Children, Young People, and Education Committee

We move on now to agenda item 2. I'm very pleased to welcome Mark Drakeford MS, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language; Bethan Webb, deputy director, 'Cymraeg 2050', Welsh Government; and Sioned Tobias, lawyer, Welsh Government. So, Members have a series of questions, and I'd like to begin. How do you respond to the views of stakeholders such as Cymdeithas yr Iaith who say that the Bill will not be transformational unless significant changes are made to it? At the other end of the spectrum, there are those such as the teaching unions that believe the Bill, as it is, is unrealistic and impractical. How are you balancing such views within the Bill?

Diolch yn fawr, Gadeirydd. I've been following the evidence that the committee has taken, and I recognise straight away that there is a spectrum of views. At the one end of the spectrum, there are organisations, such as Cymdeithas, that argue that the Bill is not ambitious enough, and, at the other end of the spectrum, there are those who think that the Bill asks too much of them. I believe that the Bill strikes a sensible balance between those different ends of the spectrum. It has a very ambitious aim at the heart of it.

Its aim is to ensure that all pupils in Wales become independent and confident speakers of the Welsh language, and from where we are today to that is a very ambitious journey. But it is a journey, and the journey is designed to be incremental, and to be flexible, to enable people to come on that journey with us. And it's a journey that extends well over a decade. For those mainly English-medium schools, who apply for and obtain two extensions to the time period that is allowed in the Bill for achieving a 10 per cent minimum, that is 2033. So, it's well over a decade that schools will have to reach the ambitious targets that the Bill lays out.

And along that journey, there will be a series of milestones that are particularly designed to help those who will find themselves discharging the obligations of the Bill in the classroom. So, the journey begins with the production of a code, which has to be produced by the Welsh Government by July 2026. The athrofa comes into being in July 2027. The national framework is produced in July and August of 2027FootnoteLink. The Welsh in education strategic plans are in 2028. And it's August 2029 before any headteacher has to do anything at all under the terms of this Bill. That is five years from the Bill to the actual school delivery plans having to be prepared—and that's not executed, that's prepared. There is a further year before they will have to be put into practice.

So, I think that the aims of the Bill are radical and ambitious, and that answers some of the criticisms made by organisations such as Dyfodol i'r Iaith and Cymdeithas. But the answers to those who are anxious about the practical implications are that the practical implications are not today, not tomorrow, they're actually five years in the making, with a great deal of help being mobilised to them along the way. And that's why I believe the Bill strikes that balance between the two contrasting points of view that you will have heard.

Thank you. To what extent has the Welsh Government's assessment of the impact on the education workforce been tested with the profession? For example, how involved in the work were the teaching unions, and what has been their reaction? And why was the workload assessment not included in the explanatory memorandum alongside the summaries of other impact assessments?

Well, thank you, Chair. My starting point is to recognise that the single biggest change that the Bill will mobilise to meet its objectives is what will be needed in the workforce, so that is shared ground. The reason why the education workforce assessment was not included in the explanatory memorandum is that it is an experimental impact assessment. The Bill was used to pilot the process. Now, there's a fairly laid-down set of rules about what can and cannot be included in the various documents that support the Bill, and we didn't include it in the EM because of its experimental nature. We did publish it, however. We published it on 15 July alongside all the other impact assessments.

Teaching unions were involved in the production of that document. I am not saying that they agreed with it or they were satisfied with it, because the teaching unions have a wider set of concerns about workload, of which this is a part, but it is not the whole of their concerns. Since the publication of the Bill, officials—Bethan particularly, and others—have been engaged in further conversations with the teaching unions, and I expect that, in the second iteration of the explanatory memorandum, which is normally published after Stage 2, there will be further information that we will be able to include in that, around that workload impact assessment, as a result of the ongoing conversations that we are having now.

Thank you. Should there be a duty in the Bill, as called for by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and others, for the Welsh Ministers to prepare and publish a Welsh in education workforce plan as part of the national framework for Welsh language education and learning Welsh?

Well, Chair, workforce obligations run all the way through the Bill. There are obligations on Welsh Ministers in producing the national framework, of various sorts, to include workforce considerations there. The WESPs will have obligations inside them to deal with these matters. The athrofa is designed to be a focus on developing the workforce; there will be obligations there. Workforce runs like a stick of rock through the whole of the Bill.

You will have heard a variety of suggestions as to how the Bill could be strengthened in that regard, and the coleg cenedlaethol has proposed a particular solution to focus on the Welsh in education workforce plans. But you will have heard from RhAG, Rhieni dros Addysg Gymraeg, a different solution, which is to strengthen the national framework in that regard.

I think I am open-minded on this matter and, as I said, I've been following the evidence closely, and there may be a number of things you will want to talk about this morning, where I am looking forward to seeing the committee's report and to weigh up practical ways in which the Bill can be improved. I've said many times in the Senedd that I've never seen a Bill that hasn't been improved as a result of the scrutiny process, and Stage 1 is an important part of that. So, I'm not going to be able to say today that I think the solution from the coleg cenedlaethol is the right one and we'll adopt it; I am saying that I am open-minded about a number of suggestions that have been made as to how the workforce components of the Bill might be further strengthened, while continuing to make the point that it's there in every part of the Bill already. But if there's more that we can do, and sensibly do, then I'm going to look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Thank you. I'd like to bring Cefin in here, please.

Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi am yr ateb yna. Dwi'n falch o glywed bod gennych chi feddwl agored ynglŷn â gosod dyletswydd ar wyneb y Bil ynglŷn â datblygu gweithlu dwyieithog a thargedau ar gyfer hynny. Oes yna, yn eich barn chi, ddadl yn erbyn gwneud hynny?

Well, just to be clear, Chair, I've not said that I accept the case made on targets as of yet. As I've said, I am open to considering how we can strengthen what's currently in the Bill in relation to strengthening the workforce for the future. I don't want to argue against that, because as I said, the workforce permeates the whole of the Bill, and I've already agreed that that is the greatest challenge that we face if we are to succeed in delivering what's in the Bill. So, I'm not going to argue against strengthening the Bill in that way, but how will we do it? And if targets are to be part of that on the face of the Bill, well, I'm not quite sure about that.

Thank you. Should there be targets in the Bill to increase the Welsh-speaking capacity of the education workforce, and what are the risks if there aren't any statutory targets?

Well, Chair, as I just said to Cefin Campbell, I'm not yet convinced that statutory targets on the face of the Bill are the right way to address this, and that's partly because—. We've talked so far about the workforce as though it was a single entity whereas actually, the workforce that you will need to deliver this Bill will go from people who are teaching Welsh language and literature through the medium of Welsh at one end of the spectrum, to people who will be contributing to the 10 per cent requirement in a primarily English-speaking school, where you may be a reception teacher. So, what is required of the workforce in terms of Welsh language capacity is so wide and varied that I'm not sure that a target isn't a rather blunt instrument here. So, we will have ambitions for the workforce, and they're there in the Bill already. As I say, I'm open to proposals as to how we can strengthen that. I'm not yet convinced that a single target can actually reflect the complexity of what will be required of the workforce, and I'm not certain that that is the best way to bring about the improvements that we will want to see.

Okay, thank you. Do you recognise the Education Workforce Council's concerns that, in order to ensure children reach the level B2 on leaving compulsory education, teachers would need to be qualified to level C1 of the CEFR to deliver on that ambition?

Well, I think you make a very sensible point. I don't think the point itself is disputable. But, just to be clear about what the Bill actually says: in 2033, what we're expecting is that children who are in primarily English-medium education will have reached levels A1 and A2, not B2 and B1. So, this will become an issue, but it's not an issue on the doorstep of the system at all, and the Bill requires a whole consultation exercise before the system moves in that directionFootnoteLink. So, any future Minister would need to be confident that the system is now in place, including the necessary workforce, to be able to move from A1 and A2 requirements in those primarily English-medium schools to something more ambitious. To do it, you will need a workforce equipped to do that. So, I absolutely understand the general point. It's not a point for today's system, and it's not a point for the system for the next decade.

Thank you.

Chair, could I just ask a quick follow-up on that?

Yes, of course, do.

Just in terms of the trajectory of change that we've seen over the last 10, 20 years, for example, is that realistic? Is it a stretch target to expect that level of change within the next 10 or so years, as you've said?

Well, look, it is certainly a stretch target, isn't it, but it has to be a stretch target because, just to stand back for one moment, what is the recent history of Welsh education? Welsh-medium education is a huge success story, and this Bill is absolutely part of an ongoing effort to continue that success and for more children to be presented for education through the medium of Welsh.

The other half of the story, the teaching of the Welsh language to children who are in primarily English-medium schools, has not been the same success story. It has been a compulsory part of education since 1988 and the Kenneth Baker Act. The requirement was increased in the 1996 Act. So, for 30 years and more, English-medium schools have been under a statutory obligation to teach the Welsh language. Do children at the end of that process come out capable and confident speakers of the language, capable of contributing to our ambition of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050? Well, I think report after report tells us that they don't. So, this Bill is about making all that effort that goes on already more effective, and then adding to the effort as necessary. It is a stretch, because our aim is to turn a system where all that investment is not producing outcomes of the sort we'd all want to see into a system where it is more effective, and that will mean a change. But it's not a change that I think is beyond the system, given the time that is available and the resources that are going to be mobilised around it.

I guess, does the Welsh Government have a granular grasp of the extent of that stretch, and what it's going to take in order to achieve it?

Well, the best evidence we have is from the consultation that was carried out around the non-statutory targets in 2021. This is not the first time the 10 per cent target has been rehearsed with the education world and the education profession, because the target was in our consultation only a couple of years ago. About half of primary schools, primarily English-medium-of-instruction schools, said that 15 per cent was within their grasp. Now, that included non-statutory parts of the day, just to make that clear. But they thought that they could do 15 per cent. Other schools were still below 10 per cent. Ten per cent is a figure that we think is a reasonable figure, given what we already know. One of the advantages of the Bill, however, will be to drive out data in a much more comprehensive and reliable way than we have up until this point. Because although we have a 30-year history of Welsh language teaching in primarily English-medium schools, what we know about it at the level of granular detail that you asked, Lee, is not what it needs to be. The Bill will help us with that.

Okay, diolch.

Okay, thank you. In light of the raised expectations and demand of the Bill, has the Welsh Government considered whether it needs to enhance the incentives to attract new prospective Welsh-medium teachers and strengthen the support for existing teachers to improve their Welsh language skills?

