Okay, diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm just recovering myself a little bit here.

Yes, I move amendment 2, which is the lead amendment in this group. Now, our group has always offered a free vote on matters of conscience and I'll be exercising mine on the basis of conscience too. Mine is governed by the principle that we all have a responsibility to keep our children and young people safe, and I'll be doing it on the basis of evidence, not just in the committee and the many meetings with interested parties, but on the basis of upsetting safeguarding situations that I think many of us will have encountered in our casework. I also do it on the basis of my previous work as a lawyer, where I had some really difficult cases to deal with. There is no getting away from the fact that so much abuse happens within families. Now, absolutely, this is a minority; I'm not suggesting otherwise. But, how can it be wise to refuse anything that can help a child to learn about protecting themselves or others? I think that in this internet age it has never been more of a challenge.

Part of keeping our children safe is to help them and their peers to grow up less comfortable judging others for being different, whatever that difference looks like; to get them to think increasingly about difficult questions—increasingly difficult questions—about why they develop prejudices, why some people exercise power over others through emotional as well as physical bullying and what a healthy relationship looks like, because this part of the curriculum is not just about sex education.

There is nothing stopping parents educating and influencing their children at home alongside school, of course, and we should also expect a child's cultural and religious background to be considered as part of deciding what is developmentally appropriate—a requirement of teaching RSE in school; amendment 42 just makes that explicit. But we can't get away from the fact that this Bill does remove a parental right, and any legislature should carefully examine any attempt by the Executive to remove anyone's right. That's why I've tabled amendments 6, 8, 9 and 10. These provide for parents of pupils in nurseries and schools to be informed of how RSE will be taught and when any changes are introduced.

These are watered-down versions of Stage 2 amendments that were not accepted. They are still, however, a signal to parents who've lost this right that they still have continuing status here, even if they have very little agency, as the RSE code will be very prescriptive, on this controversial area of the curriculum. If parents feel more informed and more inside the tent, we would all hope that it becomes a less controversial element of the curriculum after all, with more chance of learning being reinforced at home.

So, the argument against these amendments is that their existence will create a sense of difference between this and other parts of the curriculum, and that there's already local consultation built into the curriculum development. But these amendments are about updating parents, not consulting them. Maybe this will slow down the normalisation of the subject, but I'd say that that difference is baked in by this Bill, which singles out RSE for special status as a mandatory subject with a detailed code to which schools must stick.

Can I thank the Minister for her help with amendment 40? I think I'll be thanking her a lot during this debate. The Children, Young People and Education Committee had observed that young people in years 12 and 13, after compulsory education has ceased, are able to rely on this Bill to request the continuation of religion, values and ethics education provision, and it wasn't really easy to see why those same young people couldn't ask for a continuation of RSE at a time when they would really benefit from it. Minister, you accepted this argument, and I'm grateful for your willingness to agree to this.

Finally, of course, amendments 2 and 4. Members will be aware of the long-standing campaign by Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales for better education about menstrual well-being, supported by organisations like Endometriosis UK and several others. And you may ask, when there are so many other aspects of health, why we are using this Bill to highlight this particular one aspect. And the answer is, simply, because it's been taboo for so long. Half the population having periods for at least half their lives, and the other half being members of the same family, and so affected by their mother, their wife, their sister, their daughter's experience, and no-one seems to know what's normal and what's not. Women putting up with all kinds of period-related conditions because they know no different, seeking help in extremis, and finding too many medical practitioners ignorant of possible diagnoses, and sometimes dismissive with it.  This curriculum gives all our children the chance to grow up being grown up about being a grown up, and these amendments are about stopping schools wriggling out of teaching it. Hopefully, it will also prompt greater demand for more research into therapies or even cures.

Perhaps the more obvious place to try and embed this would be in the health and well-being area of learning and experience, but I've taken my cue from the Minister herself at Stage 2, when she explained that she too was interested in finding a way to offer stronger reassurance on this. I know that everyone interested in this area was really grateful to hear that. And, Minister, it was you who suggested that the RSE code might be a way of doing this. So, reading between the lines, because the code will be mandatory, including menstrual well-being there rather than in AoLE guidance is perhaps a way of offering that assurance without the need for these amendments, or even in the 'what matters' statements. I suppose one difference there is that the RSE code is going to come before this Senedd for approval, which I applaud. I'm just checking—am I on the right track about why you mentioned the RSE code at Stage 2? Diolch.