Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:16 pm on 1 July 2020.
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.