Well, Chair, a whole series of schemes exist already to do exactly that. They're the responsibility of my colleague the education Secretary, but include the cynllun pontio; the Welsh-medium workforce capacity development grant, which is there now and will continue into the future; the teacher retention bursary that is due to be introduced; and there are things like the Open University funding that we give to expand on employment-based teaching, to allow people to gain greater confidence that the Welsh language ability they already have can be an economic asset to them in the workplace. And there is a big pool of untapped talent inside the teaching workforce. The annual school workforce survey says that over 6 per cent of teachers in the workforce regard themselves as capable of teaching through the medium of Welsh, but don't do it at the moment. That's 1,500 people already in the workforce. Now, there are lots of reasons why people choose not to do that, or the circumstances they're in don't lend it to them. But the work of this Bill will be to try to draw more of that latent pool into the work that we need to see done. So, my position in front of the committee is not to argue that this is easy, not to argue that this is something that doesn’t require effort, but it is to argue that we have lots of things in place already, and that the framework of the Bill, and the way that the Bill will construct it in the future, will allow us to do it.

Okay, thank you. I'd like to bring Vaughan in here, please.

Bore da.

Bore da.

I think you’re correct in setting out that this is a journey. If the aim is to get to where, essentially, the Basque Country is, where everyone speaks Castilian and Basque, at the end of the journey the country was to go on, the challenge—and this is an issue that is on the doorstep of the system, to pick up a phrase you used—is that we have current workforce challenges in acquiring people, both through the medium of Welsh but also for second-language Welsh teaching, and what we don’t have is a workforce plan.

Now, I’m agnostic about whether that’s on the face of the Bill or not. I think statutory targets can be useful, but they can also be a real challenge, because they’re very difficult to change in primary legislation. But in going through all the scenarios of what might be possible—and I note what you said, that the explanatory memorandum was experimental—it’s the level of confidence that scenario 3 is unlikely to materialise. And I understand, because I didn’t appear or look at this live yesterday, that in the Finance Committee, you said that scenario 3 wouldn’t materialise because the Welsh Government would take actions to prevent it. And it’s about trying to understand what actions are those that you have in mind, and are there actions that we can see in the Bill, or are there are things we’d expect to see coming up in other parts of the scheme that the Bill sets out? Because it’s hard for us to know what those might be, because scenario 3 isn’t costed. So, to understand why it wasn’t costed, and then to understand what action you have in mind already that, if we’re not making the progress we want to in acquiring the workforce we need to deliver the ambitions—because a Field of Dreams approach can’t be right; we can’t say, ‘Pass the Bill and the teachers will come’—so it's the practical and proactive actions that will be taken that give you the confidence to say, ‘We don’t think scenario 3 is going to be likely.’

Well, thanks to Vaughan for that. So, there are three scenarios in the Bill, and we don’t cost scenario 1 because that is business as usual, and we don’t believe that just carrying on as we are will get us to where we need to be. Scenario 2 is what the Bill represents. Scenario 3 is what happens if the Bill doesn’t deliver on its ambitions. So, I think Vaughan’s question is: ‘Why do we think the Bill will deliver on its ambitions and scenario 3 therefore won’t materialise?’ Well, I think there are a series of things in the Bill designed to make sure that the resources that are currently in the system are used to better effect, and ways in which we can add to the capacity of the system in future.

So, I didn’t mention this when, I think, Chair, you asked me about what are we going to do to help create that workforce. Well, the sabbatical scheme has probably been the biggest driver of our ability to turn people who are in the system already into effective classroom practitioners. It was very interesting yesterday, in front of the Finance Committee, hearing Mike Hedges talk about his experience in Swansea, with the success that the sabbatical scheme has been there. And I think we have some figures—Bethan will hopefully remind me of them—of the number of teachers in the south-east of Wales who have taken advantage of the sabbatical scheme over the last five years in order to strengthen the capacity in the school to be able to do what we are talking about. I’ve seen them; I don’t know if you can remember them.

I haven’t got them in front of me, but I think in the south-east, one from every primary school has accessed the sabbatical scheme in the last five years. The sabbatical scheme supports 120 per annum, and it also covers the backfill costs. And also, since last year, the National Centre for Learning Welsh has £500,000 as a programme to link with the sabbatical scheme so that there’s pre-learning, and 2,000 have been taught through that programme as well.

So—

Sorry, is that a sum of money, not 500,000 teachers?

No, it's £500,000 in terms of a sum of money and it's 2,000 that have accessed that, because it's the pre-learning. With the sabbatical scheme, teachers who do that course tend to come out at B1 on the common European framework, because it's an immersive course, so the pre-learning would be at A1 and A2 and that would be—. So, the National Centre for Learning Welsh already has assumed some responsibility over the last year in terms of supporting the workforce, and I know that they have engaged already with local authorities across Wales, and there is a lot of interest in this space. They've also been innovating with certain school clusters. So, I know that in the Fitzalan cluster in Cardiff, where there is an issue with a workforce who has the ability to speak Welsh, what they're doing is they are teaching 60 hours to 12 of the teachers within that cluster, and also Joseph Healy, who won the learner of the year award, is doing Cymraeg yn y Cartref, so Welsh in the home. He is doing classes for parents and teachers and schools, so that they understand why the children are learning in Welsh and what those skills can give them.

