I'm deeply shocked by these amendments. The enthusiasm with which Llyr Gruffydd advocated them reminds us of the ministries of propaganda and public enlightenment in former eras. Education should be about teaching children to question, think and use their judgment, and yet what we're invited to do here is to impose some kind of received truth upon children, whereas there is in fact hotly disputed debate going on amongst academics and others who are well versed in the theory of climate change. It's rather surprising to find a representative of Plaid Cymru speaking in this way today because the birth of modern-day political separatism, I think, is to be found in the great debates in the nineteenth century about the imposition of the theological dogmas of the established church upon the children of largely non-conformist families. What we're being invited to do today is exactly what he would have opposed in another context 150 years ago.

I am a sceptic about the theories that Llyr wishes to impose upon the children of today, and I think that what we should teach is both sides of this argument. That's what true education should be about. We're not dealing with something here that is dogmatic truth; we're dealing with a subject in which there is very, very considerable uncertainty and theorising. Most of the theories are based, of course, upon computer models, and computer models work on the principle of garbage in and garbage out. What we should be seeking is to put forward not just the theories of one side of this argument, but, in fact, the theories of both sides, and then inviting those who are in the classroom to think about what the issues involved are.

Yes, no doubt, there is amongst a very tiny minority of people climate anxiety, but then there are anxieties about all sorts of things. A thousand-odd years ago, people were worried about the end of the world coming in the year 1000. Apocalyptic millenarianism has been with us for as long as human beings have been on the planet. Most recently, of course, the millennium bug was another feature of this, an apocalyptic event that never happened. I think this is a very dangerous way of trying to use a Government Bill to impose a particular political view upon the minds of suggestible children. I think it's the very opposite of education, actually. That's something that we certainly should not support in this debate today.

Climate change is not like the laws of physics. There is too little data, for one thing, upon which to be certain over a long enough period, there are too many variables, too many uncertainties, and we have a complete disconnect between the results of computer models and what we know from the world of observation. We've only had satellite data for the best part of about 25 years that are capable of giving us reliable data, and that's nowhere near long enough to draw the kind of conclusions that Llyr seems to think are established fact. What we do know about climate change is that change has always been with us. Two thousand years ago, in Roman times, so far as we can tell, the climate in Europe, at any rate, was warmer than today. Then, we went through a cold period in the dark ages. In the medieval warm period, again, we went back to Roman times, and then in the seventeenth century, as well recorded through the diaries of Samuel Pepys, we went into a little ice age from which we have been emerging slowly ever since.

So, nobody denies, actually, that there is global warming going on, but what's the cause of it is something that is hotly disputed, and it's that debate, I think, that we should be teaching in our schools today, not teaching people what is purely propaganda in my opinion and representing that as indisputable fact. Because you've only got to look at the literature, you've only got to look at the lustrous names that are associated with the political views that I'm putting forward today, to see that there's a serious debate there, and that's what true education is about. So, I think this is an anti-education set of amendments that should be thrown out today. I agree entirely with what Jenny Rathbone has just said, although our views on this subject are diametrically opposed. We very frequently agree upon the fundamentals of what we should be doing in education. I invite the Senedd today to follow me for a change and vote these amendments down.