Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you to Suzy Davies. I would ask Members to resist amendments 5 and 7. I am very well aware and very sympathetic to the pressures that schools are under at the moment and the massive impact that COVID has had on their operations and their ability to teach as they would like. The priorities for us going forward, as part of our learning recovery, are to promote and enable high-quality teaching and learning, and to address the challenges for disadvantaged learners and those in key cohorts. These are also, it should be said, priorities for curriculum reform, and as I set out in my written statement alongside the curriculum implementation plan on 27 January, learning recovery is a path towards curriculum reform. It doesn't take us away from it. They are not alternatives, they are not either/ors, and there is no 'business as usual' now, so we must move ahead and grasp the opportunity that the new curriculum affords us.

My concern about this amendment is that actually what it could lead to is that those schools that are further behind in progressing with curriculum reform will be the ones that are delaying implementation, and I do not believe that that is right or that it is fair. These are the schools where we should put our efforts to support them, and enable them to move confidently towards curriculum reform. I believe that this amendment would risk creating a two-tier system, which would be confusing for schools, parents and learners and risk creating inequity between schools and learners. The solution, I truly believe, is to ensure that schools have the support they need to implement the curriculum. I have set this out in the curriculum implementation plan, which will be kept under review. A plan on recovery is also being developed to set out the support for schools that we will put in place as we move forward to the next phase of this pandemic. I would therefore urge Members to resist amendments 5 and 7.

With regard to amendment 12, again, I would point out that the curriculum implementation plan sets out clearly our priority areas of work for curriculum realisation. It also, in line with the regulatory impact assessment, sets out our intentions around evaluation and understanding progress. Our curriculum implementation plan already commits to annual reporting from the Welsh Government on the progress of implementation and the wider impacts of our reform on our well-being goals as a nation. That is, it'll focus on the difference that our reforms are making to learners and our aim that they should embody the four purposes and, as a nation, that we should achieve excellence in education and close the attainment gap.

Alongside this, of course, will sit the work of our partners, the work that they do with schools and settings to progress curriculum reform, including in particular Estyn's role in inspection and the regional consortia in helping to develop capacity and capability in the school system. The annual reporting process will provide the opportunity for debate on the floor of the Senedd, and will enable Members to share their priorities for implementation and feed back on key issues or any concerns.

So, I would ask, therefore, Members to resist amendment 12, although I agree with you, Suzy, it would be interesting to explore—unfortunately, it'll be neither of us doing that exploring—how the CYPE committee in particular can express their opinion on particular aspects of implementation reporting that they would like to see fed back on, and I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing that the committee should have a view on, although I suspect the person that takes on this job after me will regret the fact that I ever put this on the record. But that's my special parting gift to them, because I do believe there is a legitimate role for the Parliament to be able to frame some of these reporting requirements. Thank you very much.