Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and apologies. I was going to explain to colleagues about why we needed to suspend the Standing Orders, but I'm grateful for colleagues allowing that to happen so that this debate can now go ahead. I'm very grateful for the work of Mick Antoniw and his committee that have turned around their scrutiny of these Orders just yesterday. I'm grateful to them.

In 2016, Deputy Presiding Officer, this Government introduced ambitious new legislation that paved the way for a pioneering system for supporting children and young people with additional learning needs, namely the Additional Learning Needs and Educational Tribunal (Wales) Bill, which became an Act in 2018. The Act represented the first step in the ALN transformation programme and the first step towards achieving a long-standing commitment and key priority for this Government, to reform the existing special educational needs system in Wales, a system that is over 30 years old and presents significant challenges for learners and their families. Since the consultation on the draft of the ALN code and regulations back in 2019, we've worked with key stakeholders to co-construct and help shape the subordinate legislation to maximise the positive impact it will have on children and young people with ALN, and today I'm very pleased to be able to present Members with the resulting ALN code and regulations.

As colleagues will know, almost a quarter of all children and young people in our schools and colleges will have some form of ALN during their educational life. Our ALN transformation programme aims to ensure that those learners are supported to achieve their full potential, and to ensure that they can have aspirations for their learning, to dream big and with confidence that, whatever route they take in life and their learning, they will be supported to do so. It will also improve the planning and delivery of support for learners with ALN from the ages of zero to 25, creating a person-centred approach and placing their needs, views, wishes and feelings at the very heart of the process. Finally, it will focus on the importance of identifying needs early and putting in place timely and effective interventions that are monitored and adapted to ensure that they deliver the desired outcomes for the individual learner. Having a suitable legislative framework in place to support learners to thrive and reach their full potential whilst recognising and accommodating their needs is essential, and to achieve this, we need to ensure our service providers have clear law and guidance to support them in meeting their duties. This is fundamental for ensuring that providers are able to deliver that timely and effective additional learning provision to those who require it, which we would all wish to see.

The ALN code and regulations presented to you today provide that clear law and guidance and represent another step forward to the delivery of a much-improved and consistent system for meeting the needs of learners with ALN, something that is crucial for increasing the life chances of some of our most vulnerable learners. Diolch yn fawr.