I thank the Member for those questions. He's right to point out that the census results were disappointing, but he also will remember that there is a range of data in this area that shows a slightly more complex picture than, perhaps, that one source of data, very important though it is. So, the task for us is to look at the data in its entirety, but there are more children in Welsh-medium schools than seem to have been declared as speaking Welsh in the census in a particular year group—to the point that he was making about the expansion of Welsh-medium schools. I think that's an indication that we need to dig a little bit further about the context for that data as well.

He will also know that increasing availability to Welsh-medium schools is a fundamental part of being able to meet our 'Cymraeg 2050' strategy targets. The 10-year Welsh in education strategic plans, which all 22 authorities have submitted and which I have approved, have ambitious plans, not solely to move schools along the linguistic continuum towards greater use and delivery through the medium of Welsh, but also the construction of 23 new primary schools over the course of the plan, which is a significant investment. He will also probably be aware that, in addition to the intervention rate that applies broadly under the band B programme, which is, roughly speaking, between 65 and 85 per cent of the cost, depending on the nature of the school, for a limited number of projects, we have been able to provide a higher intervention rate for Welsh-medium provision, in order to be able to ensure that happens at pace. But I've made clear to local authority partners, and they have welcomed this, that future investment under the sustainable communities for learning investment programme will take cognisance of progress in delivering the WESPs as well, which I'm sure he’ll be keen to hear.

He's right to point out how important active travel is as part of any site design for projects that we fund. Bike and scooter storage is encouraged as part of the active travel to school design where possible, and the programme team expects stakeholders and contractors to work with schools to develop a travel plan that will support measures to increase active travel and environmentally sustainable travel more broadly to school.

He raised a very important point about the impact on particular projects. I'm bound say at this point that there’s a large number of projects that are looking at a very different cost profile to those that perhaps they were embarking on when they submitted their business cases to us. That's a common problem across the construction sector, as I know that he appreciates, and we touched on this in the recent committee discussion when my budget was being scrutinised. We are working with authorities on a bespoke basis in relation to each individual programme to understand the inflation impact on the cost for that project, and what can be done to look at the specification, perhaps, in some circumstances. In other circumstances—and there are many examples of this—where there has been increased cost, we've been able to agree terms on which we can share some of those costs with schools. We'll want to continue to make good use of the significant funding that we have made available, and I think, as he can see from the statement, we need to flexible in how we support our local authorities to deliver on that with us.