week, we felt that it was timely to take this opportunity today to have a focused debate on the opportunities provided by the legislation to right injustice and to create a Wales that is more inclusive for all. 

This afternoon, I want to focus on the three things that the new curriculum needs to deliver. There are more than three things, of course, and during the Bill's journey through the Senedd, we will have an opportunity to discuss other important elements, such as mental and emotional health and well-being. But I want to focus today on three elements.

First of all, the new curriculum must ensure that the next generation of children and young people in Wales learn about the history of BAME people in order to prevent racism and to promote cultural diversity. Secondly, it must guarantee that every pupil learns about Welsh history, so that they have the opportunity to see the world through the prism of the country in which they study and grow. And thirdly, it must move us towards a situation where fluency in both our national languages becomes the norm rather than the exception, by ensuring that the curriculum facilitates and hastens the growth of Welsh-medium education. 

The Government has already accepted that certain elements of the curriculum should be made statutory within legislation in order to guarantee that certain elements are given deserved attention and delivered to all pupils without exception. It stands to reason that it's the responsibility of national government to put robust provision in place in legislation to safeguard children. And the Minister is therefore to be congratulated on her decision to ensure that sex and healthy relationship education is treated as an issue of basic human rights in Wales in the future. 

But where is the rationale for taking an entirely different course with the teaching of the history of our BAME communities? Where is the rationale in not applying the same considerations and the same criteria to these issues too? I heard the judge Ray Singh say recently that the voluntary approach to teaching these subjects hasn't worked and, as result, BAME history, according to his assessment, was all but absent from school lessons. Now, I do hasten to say that this is a systematic and systemic problem and it's not the fault of schools or individual teachers.

But many experts, including Race Council Cymru, have argued that BAME history must be made mandatory, as part of Welsh history, in our schools. And last week, we received the latest evidence in a long list of reports of this need. And in the review, commissioned by the First Minister, to understand the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on BAME people in Wales, there were specific recommendations calling for action to be taken, without delay, to include the history of BAME communities and the Commonwealth in the curriculum for Wales 2022, for both secondary and primary school pupils, as a matter of urgency. 

The message is clear: the Government must take the reins and must do everything within its power to eradicate racism from our society. Surely we're not going to delegate something that is so crucially important in our attempts to eradicate racism from our society to every school governing body or to a working group overseen by Estyn. Surely that is not the best approach. I, therefore, urge all those Members who agree with me to reject the Government amendment, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans. And, by the way, we will reject all other amendments too, because, in our view, they detract from the main message of our motion. 

I, like many others across this Chamber, have often highlighted the strong case for the inclusion of Welsh history as a statutory element of the curriculum in all its forms and in all its diversity, of course. Therefore, I won't rehearse all of those issues, but I will say that the current system has failed to provide an appropriate focus on Welsh history and has denied a generation of children the full understanding of their own nation's history. Every young person in Wales has a right to understand his or her surroundings through the lens of his or her own nation. And it's our duty, as the elected Members of the main democratic body in Wales, to guarantee that that is the case. 

And to conclude, I want to turn to the third element that I mentioned. The intention to make English statutory in all stages of learning will mean that every pupil up to the age of seven will receive English language education automatically, unless school governors opt out on an individual basis. It will also place more responsibility on school governors over the individual school's language policy and will undermine the strategic role of local authorities in planning Welsh-medium education, including in the west of Wales, which has been in the vanguard in terms of immersion policy.

Legislating to make English compulsory would be contrary to the understanding that has developed and been nurtured in Wales over the past few years, that recognition that the playing field for Welsh and English is not a level one. Although both, of course, are national languages, the support and advocacy required differs. I welcome the acknowledgment of that in the Welsh Conservative amendment, but I do regret the fact that the Welsh Government seems to have missed the point entirely on this.

The new curriculum should assist the counties of Gwynedd, Anglesea, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, where the Welsh language is established as a norm in the foundation phase, and should support the rolling out of that best practice more widely across the country. But rather, it puts that at risk and, perhaps, there is a risk that that could be undermined, albeit not a deliberate act.

To summarise, therefore, Llywydd, we as a state should intervene where strengthening equality and the fundamental rights of our citizens is in the question. We should intervene where the status quo is failing, and we should intervene where the evidence is so strong that it would be negligent for us not to do so. We must act at a national level where that action is so crucial to the creation of change here in Wales. I look forward to hearing and listening to the debate and the contribution of my fellow parliamentarians on this important issue.

I have selected the eight amendments to the motion. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendments 3 and 4 will be de-selected. I call on Suzy Davies to move amendments 1, 3, 4 and 8, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Suzy Davies.

Amendment 1—Darren Millar

Delete point 2 and replace with: 

Agrees that the new curriculum, if it succeeds in its aims, can help develop a confident, mutually responsible citizenry who will be proactive in tackling injustice from all sources.

Amendment 3—Darren Millar

In point 4, delete sub-points 4(a) and 4(b) and replace with:

the histories of Wales; the histories of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland; and histories of other parts of the world, and that:

(i) all the above to include black and people of colour history; and

(ii) all the above to be contextualised;

the teaching of life saving skills, as identified as a priority by the Youth Parliament.

