Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd, and can I thank the Conservatives for tabling this important debate today? There is much in the motion that we can support, but, as Suzy Davies has rightly highlighted, we are approaching the issues from a slightly different perspective. So, given the constraints of time, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'll confine my remarks to advocating for our amendments.

Our first amendment seeks to delete clause 4. While any additional resources for this important sector are always welcome, the parlous financial state of many of our universities makes it impossible for us to give an unqualified welcome to the extra resources that Welsh Government has made available so far, such as they are. The Wales Governance Centre, back in May this year, were warning of a loss of fee income to Welsh universities of between £100 million and £140 million this academic year. That, of course, was a prediction. As Suzy Davies has just pointed out, HEFCW was recently predicting a loss of over £400 million—a shortfall—in universities' incomes this year, while putting, potentially, up to 5,000 jobs at risk.

This is on top of an already fragile position for some of our institutions. I think it's fair to say they are autonomous institutions, and some of them have to take some responsibility for that. But whether or not they take that responsibility, the impact on our communities of losing some of those institutions, or of losing many jobs in those institutions, would be drastic. The Minister may say that she doesn't recognise this picture. If she doesn't, that's unfortunate, because that's the reality. The £27 million that the Welsh Government have given so far feels like a small drop in a very large ocean, and I'm sorry if the Government feels that it's churlish, but we don't feel that that should be welcomed in and of itself.

Our amendment 3 seeks to replace point 6(a). We do understand, of course, that some students are unhappy with paying the same level of fees as they would in an ordinary year when their learning experience will be very different, and we sympathise. But we do not believe that when the sector is under such financial pressure that this is the right time to further reduce the income that's available to institutions. I take what Suzy Davies says about how individual students shouldn't have to carry the can, and I am sympathetic with that position, but the importance of these institutions in our communities and to our economy is such that we don't support any reduction further of the income that reducing fees would mean.

We do believe that the Government should be working closely with the sector to ensure, and  'ensure' is the key word—perhaps we could have said 'enable'. We're not suggesting that the Welsh Government should be funding all of these institutions, higher or further education institutions, but they have to create the right climate where other income can be found, and this, again, is something where we simply don't see that there's enough activity and enough communication. The Government must ensure that there are sufficient resources in both sectors to maintain standards, including teaching standards, and to continue to widen access, and that's where our amendment comes from.

Amendment 4 seeks to strengthen the motion with a further specific reference to further education and particularly to work-based learning. The original motion does mention colleges as well as universities throughout, but we wanted to draw out that further education element a little further. Further education faces particular and different challenges, as Suzy Davies has rightly identified, and these must be addressed; work-based learning providers face different challenges yet again.

I am aware that they are in a different portfolio, but I think that all education providers, all learning providers have a right to expect a consistent approach from the Government across the board. So, work-based learning providers have been told by Welsh Government that all trainees are to return to face-to-face learning from 1 October, in sharp contrast to the Welsh Government's support for flexible and blended learning in higher education and further education institutions. This doesn't make sense. It is, of course, the fact that they won't get paid if their trainees don't turn up.

We hear a lot about parity of esteem between vocational and academic learning. We submit that this is an opportunity for the Welsh Government to engage with the sector across portfolios and to ensure that this supposed parity of esteem of which we've heard so much is actually reflected in how vocational learning opportunities are supported and resourced by the Government, and this is far from the case, hence our amendment 4.

Llywydd, I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate, I look forward to the Government's response, and I commend amendments 1, 3 and 4 to this Senedd.