Thank you, Llywydd. Today, I present the annual report on our language strategy, 'Cymraeg 2050: A million Welsh speakers', for the 2020-21 financial year, the final year of our previous Government.

Before I start today, I’d like to pay tribute to Aled Roberts, the Welsh Language Commissioner. Aled took every opportunity to inspire and support those who needed help and advice. A gracious, kind and honest man, losing Aled is a great blow to everyone who knew him and to the whole of Wales.

It was a challenging year for us all, with COVID-19 a presence throughout the reporting year, and all of us having to learn to adapt our ways of life—at home, at work and within our communities. Because of this, there have been some changes to our normal arrangements in terms of collecting and publishing data, and that’s why there has been a delay in publishing this year’s report.

Many challenges beset the Welsh language, as with all areas of Government work, during the year, but there were also various opportunities to experiment and innovate. I must thank our partners across the whole of Wales for their willingness to adapt and their enthusiasm to venture into new areas: Eisteddfod T and Eisteddfod AmGen were held for the first time, we published our 'Welsh Language Transmission and Use in Families' policy, we consulted on our policy on Welsh linguistic infrastructure, and a consultation on proposals to introduce new categories to describe schools according to their Welsh-medium provision was also held.

Yes, this was a difficult year at times, but it was also a productive year, and you can see the full details in the report itself. And although an annual report is a chance to look back, I’m also going to look forward today, just as I did during my recent speech on Anglesey, when I shared my vision for our language, whilst noting 60 years since the delivery of the 'Tynged yr Iaith' lecture. I was pleased to start today by announcing which projects will receive a share of the £30 million of capital funding to expand Welsh-medium education. I was also pleased to announce that we will allocate an additional £1.2 million to the Urdd, so that the organisation can continue to rebuild post COVID and to ensure continuity for its community services and apprenticeships.

This is the first time that we've come together to discuss our language since announcing the co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru. I'm pleased to say that I've already started on the work with Cefin Campbell, and I'm confident that our joint approach will prove productive. Our aim, of course, is to reach a million Welsh speakers and to double the daily use of our language by 2050. And this aim remains a constant in all parts of our work as we deliver a wide range of interventions to reach our goal. Not every intervention will work in every part of Wales, and every intervention must be tailored to the individual circumstances. So, as we move on our journey towards a million Welsh speakers, it's important that we hear, listen and learn from the experiences of those who live in our communities across Wales, those who are beginning their language journey or those who haven't had Welsh as part of their daily routine for a while. 

And as I talk about listening to people, the online consultation on our Welsh language communities housing plan has just been completed. I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to respond, and I'm looking forward to discussing this with Dr Simon Brooks and the new commission that we're setting up to examine how we will deliver the recommendations that come in its wake.

I've spoken in depth about communities over the past few weeks, about the idea of working with local communities to help them to create co-operative movements—organisations working in the community, for the benefit of the community and giving back to the community, empowering communities, creating local opportunities for local people to succeed locally, and being led by the reality of the linguistic situation in different parts of Wales. 

I want everything that I do as Minister for the Welsh language to be based on maintaining or increasing the use of our language. You will recall that increasing the use of Welsh runs through all of our plans for this Senedd term. 'Welsh is for using, not just for service provision'. That's what I said in my speech a few weeks ago, and that's what I'm saying again today. You'll have seen the recent joint announcement with Plaid Cymru regarding how we'll be working with the National Centre for Learning Welsh to provide free Welsh lessons to the education workforce, both teachers and assistants, from September onwards. We're doing the same for young people under 25, creating a second chance for many to continue on their Welsh language journey. And I'm looking forward to chatting with some of these young people as they learn or renew their relationship with our language.

The census results are on their way over the coming months—and no, I don't know the figures; they're not shared before publication. But by the summer, we will know how many people in Wales can speak Welsh—can speak our language, not use our language, and we're back to that word, 'use'. The census doesn't measure use, but the figures are important, of course, as they provide useful data on our language across the whole of Wales, and there is obviously a clear connection between the numbers who can speak the language and its use.

Something else that you'll have heard me say over the past few months is that Welsh belongs to us all, and I'll carry on saying that. It's an important message and one I believe in strongly. It's part of what makes us us, and there is a responsibility on all of us to come together in this Senedd and across the whole of Wales to ensure the future of our language. And we must also remember that everyone has a part to play, everyone has a voice, and Cymraeg belongs to us all.