Amendment 4—Darren Millar

Delete point 5 and replace with:

Agrees that the new curriculum should support all learners to be fluent in Welsh and English, ensuring that support for Welsh learning takes into account the already advantageous effect of learners’ greater environmental exposure to English.

Amendment 8—Darren Millar

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on Welsh Government to commit to reconsidering the commencement date for the implementation of the new curriculum to accommodate delays in preparation due to Covid-19.

Amendments 1, 3, 4 and 8 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd, and yes, I move the amendments. Can I thank Plaid for bringing this debate forward? It's a big subject and I appreciate that they want to just focus on a couple of aspects today. So, this will be something of a speedy run-through of some of the issues raised by the motion and the amendments. But I think we can pin down the basics in supporting points 1 and 3, and I hope that's taken on board.

Our first amendment is really just a request to Members to consider the limits of what 'structural injustices' might mean. Delyth Jewell referred to this in an article over the weekend, and we might find that we share her analysis—I don't know yet. But I would like us to, even now, start thinking about speaking beyond our relationship with the state, if you like: standing up to the bully; putting yourself in the shoes of others; and becoming more emotionally literate and empathetic. These matter in tiny ways—y pethau bychain—in daily, human interaction, part of the social glue that is slowly becoming unstuck in an increasingly digital set of relationships in our lives, and an environment where people are afraid of the consequences of expressing different opinions. These strikes me as new societal drivers, so I'm not sure if 'structural' captures all that, because, like you, I want to see generations of young people think about this and to consider and maybe accept responsibility to be proactive about fairness in different ways in daily life, and not just headline issues or through political power.

We tabled our amendment 4 as the original point 4 reads as if these two histories—the history of Wales and the history of black people and people of colour—might be mutually exclusive, and I know this wasn't the intention. Plaid knows that we agree with both these points. But this ask for contextualisation is quite a big deal. I mean, how ridiculous is it that I can be asked, in complete seriousness, by a young friend, seeing a double-decker bus in Swansea for the first time, 'Is that where the black people used to sit?' This is in Swansea. This curriculum is supposed to help raise our children as critical thinkers, problem solvers, and to understand that there is never one perspective on anything. As David Melding tweeted—channelling his 1066 and All That—

'Sir Thomas Picton was a bad man and a brilliant general.'

There is so much to unpick in that one sentence, but you need to examine context to even begin to do that, and that's why the histories of Wales cannot be taught in isolation from the histories of these islands particularly, but the world more widely, or without understanding that what we see or what we think we see in our stories is happening because of what went before or what is happening elsewhere.

Now, I've included the teaching of life-saving skills here as a mandatory part of the curriculum, partly because the idea had cross-party support in the last Assembly, including from the Minister when she was in opposition, and for my legislative proposals, which had cross-party support in this Senedd/Assembly, but mainly because life-saving skills topped our own Youth Parliament's poll of life skills, with managing stress coming in just behind. So, it's their priority life skill. 

With amendment 5, we are treading cautiously here as we haven't seen the Bill yet and don't know what it will say on the point made by Plaid. But Siân is right—it is self-evident that our children will be exposed to more English influencers and that, if we are serious about bilingualism, how Welsh is taught must acknowledge and accommodate that, but our languages are equal under the law and the Bill is a piece of law.

We support amendment 5 and amendment 6, which chimes so well with our own long-standing trilingual Wales policy.

Amendment 7 is difficult to disagree with but difficult to deliver when teacher recruitment is a source of deep concern.

So, finally, to amendment 8, the Welsh Conservatives invited views of all schools in Wales about the effect of lockdown on preparations for the curriculum, and the headline findings are pretty stark: just under half of schools said they were doing no development work at all, with the remainder only doing some. Seventy six per cent of teachers told us that this period was having a negative effect on their preparation, with all planned work for the summer cancelled, and, when asked the open question, 'What support could Welsh Government offer at this time to support your curriculum development?', by far the majority response was, 'Delay its implementation'—not its introduction, but its implementation. Leaders' plans to give this curriculum a year's dry run are dashed and gone because of COVID, and teachers want the curriculum and they want to do it well. So, they want to do justice to your policy, basically, Minister, and so I hope that, in listening to this debate today, you'll hear the urge and give a signal today that you're listening. Diolch.

I call on the Minister for Education to move formally amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans. 

Amendment 2—Rebecca Evans

Delete points 4 and 5 and replace with:

Recognises that the new Curriculum for Wales Humanities guidance 'promotes an understanding of the ethnic and cultural diversity within Wales' and 'enables learners to take committed social action as participative citizens of their local, national and global communities.'

Welcomes the Welsh Government’s commitment to:

a) work with Estyn to ensure that their review of Welsh history takes full account of Welsh, and wider, BAME history, identity and culture; and

b) establishing a working group to oversee the development of learning resources, and identify gaps in current resources or training related to BAME communities, their contributions and experiences.

Agrees that the new curriculum should support all learners to learn Welsh and English.

Amendment 2 moved.

Formally move.

Diolch. I call on Neil McEvoy to move amendments 5, 6 and 7, tabled by him.

Amendment 5—Neil McEvoy

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on the Welsh Government to ensure that the curriculum makes provision for learning Welsh and that this is accompanied by investment to make Welsh language intensive immersion courses freely available for teachers and pupils alike.

