Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to rise to commend this report to the Senedd, a report on the effect of the COVID crisis on the Welsh language. I want to begin, of course, by thanking members of the committee, our witnesses and our staff, who have continued to support our work through the pandemic. I'm very grateful to them all. The COVID crisis has of course had a massive impact on all aspects of life in Wales, and as expected, it has had a massive impact on the activities and institutions on which we rely to promote the Welsh language and to provide opportunities for people to use it. We received a wealth of evidence and in the short space of time available to me today, I can only highlight some of the aspects of our report.

We saw, of course, the cancellation of events—the National Eisteddfod, the Urdd Eisteddfod, and very importantly, a myriad of small and local events run by organisations like the mentrau iaith, all of them crucial opportunities for people to use Welsh in their communities and on a national stage. Now, these cancellations, of course, created economic risks, of which I know the Minister is well aware. There are 2,000 jobs that depend on the National Eisteddfod every year. The Urdd told us that they'd lost £14 million in total and will be in debt by £3.5 million by the time the financial year is done. The Welsh Government had to reprioritise its budget, of course, and £2 million of the Welsh language budget was reprioritised and used elsewhere, and the committee has no criticism of that whatsoever. But we are concerned that that situation shouldn't stand, and we are recommending that short-term reallocations of Welsh language funding do not result in longer term funding changes, which could detract from achieving the aims of 'Cymraeg 2050'.