When we launched Creative Wales, skills and talent support was identified as a key priority, and our actions to date have supported positive change. Within 18 months of its launch, Creative Wales has worked with all our partners in Wales, and at a UK level, to support 12 skills projects across the creative sectors, each addressing one or more of our priority areas. Whilst action has been taken across all sectors, due to the surge in production demand and the resulting need for crews, activity has inevitably focused heavily on screen-related skills.

Now, diversity and inclusion are, of course, a key focus of all our interventions, and we're committed to addressing the lack of diversity in both crews and supply chain, and I had the pleasure recently of launching Culture Connect Wales, a 12-month pilot that aims to increase opportunities for diverse communities in film and tv in Wales. The programme will develop a bespoke network and database for ethnically diverse communities working in film, tv and across multiple platforms. The pilot will help people who want to change careers, and will assist young people and people who are not aware of the opportunities in the sector. Creative Wales brought together all four terrestrial broadcasters to support this project, which will collectively bring about change in recruitment practices within the screen sector in Wales.

To better understand the current and future skills needs of the screen sector here, Creative Wales has partnered with the University of South Wales to conduct screen survey Wales 2021, a pan-Wales mapping of the screen sector, its workforce and training provision. The survey's findings and recommendations will be delivered in the coming months and will provide the evidence base for future screen skills activity. We will ensure that the voice of the industry—and the workforce, with trade union input—remains integral to any future skills discussions. We are also working with the University of South Wales to map the music sector in Wales. This will provide us with the cornerstone on which to build a future skills plan for this sector too.

Practical hands-on learning is the most efficient form of training within the screen sector, so maintaining the level of productions filming in Wales is critical to increasing training opportunities year on year. And Creative Wales continues to work with funded productions to guarantee a commitment to providing trainee opportunities in the form of paid placements. These placements are monitored to help ensure future careers pathways for all trainees, and, in the last two years, more than 120 trainees have benefited from paid placements on Creative Wales-supported productions. These include the Netflix drama Havoc, starring Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker, His Dark Materials series three for BBC One, and the new Lucasfilm production, Willow, which will air on Disney+.

Looking forward, the establishment of a creative skills body, as a key Welsh Government programme for government commitment, will intensify our focus on skills and talent development across all our priority creative sub-sectors. Delivered internally through Creative Wales, with an enhanced skills and talent function, this approach will ensure that all future resourcing is co-ordinated and can directly support creative skills and talent initiatives in Wales. 

The skills body will continue the partnership approach already established through the Creative Wales film and tv skills stakeholder group. The group, which now has a membership of over 50, acts as a sounding board, bringing partners together to facilitate networking and collaboration work. So, the skills body's work will be overseen by a core skills steering group, which will report back to the Creative Wales non-executive board. Dirprwy Lywydd, we are currently working on the detailed arrangements for the creative skills body, and I will provide a further update in due course.

Finally, we will ensure that future creative skills activity supports our programme for government commitment to deliver the young person's guarantee and 125,000 all-age apprenticeships. Creative Wales is already working with colleagues in skills, higher education and lifelong learning on the delivery of CRIW, a new production apprenticeship model that has just launched in north Wales, following a very successful two years in south Wales, and we're looking at how this apprenticeship model can be replicated in other creative sectors.

Our interventions are also joined up and designed for the long term. The inclusion of film and digital media within the new curriculum from 2025 is a key example of this. It's a major step forward in aligning the needs of a growing sector with what is being taught in our schools. This focus on the long term is also crucial to our ambition to help young people build exciting careers in Wales, as set out by my colleague Vaughan Gething at the economy summit yesterday.

I am passionate about ensuring that the next generation views the creative industries as an accessible and rewarding career choice, providing our young people in Wales with great job opportunities in a sector providing valued content, serving all audiences, and which is key to supporting our future economic growth. Diolch yn fawr.