Amendment 6—Neil McEvoy

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on the new curriculum to ensure that every pupil is taught a modern foreign language from year 1 of school.

Amendment 7—Neil McEvoy

Add as new point at end of motion:

Believes that implementing the new curriculum successfully can be best achieved by cutting class sizes to under 20 pupils.

Amendments 5, 6 and 7 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. A million speakers by 2050: so, how do we do it? The only way is radical and transformational investment in the Welsh language. 

Welsh is the fourth language that I've learned, and the only way to learn a language is through immersion.

So, Welsh is the fourth language that I've learned, and the only way to do it is immersion, really. Immersion courses should be freely available to everyone: for pupils, for teachers, so teachers can be upskilled. Otherwise, I don't really see us achieving the target. We need to build up skill bases. If we look at, maybe, refugees, they come to Wales and they get given free English lessons. Well, they should be taught Welsh as well because we live in Wales. 

The next amendment, amendment 6, talks about modern foreign languages and we really, really should be teaching languages from year 1 on. There is no excuse. Again, we need to upskill staff to be able to do that. In the Netherlands and all around the world—many places—it's very common for people to be multilingual through their education systems. I remember going to Spain and watching seven-year-olds do geography through the medium of English. It was really interesting.

On the issue of class sizes, the last speaker touched on this, but what I want to do and what the Welsh National Party wants to do is to put smaller class sizes back on the agenda. As a former teacher, I know the absolutely massive effect and huge difference, more culturally in the classroom, really, and especially with better relationships, when you teach classes under the size of 20, and I think that is something we should be aiming for. 

I'm just clicking on the screen now to the motion itself, and I wish I'd amended this, really, because if you look at point 4, you've got

'a) black and people of colour history; and b) the history of Wales' and the plight—. Speakers have talked about the BAME community. Well, black, brown, people of colour are part of Welsh history. We are Welsh history. We help make it, and I think there are seriously unintended consequences, or there could be seriously unintended consequences, with the wording of the motion. Maybe I should have added 'as part of', but I didn't, but I wish I had done now. I remember being in a meeting once with Betty Campbell, and she was labelled 'a BME', and Betty said, 'I ain't no BME. I'm Welsh.' And I think we must never forget that. I think never, ever forget that. I identify as Welsh and happen to have brown skin, and what I want to see is a fully inclusive history of Wales, where we automatically learn about every community that makes up our country, and, when my son grows up, I want him learning about Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf, I want him learning about Sycharth and the court of Owain Glyndŵr, I want him learning about the castles, and Dolbadarn, for example, and about Tŷ Morgan, and not just the Battle of Hastings, the Magna Carta, and Henry VIII.

Let's touch back again on the race issue, because I think if we're going to seriously address the issue of race, then we need to address the matter institutionally. Look at the BBC, and ask anyone out there how many journalists of colour they see in Wales? How many journalists of colour do they take on their training programmes? How many women, for that matter? How many disabled people? Well, the BBC are so embarrassed, they won't even say, because I have asked, but they will not release the figures, probably because they're so embarrassing.

If we look at the Senedd itself, during lockdown, if you were an MS of colour, you were half as likely to be chosen to pose a question to the First Minister as a white Member. Now, these are institutional matters of discrimination that the institution must address, because they're not being addressed. I think what we need to talk about, really, as well, are the barriers still there, preventing people of colour from being part of Welsh history.

Just to recap, we're never going to have, by 2050, a country with a million Welsh speakers, where people can converse in English or Welsh, until we have those immersion courses. It's a really, really fundamental thing. If anyone votes against it, it's a shocking state of affairs, really, because I don't see how anybody can seriously vote against pre-immersion classes in the Welsh language for people who live in Wales. It's our right, and it should be there already.

We do need to upskill people. The economy would be much more nimble, much more able to be successful if we had better language skills. And, of course, the final point there on the class sizes: we need to start talking about reducing class sizes until we get under 20. So, those are my amendments, and diolch yn fawr.

There's no doubt that the teaching of all of our history is so much better today than it has been in the past, and there is some superb teaching practice that goes on throughout the country. The problem for us is that it isn't consistent. We can ensure that that best practice can benefit every child, wherever they live. With the development of the new curriculum, we've got the opportunity to join the front runners in progressive education and to teach all pupils a wider range of history, including Welsh history, which should be inclusive of black, Asian, minority ethnic history makers in and from Wales, because, put simply, that history is Welsh history. And I want to see history taught from a women's and a working class perspective, too. When it comes to history, we must include all of it—the good, the bad and the ugly. We need to talk about empire, we need to talk about Penrhyn castle's links to plantations in Jamaica, the copper works in the Greenfield valley in Holywell that produced manillas used to buy slaves, or Swansea's Grenfell family, who were deeply involved in the slave trade in El Cobre, Cuba. We need to talk about the positive contribution of our BAME communities. Whitewashing Wales's industrial legacy by omitting the role of Tiger bay's uniquely diverse community perpetuates ignorance. The seamen and workers from over 50 countries who settled in the community as a result of the bustling docks are central to the development of the industrial south of Wales. But as much as this is a matter of representation, it's also a matter of protecting minority groups in Wales. In the same vein as the Minister's decision to make sex and relationships education statutory, this, too, is about protecting people and understanding minorities. It will provide opportunities to challenge racism and xenophobia, and, as recent work from Show Racism the Red Card shows, that is essential.