So, we are piloting and innovating all the time in this familiarisation phase, and we hope that when the National Centre for Learning Welsh, or when we have an athrofa from 2027, that that body of expertise, then, will have status and that there will be confidence in the system that schools and local authorities can go to to have that support. And as the Minister has said, through the delivery plans we hope to have that granular information, so that we know exactly where that support is targeted, because maybe at the moment, although people access the sabbatical scheme, we're not sure if the right people are being prioritised for that access.

Two very quick points on top. So, the sabbatical scheme will continue and it's been a success. The athrofa will be there to provide a new focus on equipping the workforce. Two other points on it briefly, Chair. One is, and it's a point I've heard Alun Davies make a few times, that the Bill will allow schools to come together in order to provide the teaching that is needed in the Bill, and in the south-east of Wales particularly, the ability of schools to co-operate with one another, I think, will be an important part of how we get that journey to happen. And then a final point, and it's not a point that the Bill relies on, and it's not a point I've made, really, I think, in front of other committees, but it is just a fact of the matter that by the time we get to the end point of the current timetable, there will be thousands and thousands fewer children in Welsh schools. Now, if you were asking the system to move in this ambitious direction while it had more and more students to deal with, I think that would be quite an ask, but this is a system being asked to do that at a point when, actually, the number of children coming through the door is going to decline every year, and I think that will make a difference to the ability of the system to mobilise its resources to meet the ambitions of the Bill.

We've had evidence here from the Government's own figures about the teacher workforce and subject challenges that show we're not able, currently, to recruit to the rate that we want to, bearing in mind the future projections that you talked about. So, it is this challenge of whether the rate at which additional Welsh language teaching ability is being, if you like, provided to the workforce, whether that meets the expectations in the Bill, and they are ambitious. That rate of added Welsh language ability—. Teaching is not immune to a range of other challenges, so—. General practice is better remunerated than any classroom teacher in the primary sector, and yet we still have a challenge in getting enough people who want to be GPs, for a number of factors.

I suppose, the challenge, therefore, even with the potential projections on pupil numbers, is about whether we're doing enough, and that does seem to be ambitious, and whilst it might not be on the face of the Bill, to see a compelling plan, because that would require several Governments over several terms to commit to this, and bearing in mind your role as the finance Secretary, several budgets. And that's why we come back to the explanatory memorandum not setting out how reliable the expected scenario is, when there would need to be investment in the workforce, but also, if there were more steps that needed to be taken, about how those—. At the moment, we just need to understand that they're not costed and the level of confidence, therefore, that the Government has that scenario 2 is going to achieve the ambitions that the Bill sets out. But the plans, understandably, have yet to be written in the granular detail that Lee Waters referred to.

Well, Chair, my view is that all of the things that the Bill mobilises around scenario 2 will make that scenario the most likely outcome. We will strengthen the explanatory memorandum when it's re-laid at the end of Stage 2, partly as a result of the ongoing discussions with the teaching unions and partly to reflect some of the conversations that the committee has been involved in. We could draw to the surface, for example, in a way that we haven't maybe sufficiently so far, the fact that—. We've been talking about targets, and I'm still not persuaded by a target on the face of the Bill, but the Bill does require a target to be set in the Welsh language strategy, which the Bill requires. So it's not that there isn't a target going to be set, it's going to be set somewhere where it can be a bit more flexible and a bit more adaptive than a target on the face of a Bill that requires primary legislation to amend it.

And alongside that, there are obligations of consultation and involvement of the sector, and so on. So, I think, when you take all of these things together, there is confidence to be had in that central scenario. I don't think it's possible to provide meaningful figures for a scenario that the Government doesn't believe will materialise. If it did, then there would have to be a range of actions above and beyond the actions in the current planning. So, they would have to be considered, consulted on and codified in the circumstances of that time. And given that the Government both does not think that that is going to materialise and that I cannot predict for you what those actions would need to be, it's always possible to put a figure into an explanatory memorandum, but I don't think it would mean very much and I don't think it would be very helpful.

Okay. Could I just take you back a step and ask: are there any plans to increase the funding for the sabbatical scheme?

The sabbatical scheme has £3.8 million spent on it annually. The commitment in the Bill is that that level of funding continues, because the Bill is predicated on those funding streams that are currently in place being there over the 10-year haul. If there were to be additional funds in the future, that would be for a future Government to determine.

Okay. Thank you. Now we have questions from Heledd Fychan, please.

Thank you very much. If I could look at Part 1 of the Bill with you, and to go back to the first evidence session, on 19 September I think it was—it feels like a very long time ago—we had a discussion that was positive in terms of looking at it as a minimum, of at least a million Welsh speakers by 2050. Do you think that there is room, therefore, because it refers here to a million Welsh speakers, that we should change the reference in the Bill to be 'at least a million'?

I'm happy to consider that. I do remember that discussion that we had. We're not saying that, if we reach a million, we will stop and that no-one else will be allowed to learn Welsh in Wales, so I'm happy to consider that.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. If I could therefore go to the evidence we've heard specifically from Cymdeithas yr Iaith—and clearly you've referred already to that—they made comments in terms of the census and the fact that, if we change the means of measuring the number of Welsh speakers, that will perhaps create problems in terms of being able to understand how we're doing. How do you respond to this evidence, and do you accept that there is a need to make it clear on the face of the Bill that it's the census that should be used to calculate the number of Welsh speakers?

