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.