As racism and religious discrimination grows in schools, we can also see the effects in our criminal justice system. Wouldn't greater understanding make a difference to notorious cases like that of the Cardiff three: three black men wrongfully convicted of murder in 1987, right on the Senedd's doorstep? It's known as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in the history of the British criminal justice system, yet the disproportionate representation of black people in our prison population, the underrepresentation of BAME people in positions of authority, and the poor treatment of BAME people at the hands of the police in too many cases are not confined to history. The statistics show how much of a problem this still is today. Embedding anti-racism in the curriculum could be one small but significant step to be taken to abolish systemic and structural discrimination in Wales. It's the duty of our legislature and our Government to ensure that it's enshrined in law.

We cannot overlook the uncomfortable elements of our history and, indeed, our present simply because they might make us feel awkward. Being honest, open and prepared to listen, challenge and take action to change the position of people who face discrimination will make us, as a nation, more aware of elements of prejudice and inequality in our society and communities that need to be rectified. Plaid Cymru believes that this new curriculum offers us a chance to correct many structural injustices in Wales, and I hope that opportunity won't be missed. 

I support amendment 2, as tabled by Rebecca Evans, and particularly as the Member of the Senedd for Islwyn, I support her wish to insert,

'agrees that the new curriculum should support all learners to learn Welsh and English.'

Wales is a proud and historical multilingual nation of many languages from across the Commonwealth and beyond. In law, we are a bilingual nation, with Welsh and English enjoying equal status, but many of our schoolchildren speak many more languages, and in my teacher training and wider teaching I was highly privileged to have experienced schools with over 34 languages spoken and the rich tapestry of cultural benefit that this has interwoven within the schools. For the communities of Islwyn, it is our inclusive approach that benefits all our communities and makes us the Welsh nation that we are. The majority of my Islwyn constituents are proud Welsh citizens who speak English fluently, with a growing, vibrant Welsh-medium base supported by our Welsh Labour Government. It is this tapestry of choices that we value to maintain the equality we cherish in education. 

So, therefore, it is really disappointing to me to see Plaid Cymru seemingly sow division with the provocative assertion that English does not need to be included in the list of mandatory elements in order to achieve the aim that all learners be fluent in English and Welsh. Rather, this feels rather more myopic and divisive an attitude I also wholeheartedly agree with amendment 2 where it states:

'Welcomes the Welsh Government's commitment to:

'a) work with Estyn to ensure that their review of Welsh history takes full account of...BAME history, identity and culture; and

'b) establishing a working group to oversee the development of learning resources, and identify gaps in current resources or training related to BAME communities, their contributions and experiences.'

The Black Lives Matter campaign has been both a tragic and sadly still-needed development, still raising consciousness throughout our world and horrifically underscored, unbelievably just last week, by the abhorrent, shocking death of two black sisters, allegedly not prioritised and selfie-snapped dead with metropolitan police officers.

In Wales, we ourselves know that, despite our strong ethos and equality-based policy division, there is still much to do across society. We will not stop, like Show Racism the Red Card and others, making strides to eliminate racism and prejudice, because it is part of our DNA. Indeed, in Wales's own capital city hall, there has been a well-publicised public debate about the appropriateness of one of the statues in its marble hall—a hall decorated with statues of Welsh heroes voted for by the Welsh public in the twentieth century. The statue of Sir Thomas Picton of Haverfordwest, who died at Waterloo, is now denounced for cruelty: a slave owner and colonial governor of Trinidad. Just that one statue, sat in a marble hall of Welsh male heroes, embodies and truly personifies the shifting sands of time—nuanced, often difficult aspects of our collective history to face, of racial abuse and prejudice that we, as a Welsh nation together, have a duty to educate our future generations about.

I have full confidence that the proposed new curriculum for Wales, post-COVID, developed by the Welsh Government, will be a rich, vibrant, valuable tapestry, confidently woven, to ensure that we develop our most precious resource—self-confident, skilled, thoughtful and emotionally intelligent citizens for Wales and for our world. Diolch.

Since devolution, statistics have shown that the Welsh education system, once the envy of many, has become—and I make no excuse in using this hackneyed phrase—a race to the bottom. We can therefore well understand the current education Minister's desire to drastically improve the standard of education now being achieved in Welsh schools, and it is true to say that the tenacity and sheer commitment that she brings to her role cannot be denied. But, one has to ask: is the new curriculum—indeed, is it another new curriculum or should we call it a modus operandi—the answer? This is especially true if it is in any way based on Donaldson principles.

I feel that we are justified in asking this question, given that these same principles were applied to Scottish education and have all but ruined its once vaunted reputation as an educational model. Educational standards in Scotland are widely regarded to have plummeted over the last decade or so. One of Scotland's foremost educational experts, Professor Lindsay Paterson from the University of Edinburgh, is fairly scathing of the so-called curriculum for excellence introduced in Scotland in 2010. He says that it has been a disaster for educational attainment because it lacked academic rigour and was a general dumbing down of the curriculum. Most worrying of all, he also points out that it has led to a widening of educational inequality.