Well, the intention in the future, Chair, is to use the census as a starting point. That's been central to how we count those people in Wales who say that they are Welsh speakers, but we can't rely on the census for the future. The Conservative Government had many plans to redesign the census, and there was more than one suggestion that they wouldn't continue with the census at all. So, if we're just going to rely on something where we can't be entirely assured that it will continue for the future, then I don't think that that is good enough in relation to this Bill.

And also, we've had a number of discussions on the floor of the Senedd as to whether the census is the only way to count the number of Welsh speakers. Is there other data that we could use? Are there other things that could—? Not whilst the census is still in existence—we're not putting the census to one side—but just to strengthen the number of data points that we have, in order to help us to be clearer than we're able to be today in terms of the use of the Welsh language, and how many people think—because I just want to go back to this self-definition issue—think of themselves as Welsh speakers.

Thank you. Just to be clear, it's not the intention of this Bill to change the aim in terms of measuring progress. If the census continues, that is still something that's important in terms of—.

It will be central, as it has been, for the reasons that Cymdeithas yr Iaith have set out.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. O ran yr hunanasesiad gan unigolion ar sail CEFR, bod hwnnw’n cael ei ddefnyddio yn y dyfodol i gyfrifo nifer y siaradwyr Cymraeg, ydych chi'n rhagweld bydd hwnnw hefyd yn bwysig? A'r ffaith fydd pawb ddim ar y raddfa hon yn cael eu hystyried yn siaradwyr Cymraeg.

Well, one of the important things in the Bill, of course, is the CEFR, and in future—not now, but in future—when people are more familiar with it, I think one of the things that will be important in the Bill is that people will be able to say not just, 'I can', or 'I can't speak Welsh', they'll be able to say, 'Well, I speak Welsh. I speak Welsh at level—', and they'll be able to refer to the framework to do that, and I think that will be of huge assistance for people.

It was so interesting in the Finance Committee to hear Mike Hedges saying that he speaks Welsh. He speaks Welsh in chapel, he speaks Welsh in other contexts, but he never uses the Welsh language in the Senedd context. So, with that framework, people will be able to say, 'Well, I can speak Welsh at this level in this context.' In the workplace, I think that will be crucial. At the moment, people have to advertise posts by saying, 'You must be a Welsh speaker', or, 'Welsh is desirable.' In the Basque Country—Vaughan referred the Basque Country—employers advertise posts where they say, 'We need someone who can speak Basque at level—' and they refer to that level, so that will help people to use Welsh in the workplace too. So, that's one part of the Bill where I think it will be very useful for us in the future.

Given that, it's quite a change, isn't it, for people of every age to get used to, and some who see this Bill are just thinking of it through the lens of Welsh-medium education, and the change that we'll see in schools with the language continuum. Clearly, there's a big piece of work to be undertaken to ensure that everybody in Wales realises the relevance of this Bill. Have you given consideration to how, beyond the education system, we are going to raise that awareness with employers, but also, for example, with jobcentres and so on, or careers services, that help people in terms of preparing to apply for jobs?

Well, I think there's important work to be done if the Bill is passed, so that's the first hurdle. The Bill is still before the Senedd, so we will have to take the Bill through the process. If we succeed in doing that, there will be work to be done by Government, but also other agencies to draw attention to the fact that the Bill is relevant to more than just education. It's relevant to people in the workforce, it's relevant to people who are learning Welsh having been through formal education. It's relevant in terms of finding more opportunities for people to use the Welsh language outside of the classroom. So, yes, there's a lot of work to be done. When I said that I thought that the CEFR will be useful for the future, we're not talking about immediately, but when we reach the point where people will be familiar with the new system. We can take confidence from what's happened in the Basque Country, in Finland and so on, where they have used the framework for quite some time and where people do naturally refer to the framework when describing themselves.

Have you given consideration yet regarding who should be leading on that? Clearly, centrally the Government, but have you given any consideration beyond that?

I agree that the biggest weight of responsibility sits with Government in terms of doing that. Now, after that, there are a number of individuals and agencies that we could ask to help us to do that: the Welsh Language Commissioner, I'm sure that she would want to lead; the athrofa; the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol; and people in the third sector too, the Urdd, for example. The Urdd is an employer. That will be useful to them, and I want to see an effort that draws a number of people in to help us develop the new possibilities around this. But the lead, I think, at the end of the day, will come from Government.

Thank you.

Thank you. We now have some questions from Vaughan Gething, please.

Diolch. It follows on from the last set of questions. It's partly about not just what the Bill seeks to do; there are obviously more societal-wide challenges about how people see themselves as Welsh speakers as well. But the CEFR has been something that's come up in all of our evidence. I understand you have previously said almost everyone in Wales speaks some Welsh. Almost everyone can say a few words of Welsh, but it's moving from the few words to wider descriptors and about there being pre-A1 descriptors that exist below the lowest level of Welsh and that you'll be developing the code to help describe Welsh ability. So, it would be useful to know why those aren't currently set out, either in Schedule 1 or the explanatory memorandum, and when we can expect to see those. It's been commented on by a number of people, and, bearing in mind Alun Davies's comments, I think, last week, that there are lots of people who don't describe themselves as Welsh speakers and say that to you speaking perfect Welsh. So, there is this challenge of how people see themselves, how CEFR might help to understand that and to make sure that everyone is looking at the same thing at the same time.