In Wales, the ending of SATs and the school league tables was, I believe, a move in the dumbing down of education. How can we be sure that our pupils are being taught well and achieving the levels expected if we do not have regular testing? There was a time when there were full tests in every subject at the end of every school term. Yes, they were internally set and marked, but they were a very effective way of measuring a child's achievements.

Since devolution, we have seen Minister after Minister, and with each change a new set of policies introduced. What has been the result of these changes? More schools in special measures than ever before and, except for a few exceptions, lower academic achievements year on year. Indeed, in Torfaen, we have even had the educational department itself in special measures. I believe that everyone in this Chamber would agree that things have to change. But, given that it may take over a decade for the true results of this new curriculum to take effect, it is a very real gamble that we are taking with our future generations. Let us hope that it will not be a repeat of that disastrous policy introduced by an ill-informed former Prime Minister, who insisted that, what the country needed was 50 per cent of its population to be university educated; a policy that led to two decades of the virtual abandonment of vocational education, where former technical colleges, which had, for the most part, provided an excellent training facility for vocational skills, were converted to universities for anything but vocational education. 

Minister, I sincerely hope that the measures you are putting in place will be the salvation of the education system in Wales, because we cannot afford to let down our future generations for another two decades. The future of the Welsh economy will depend on the skills that young people will acquire. I believe that the Welsh Government has made a very real commitment to improve the quality of both further and higher education, particularly addressing vocational apprenticeships. I hope that the foundation of these education establishments, the schools' educational programme, will adequately equip our youngsters for both of these institutions.

'Education is...the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.'

Those are the words of G.K. Chesterton, and it's true: the lessons we teach our children and young people should reflect our society's values, and they should be rooted in the stories of our past—the good and the bad.

Whilst there is a lot that Plaid Cymru welcomes in the new curriculum, we feel fervently that the way history is taught should include a mandatory element to consider key moments in our nation's history. If every child in Wales does not learn about these moments, we could impoverish generations of young people and rob them of a sense of their own identity. That is as true for moments like the drowning of Capel Celyn and the Merthyr Rising as it is for the history of Tiger Bay and the 1919 race riots.

The current plans are predicated on teaching children about their local history. I welcome that. But we also need to remember that there is no such thing as merely local history; history that is devoid of any link with the wider national or international context. As well as learning about our native history, the new curriculum should cover the role that Wales has played in the history of the world. The coal that spilt so many miners' blood in Senghenydd and Abertillery was used to power the engines of empire, and the evil of slavery soaked into the sinews of Welsh society too. We know, for example, that the Pennant family, owners of the Penrhyn estate, were also owners of one of the biggest estates in Jamaica, and some of the profit derived directly from slavery is invested in Welsh infrastructure. 

More recent shadows also trouble our door. This week, the 'Cofiwch Dryweryn' mural near Aberystwyth was vandalised with a swastika and a symbol for white power. It was quickly daubed over, a swift message given that there is no welcome for racism or hatred in our communities, but we also can't ignore that those hateful symbols were drawn there in the first place. We need to teach children about the uglier sides of history to ensure that things like that don't happen. 

But, there are also so many stories of courage and resilient diversity centering on the BAME communities of Wales. These aren't only stories of oppression. Our children should learn about people from the myriad communities that make up Wales who have played key roles in the episodes of our shared history. Because who we are is shaped by who we were and molded by the lessons we've learned and some of the lessons we have yet to learn.

There is so much for the children of Wales to take pride in, so much to weep for, so much to regret. But, these are all their stories, and in order to learn from our own histories as a nation, then the children of Wales have to understand those histories. After all, the word 'Cymru' means a mixture, people coming together. Diverse stories of multiple colours—that's what we all are. And if we, as legislators, want to learn another lesson from our nation's history, it's the importance and fragility of the fate of our language—that's what that lesson should be.

I started this brief speech with the words of G.K. Chesterton, who said that the soul of a nation is its education. Well, if education is our soul, our heart is our language. As the old saying goes, 'Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon'—a nation without language is a nation without heart. That is our heritage. If we want to see growth in the Welsh language rather than seeing a slip back, we need to safeguard the status of the language in our curriculum. Placing English-medium education as the predestined option for children up to the age of seven is a damaging step that is contrary to the Government's policy of promoting the language. If individual governing bodies will have the ability to take decisions on the curriculum, this could lead to some pupils being deprived of the opportunity to learn the language.

National education requires national leadership. If the Welsh language is lost, then each and every one of us will lose out, not only those who speak Welsh, and it will not return. So, I urge the Government: be watchful; support our motion; support the children of Wales; and support our language.

I must say I was rather disturbed by the language of Siân Gwenllian in introducing this debate, because she seemed to me to see the teaching of history not as something that is nuanced, complex, requires interpretation and isn't black and white, but merely as an opportunity to propagandise for her particular world view on an issue of modern-day complexity that requires very subtle and sensitive handling. And I'm sorry to say that the attitude that she seemed to evince in her speech is actually being followed, at the moment, in our schools in Wales.

I was recently sent, by a concerned parent from south Wales, some homework that was set for a seven-year-old child, about which this parent was very concerned. Because it had risen as a result of the George Floyd case and was based upon stuff that was published by Black Lives Matter. It included a photograph of a small child holding a Black Lives Matter poster, and various questions were asked that were to be answered. And then, the comment from the teacher at the end of it went like this, and I'm quoting here, because the child was asked to make a video:

'So, please put all your energy into this and make your speech count. This is such an important topic, it doesn't just happen far away in America, but it's true for our own friends.'

Well, now, this isn't education, this is activism, because if you look at the George Floyd case, and if there is evidence here of racism in the police forces in America, you will find that the picture is much more complex than the headlines would have us believe. The FBI statistics for 2016 show that 2,870 black people were murdered in that year, but 2,570 of the people who murdered them were also black. Three thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine white people were murdered, but 2,854 of those murderers were white. So, the overwhelming majority of murders actually take place by people of the same ethnicity in the United States. And if you take the figures between 2015 and 2019, black people accounted for 26.4 per cent of all those killed by the US police. Well, almost double that figure—50.3 per cent—were white. But, equally, whilst black Americans account for just 12 per cent of the population, they're responsible for 52.5 per cent of all murders, with the vast majority of their victims being black. So, if we're going to try to make out of the George Floyd case—[Inaudible.]—for racism in the whole of western society, I think that we're doing a substantial disservice.

Of course, if we relate this back to what has happened in history before, the same kind of slanting and distortion might take place. History has to be seen, if it's to be taught correctly, in the context of its time, and, as David Melding pointed out, Sir Thomas Picton, of course, he was a creature of his time. Slavery: nobody supports slavery today, and Britain was absolutely instrumental in the eradication of slavery in the western world.

Sir Thomas More, a great historical figure, canonised in my lifetime, believed in the burning of heretics. You know, should we remove all images of Sir Thomas More because he believed in barbaric execution? There's a movement to remove the statue of Constantine the Great from in front of York Minster cathedral. Constantine the Great was the man who made the Roman empire Christian, but, of course, the Roman empire was based on slaves, and Constantine the Great owned many slaves himself.

We have to have a sense of perspective. That's what history, surely, is all about. History should not be taught as a means of propaganda in schools. The teaching of history in schools should be inclusive, of course, and black and ethnic minorities do play a part, as Neil McEvoy has very convincingly pointed out in his speech, in our history, and that should be appropriately dealt with. But the whole history of the UK, of Wales and the wider world should be taught, including individuals who made history, whatever their ethnic background and whatever we may think, reading backwards retrospectively, of their behaviour with a twenty-first century view of it.

Slavery itself is a complicated subject to teach, because, yes, we know all about the American civil war and about the horrors of slavery in the south, but it's not just a case of whites enslaving blacks. There were 171 black slave owners in South Carolina in the census of 1860, and the largest of them was William Ellison Jr, who was himself a former slave, who had become a successful businessman, and he himself owned 63 black slaves. So, yes, history is complicated, and young people should be taught this, and what they should be taught most of all is to question what they're being told and how to differentiate between propaganda and fact. What is fact is itself a very difficult thing to determine in history—

You are out of time, Neil Hamilton. Can you bring your comments to a conclusion?

Yes, I will finish on that point. Thank you.

I'll be supporting amendment 2, because I think it more eloquently captures the task ahead of us: to make our education system more relevant to today's young people and the challenges they will have to grapple with in the troubled worlds they will inherit from us. I'm grateful to Show Racism the Red Card, not only for the work they've been doing with schools over the last decade, but also for their most recent survey on racism in Wales. It's a useful reminder of the extent of the challenges ahead for us. These will not be resolved by simplistic slogans or reassuring words, which will not resolve the centuries of racism embedded in our history.

From this racism in Wales survey, we know at least two thirds of respondents have witnessed or suffered from some form of racism. So, getting to grips with our colonial past, the atrocities committed in our name, will be a painful journey for all of us.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Christopher Kapessa, a 13-year-old boy drowned in the River Cynon. The Crown Prosecution Service says there's no public interest to bring a manslaughter charge against whichever pupil pushed him into the river, but I think that everything we've heard about George Floyd and many other miscarriages of justice reinforce the importance of ensuring that we are dealing with all crimes equitably and that we have to address the unconscious discrimination that infects most of us.

I think the complexities of this challenge were very carefully addressed in a recent Channel 4 series called The School That Tried to End Racism, and it really illustrated how difficult it was for both the white and the non-white 11 and 12-year-olds, but particularly the white pupils. It isn't just about skin colour. Discrimination on the basis of nationality and religion also feature in the Show Racism the Red Card survey as significant causes of racism, particularly in our secondary schools. So, for that reason alone, it is very important that all pupils are involved in the religion, values and ethics curriculum, because we need all pupils to embrace those values and ethics and an understanding of each other's religions, or none.

At the cross-party group on faith I attended yesterday, some representatives of faith schools were anxious about what the new curriculum means for their mission. I would say to them that religion is a journey not an event, and reflects the values and customs of our societies. When Pope Francis visited Paraguay in 2015, he balanced the apology he made for the crimes of the Catholic church committed against the indigenous people during the colonial conquest of the Americas with high praise for the Jesuit missions that flourished during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there. I have had the privilege to visit what remains of those wonderful missions of Paraguay, and I'd like all Welsh people to learn about that almost utopian society where art, music and economic prosperity flourished, inspired by the values and ethics of the Jesuits.