Well, I thank Vaughan for that question, Chair. I want to repeat what I said in front of the committee last time: in my view, there are not very many people in Wales who do not speak some Welsh, and I'm very much opposed to the point of view that there are some people who really speak Welsh, and there are some people who just don't enter into that hallowed territory. There are very few people in Wales who don't know Welsh place names, use them all the time. There are very few people who aren't able to say 'bore da' to you and things like that. I want them to think that the language belongs to them, because the language belongs to everybody, and once we start saying there are sheep and goats in all of this, I think we've lost a really big argument. So, I'm very pleased to say again in front of the committee that I think Welsh does belong to us all and that there are very few people indeed in Wales who don't have some stake in that.

Now, the people who speak the very smallest amount do fall outside the global scale that CEFR uses, and the documentation that goes alongside the Bill uses the global scale. When the global scale was amended in 2001—sorry, 2021.

Twenty-one.

In 2021, then these pre-A1 descriptors were added, but they weren't added into the global scale. They were made available, but the scale itself remains that simple A1, B1, C1, and that's what we've reflected in the documentation.

But the code will provide those descriptors to enable people to see whether they are on the very foothills of this system, and we'll use the code to offer people help to know how to do that. And we'll be able to do that, because—I think we rehearsed it a bit more, last time—the contacts that we have with other countries where two languages are spoken and where these descriptors are used, we'll draw on that experience to make those descriptors the right ones for Wales. Because, as I say, people who are working towards the pre-A1 stage, in my view, we want to make sure that they know that they are part of the language that belongs to everybody in Wales, and we count them in that way.

I think that's interesting, and I've certainly met people who do think there are sheep and goats in this field, and it's been quite an unpleasant conversation.

Yes. Well, I agree. I've met them too, and I agree. It's a point of view that I, myself, completely reject.

So, a number of stakeholders have said that they think that A1 and A2 are essentially equivalent to GCSE Welsh second language. So, the descriptors before that will be quite important for a number of people. So, understanding clearly how the Government expects that to be set out in a code is helpful for us. Because that point about the wider ranges of describing Welsh language ability aren't just relevant to pre A1, they'll also, potentially, be relevant to descriptors further up the scale, including—. And I think you said before that there could be a 'plus' added to parts of it as well. So, whether you're either A1, and the A category or the B category and what those will mean, it would be helpful to understand. Again, I think you've explained why that isn't in the Bill or the explanatory memorandum or the Schedule at present, but when would you expect that work to be done? And then, if you're going to have that level of granularity, whether it's your view that will—this always comes back to some of the contested areas—help in terms of describing language ability or whether it adds to the complexity and potentially the workload for the people who are charged to deliver the teaching element of this.

Chair, I can offer some answers to the last points that Vaughan raised. When it comes to the interface and the interplay between the CEFR levels, other descriptors that are used in the curriculum space, qualifications and how those—. I'm probably going to ask Bethan to help me, because it's a technical and complicated area that she will understand and be able to explain to you better than I think I could myself.

But on your two final points, Vaughan: when will the code happen? The code is the first thing that the Bill requires, so that will be July 2026 that the code will be there, and it will help not just with the pre-A1 issues, but the way in which, in practice, in other places where the code is more well-known and embedded, there are those sort of plus and minus categories that are used when people are moving, or are on the cusp of, 'Am I B1? Am I B2?' and I think it will offer a helpful flexibility to people on the ground. I don't think it's there to add complexity to their lives, it's there for them to be able to use when they feel that that is a more refined way of being able to describe what they see in front of them. It'll be for individuals to decide how they use it. I have, myself, marked many scripts over the years in the education system, and I've sat alongside people who tell students that they had a B+ query A- and a very long descriptor of it. And it's what the individual will find most useful to them in dealing with the job in front of them. It will offer them a bit of extra flexibility, not designed to complicate their lives, but just to help them in the work that they do.

Now, the interface, I'm going to ask Bethan to describe that for you.

Yes. As the Minister said, the global scale is a necessary simplification of language proficiency at one level on the face of the Bill. So, that will drive the system. And then, the code, developing the code, under section 6, it does state that we can use and expand beyond those six levels, so that would allow for the pre A1 to be part of our code. So, that's in legislation, so there's no danger of that. In terms of developing the code, as the Minister said, it is the first thing, it's the silver thread through the Bill, it's what binds the Bill. It creates a lifelong continuum and it's what binds and bridges between school education and workplaces, so it is the silver thread. So, we've got to get the code right, right at the beginning, so we have to consult with all the partners so that we get the code right.

In terms of the granularity of the code, working with others and looking at other best practice in Europe, what they tend to do is: A1 is typically split into A1.1 and A1.2, just to track and map, so that you get to the top, because it's cumulative to the top of A1, and, likewise, it would be A2.1 and A2.2. So, those would be mapped in the code. But, of course, our code would belong to Wales, like the Basque Country's code belongs to them, because obviously, languages have their own syntax and their own peculiarities. So, it's really important that we own those—

Certainly to a Basque—you've got to try to understand its structure.