We need a new curriculum that properly prepares pupils for the complex and rich tapestry of our heritage, and the part that Wales must play in steering our world away from war and self-destruction. We need an education system that equips them to play their part in our global village, where we live and die from the same pandemic and the same climate emergency. Not to change would mean we would not be complying with article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to prepare the child for responsible life in a free society in a spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of the sexes and friendships amongst all people's ethnic, national and religious groups.

The Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I'd like to begin by thanking Siân Gwenllian and Plaid Cymru for the opportunity to discuss the proposed new curriculum. As Members will know, the curriculum and assessment Bill, subject to the determination by the Llywydd, is scheduled to be introduced ahead of the summer recess. Plaid Cymru are correct to recognise the new curriculum as a historic opportunity, and it's historic because it will provide us with the chance to establish an approach to a curriculum that has, for the very first time, been created by teachers, practitioners, education experts and academics in Wales for the learners of Wales. The principles and the tenets of the new curriculum are recognised internationally, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is very supportive of our approach, describing Wales as, and I quote,

'on the path to transform the way children learn'.

The Bill seeks to establish the curriculum for Wales framework, the legislative underpinnings to provide a level of consistency and equity for learners whilst giving schools and settings flexibility to deliver engaged and specific learning opportunities. It emphasises that, within a national framework, schools and practitioners are best placed to make decisions about the needs of and the opportunities for their specific learners, including choosing topics and activities that will best support their learning. Listing content at a national level in no way guarantees meaningful learning, only that certain topics are covered to a varying extent. Instead, the curriculum for Wales guidance articulates what concepts and essence of learning should underpin a range of different topics and activities.

Education needs to be about so much more than a list. It requires the innovation and the creativity of practitioners to bring learning alive for children, and through this Bill Wales will put the needs of its learners first, and central, and motivate and engage practitioners and teachers to support them.

The curriculum for Wales guidance, which I published in January, sets out the essence of learning. Neither the Bill nor its associated documents will prescribe a full list of specific topics or activities. However, we will need to continue to work with partners to help provide learning resources to support schools in this challenging but critical endeavour.

Turning first to an area where I feel strongly that we need to improve as well as develop our understanding, and to improve the way we support learning, the recent events in America, indeed, across the world, have reminded us all of the importance of all aspects of our history. The First Minister announced last week that we will indeed work with Estyn to ensure that their review of Welsh history takes full account of black, Asian, minority ethnic history, identity and culture.

We have announced that we are also establishing a working group to oversee the development of learning resources and to identify gaps in current resources and training. I believe that it's important, in that work, that that looks a lot wider than simply the subject of history. Instead, I want that to be a truly cross-curricular endeavour, including positive role models and learning through our wider cultural environment, including BAME contributions in Wales to literature, media, sport, the economy. It has to be about so much more than just the subject of history. But, of course, it will build on Black History Month and the ongoing discussions and consultation with stakeholders and the race council for Wales, on areas where their knowledge and expertise will help shape direction and provide solutions to particular issues.

Now, within the curriculum for Wales, we will legislate for its purposes, and one of the four purposes is that learners should develop as ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world who are knowledgeable about their culture, their community and society and the world, now and in the past, and to respect the needs and rights of others as members of a diverse society.

The under-representation of BAME communities in the education workforce is also an issue that I want to actively seek to redress. We have set up a project to specifically look at the issues around recruitment into initial teacher education programmes and into the workforce more generally. We have commissioned the Education Workforce Council to undertake a review of the data that is available to support the development of our new policies in this area, and we're also engaging with the relevant stakeholders, such as the race and faith forum and the Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales. Our engagement with other stakeholders will increase as the project progresses, and we will use the data and intelligence provided by stakeholders to develop policies to strategically address what is a chronic shortage of BAME representatives in the education workforce. I want our children to see their communities reflected in those that stand at the front of their classes.

As mentioned, guidance for the new curriculum highlights the importance of drawing on local and national contexts across learning. In particular, it provides that practitioners should support learners to develop an authentic sense of cynefin, building knowledge of different cultures and histories, allowing them to develop a strong sense of individual identity and understanding how that is connected and shaped by wider world influences. Guidance for the humanities area of learning and experience refers to the need for consistent exposure to the stories of learners' locality and the story of Wales, as well as to the story of the wider world, to enable learners to develop an understanding of the complex, pluralistic and diverse nature of our nation and of other societies.

The humanities area of learning and experience will also provide opportunities for learners to learn about their heritage and sense of place through a study of Wales and their cynefin. Crucially, as has been mentioned a number of times this afternoon, it will allow learners to develop an inquiring and questioning mind, and will explore and investigate the world—past, present and future—for themselves. Contemplating different perspectives, including BAME in the context of Welsh cultures, will help promote an understanding of the ethnic and cultural diversity within Wales. And taken together, these experiences will help learners appreciate the extent to which they are part of a wider international community, fostering a sense of belonging that can encourage them to contribute positively to their communities, including recording videos about why black lives matter. I'm confident that this will build better learning and knowledge than prescribing this simply as a topic that has to be covered within the curriculum within a single subject.

I will now turn to the other issue raised by Plaid, and I want to begin by reaffirming my support for Welsh-medium education and also recognise the important work done in our schools and settings that provide Welsh immersion. My aspirations for the Welsh language are unchanged and, as I stated in launching the White Paper consultation, this Bill will enable Welsh immersion to continue, giving it a secure legal footing and strengthening its position as a key component of us reaching our aspirations, as a tried and tested pedagogical approach—an approach that my own children have benefited from.

I have spoken to Siân individually on this issue of immersion previously, and I recognise that she has concerns about this particular aspect of the Bill. I think, indeed, and I hope, that Siân would accept that we're all coming to this from the same place, which is to support Welsh immersion education. And I can assure everyone—fellow Members of the Senedd and, indeed, stakeholders—that I will look to continue to discuss and to engage on these issues during the passage of the Bill through the Senedd, so that we can ensure that we can all have confidence that the aspiration of a bilingual nation is delivered.

So, in conclusion, Llywydd, I'd like to once again thank colleagues for their contribution to this debate, and I look forward, with your permission, to formally introducing the Bill shortly. 

I've been notified of one request for an intervention. Darren Millar. Darren, you need to unmute yourself. 

Apologies. Thank you, Llywydd. I just wanted to reflect on some of the comments that have been made by Members, if I may. I'm delighted to see that there's consensus that we need to change things in terms of the curriculum and the content of our history lessons here in Wales and, of course, of the need to improve access to resources to enable us to deliver on this ambition to develop 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. I think these are wonderful aims, and our education system must be geared up to delivering them. 

A reference was made by Jenny Rathbone earlier to a recent meeting of the cross-party group on faith, and that cross-party group discussed at some length changes to the religious education curriculum, which, of course, is going to be renamed and rebranded 'religion, ethics and values'. And whilst there's a great deal of optimism that that presents a great opportunity going forward, there are some concerns about the ability of the sector, if you like—the faith sector—to be able to respond to the ongoing consultation that's taking place at the moment. Because of the fact that everyone's been in lockdown, lots of organisations and groups haven't been able to meet, including local standing advisory councils on religious education.

So, I would hope that the Minister is able to reflect on that and perhaps provide a short extension to enable people to fully consider the Welsh Government's proposals and respond more fully to them in order that you can pick up on any of the issues that are raised, because I do think that there is concern that, if things continue at pace, then there may be problems when it comes to actually implementing significant change going forward.  

Siân Gwenllian to reply to the debate. 

Thank you very much, and I thank everyone for their contributions this afternoon. I do think that it's very timely for us to have this debate before the Bill begins its journey through the Senedd. And, certainly, we will have other issues that we will also wish to scrutinise as the curriculum progresses, including the issues that Darren Millar raised on education related to various religions, and the issues that Suzy mentioned in terms of life skills and, certainly, issues around well-being and the mental and emotional health of our children and young people—they are all very important areas that we will be scrutinising as we make progress.

But this afternoon, of course, we were focused on some specific aspects. One must make the point that of course the history of black people and people of colour is part of Welsh history. I sit here in Felinheli. Down the road, there is Penrhyn castle, and Leanne Wood and Delyth Jewell mentioned this—Penrhyn castle was built by the Pennant family, who made their money, of course, from the sugar industry, which relied on slavery. Now, I wasn't aware of that history when I was growing up in Felinheli in the 1950s and 1960s. Nobody discussed those issues, nobody discussed the background to them, and that deprived us all, didn't it, as children, of an understanding of the history around us, but also an understanding of history about other parts of the world where there had been oppression. It’s only very recently that this area has started to discuss all of those issues.

Let us not allow that kind of situation to be repeated. I knew more about the wives of Henry VIII than I knew about the history of what had happened with the history of the Pennant family. And of course there is good practice. There are excellent examples of teachers who have been introducing the kind of history that I would have aspired to have had, and things have improved since my time as a pupil. But there is no consistency very often and we shouldn't have to rely on pockets of good practice.

Our authors and our artists have also been enlightening us as to what has happened in our history, whilst we perhaps weren't aware of those events. I would refer you all to the work of Manon Steffan Ros, who wrote about the Pennant family and Penrhyn castle, and the deep understanding that she has created, but that was only in 2018. But that, of course, is an important part of our wider understanding as we move forward.

So, just very briefly on the Welsh language and immersion education, I do accept that the Minister agrees entirely on the importance of immersion education in terms of the learning of languages, and perhaps we are looking here at entirely unintended consequences with the legislation. I'm very grateful for your offer that we may discuss this further and seek a wording that will, hopefully, deliver what we both want to see delivered, namely seeing our citizens growing up as bilingual citizens and reaching that target of a million Welsh speakers. So, thank you very much for that.

So, the Bill begins its journey soon. Let us all contribute to this important work of scrutinising the Bill. Let us all seek to ensure that this legislation will create those structural changes that we need to see. I do believe that certain issues need to be compulsory and included on the face of the Bill in order to create the structural changes, in order to eradicate racism from our society. And I do believe that it's too open-ended as it stands, but we will have that debate as we make progress with the Bill. There are certain things that the Minister's already identified as being important enough to be placed on the face of the Bill, related to sex and healthy relationships education, and I agree with her entirely on that. My argument is that there are other issues of huge importance that should also be placed in statute too, in order to have consistency across Wales.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There are objections, and I will therefore defer voting until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.