Yes. It's really important that we own those.

[Inaudible.]

Yes, so that's why—. So, that's what we think would be the level of granularity. We would have to develop the code with experts. There are Association of Language Testers in Europe experts in Wales and within the UK, and we can draw on experts on the European level as well, and, as we've already stated, we would work with the school sector and beyond. And I think, the important part of the code, as the Minister has said, is that we have to consult; but not just a general consultation, we have to consult with the various sectors in a meaningful way, because consulting on the code is the first step in the journey for people to start understanding what it is and what it could give, in terms of being able to describe skill levels, which is now the norm in Europe and globally—so, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, this is the kind of scale that they use to describe skills and how skills are developed.

One thing that will make a difference potentially in terms of learning—. And this is what we've seen in terms of the National Centre for Learning Welsh, because they've adopted the common European approach fully and devised their national curriculum from 2016, and the reason that adults now succeed, more than they might have done previously, in matriculating and learning Welsh, is that the focus is on transaction and how you use it and what it means to you in various situations. So, even on A1 level in the common European framework—. So, say you saw araf written on the road, and there was a child with a parent in the car, that would be a mediation, so translanguaging. So, if the child understood that araf was 'slow', they could say, 'Oh, Mum, Dad, you know, that means slow'. So, that's translanguaging, then, from a very early age, and then that is integrated into the system so that people are more aware of language use right from the word go, so that you just don't get, 'Learn that sentence rote'. It's a more meaningful way, so that people understand, however little language you introduce, you know right from the word go how to use that language in different scenarios and how it belongs to you as an individual as well. So, that's the difference, but it is a culture change. And as the Minister said, it won't change overnight; it will take 10, 15 years potentially. And it's the younger generation potentially that come through the school sector, over time, like what's happened in other countries in Europe, who'll be au fait with the system, and whenever they leave education—16, 18 or beyond—they'll know where they are and they'll know what skills they can offer in whatever workplace they go to.

Okay. So, I'll try to come to a conclusion, because I think you've answered most of what would have been my next question. But I'd be grateful—you expect the code to be in place in July 2026, and, just on the next one, it would be helpful to confirm when you'd expect the code to be consulted on. I assume that that will be consulted on within this Senedd term for implementation in the next one.

Yes.

That's helpful. Thank you. I just want to put to you a point that Cymdeithas made—it doesn't mean that I agree with it, but it's a point they made in the evidence—and then the alignment between the code and the curriculum.

Okay.

So, Cymdeithas made the point that, for first-language Welsh speakers, it's not appropriate to have CEFR, because it's designed for people who have languages as additional. But I just want to understand the Government's view on that, because it sounds from your previous answer that you're saying that it is skills-based, so it simply describes a skill that a speaker has. But I just want to confirm that.

Then, finally, the point about the alignment with the curriculum. So, there were two points made about curriculum alignment. One was broadly whether putting the additional expectations around Welsh-medium ability in the English stream, as well as the three descriptors of schools, would crowd out space for delivery of the curriculum.

The other, though, was just because Qualifications Wales has gone through a process with the WJEC on revising Welsh language qualifications—so, they have got the Cymraeg qualification, as well as the additional language qualification—and how successfully do you think CEFR can be mapped into those or not, given the differing stages of development that they are at, and how do you expect those to be aligned. In doing that, of course, you are not the Ysgrifennydd for education, but it is about the nature and level of conversations that you are having about the curriculum but also the workforce plan as well. Because those two things will require not just the education department, but the budget and the means to do it, and the same with the curriculum, around, if we pass the Bill, there is quite a lot of work to be done in the education department to make this real, as far as we can expect the education system to do all of the lifting when it comes to 'Cymraeg 2050', which we may come on to later.

I thank Vaughan for the questions.

I'll try and deal with all of them, other than the interface between CEFR, WJEC and Qualifications Wales, which I'll ask Bethan to do. Does CEFR have a place in Welsh-medium education—people who are first-language Welsh speakers? We believe that it does. It is how it has been used in the Basque country. It's how it has been used in Finland, for example.

It started off as a framework that was entirely focused on second language use. It’s now widely used in places where there are two languages in common usage, and I think that it does have a useful part to play in Welsh-medium education. Does it crowd out other parts of the curriculum in primarily English-medium schools? I, myself, believe that children in primarily English-medium schools will have a better chance of acquiring a fluency in the Welsh language if it is not simply taught as a language, but it is also used as a medium of instruction.

So, I look forward to the day when, in an English-medium school, you might have your sports lesson, and lots of it will involve the teacher talking to you in Welsh. I want Welsh to be fun for children in those schools. I hope that schools will think about having a drama class where children will be encouraged in primarily English-medium schools to create little conversations and dramas using the Welsh language. So, the Bill allows both approaches.

There will still be a preponderance, I guess, of teaching the language. But using the language as a medium of instruction I think is a very important way of allowing children to see that the language is a living language that you can use in that way. That means that it doesn’t have to crowd out other parts of the curriculum, because you can use the other parts of the curriculum as part of the way in which you encourage young people to become confident users of the Welsh language.

If I could just follow on that point, isn't that happening in some of our English-medium schools at the moment, through the siarter iaith, the language charter? In terms of the ambition, then, for these schools, I think that one thing may be that we are not going to see progress, because a number of schools are doing this already. How do we therefore support them to be moving faster along that continuum, rather than staying static, and thinking, 'We do sport through the medium of Welsh; we are doing partnerships with Welsh-medium schools in a number of areas' or, 'We are working with the Urdd'? So, how do we support them to be moving quicker, while encouraging others to be establishing the best practice that's already happening?

Well, Chair, it's an important point just to say that many schools are already doing this. We have focused this morning, and we have focused in other committees, on how we can help schools that aren't at that 10 per cent threshold already to get to that level. But the Bill goes beyond that, in encouraging those schools that are doing more than that already to continue to do more in the future. There are many things in the Bill—the athrofa is just one example—that will help schools to build on the successes that they've already achieved, and to help other schools by showing not only the possibilities of using the Welsh language in schools that teach primarily through the medium of English, but to show that that is an effective way of helping children to become more confident with the language.

Diolch.

Thank you. We now have some questions from Tom Giffard, please. You're muted, Tom. Hold on. There we are.

I only said thank you. [Laughter.] The Bill, Minister, describes 'Welsh language education' as to include both Welsh-medium provision and the teaching of Welsh as a subject, but some of the evidence that we have heard suggests it changes the long-standing concept of what Welsh language education is. I'm wondering how you would respond to that.

Well, I've seen that evidence coming to the committee. I don't want to say that I don't understand it. The ground that has been won for Welsh-medium education has been hard won, and, as I say, it's been hugely successful in the last 30 years. It's been a major success story. Where I don't agree with the points that have been made is that somehow the Bill undermines that in any way. The Bill is designed to be equally supportive of a growth in Welsh-medium education as it is in making a better job of producing confident and capable speakers of the language out of primarily English-medium schools.

So, I understand where the anxiety comes from, I think, but I don't regard this—. I think some of the ways it's been put to the committee regard this as a contest, a contest between Welsh-medium schools and those schools that we hope now will be doing more to produce Welsh speakers in primarily English-medium schools. I do not regard it as that. It's certainly not designed to be that. The phrase we use is deliberately designed to capture both the effort we want to see and want to support and go on seeing to increase Welsh-medium education, but to do the other things that we've mostly talked about this morning. And I don't believe, myself, that the phrase that is used in the Bill, which was very carefully thought about and much debated before we came to it—I don't think it has the effect that some people fear.

Because some of the evidence we've also heard suggests that the Bill focuses too much on what we would currently call English-medium schools and not enough on what we would currently call Welsh-medium schools, and I think it ties back to the question Heledd asked you just before I came in. Do you think the Bill overly focuses on English-medium settings?

The Bill is designed to harness the effort that is made across the whole of the education spectrum to that goal of a million Welsh speakers by 2050. Where is the ground that we most need to make up if we are to do that? And I think that is in primarily English-speaking schools. But it does not for a moment imply that we do not wish to go on supporting the successful efforts that we have seen in Wales to increase the number of young people who are presented for education primarily through the medium of Welsh. The Bill absolutely provides for that.

Again, I think the language of, 'Does the Bill do too much for this and not enough for that?' does play in a bit to that view that some people have that somehow this is a zero-sum game—you know, if you do more over here you must be doing less over there—and I just don't believe that that is the case.

How do you respond then to those who say that the 'primarily Welsh language school' category in the Bill is too broad and doesn't distinguish between schools who provide slightly more than half in Welsh and those whose provision is almost all in Welsh?

I think it is a point of view that does not take properly into account the fact that there is a regulation-making power in the Bill that Ministers will use to set out the range in dual language schools and primarily Welsh-medium schools as well. The only figure on the face of the Bill—I accept that, of course—is the 10 per cent figure, because we must create that floor in the part of the system where the floor isn't sufficiently established. But regulations will set out the percentage of instruction that will need to be delivered through the medium of Welsh in order to be regarded as a school that falls within the dual language or the primarily Welsh-medium language as well. So, you don't see it on the face of the Bill, but it will be there in regulations.

So, to that end, you mention the only figure in the Bill is the 10 per cent, why are you doing away with the sub-category of designated Welsh-medium schools, where the figure is 90 per cent in Welsh?

Well, as I say, we're not doing away with that; we will capture it through the regulation-making process.

Thank you. While the required ranges of the amount of Welsh language education schools must provide, in accordance with their category, will be set out in regulations, as you mentioned, a minimum is stipulated on the face of the Bill for one of the categories, which is the 10 per cent. You've mentioned that the other two categories will be picked up in regulation. Why is that the strength of the Bill, and why would that not be included? Sorry, why would it be included in the regulation and not the Bill? Help me understand why there's that difference.

Well, I think, myself, if I could say, Tom, I would have put the question the other way around. The remarkable thing is not that we do not have figures for the other two categories on the face of the Bill, but we do have a figure for primarily English schools. I think the case could be: 'Why didn't you leave them all for regulations? Why did you decide to have 10 per cent for schools that use primarily English as the medium of instruction?' And that is because, as I've said, that is the place in the system where we most urgently need to create a basic floor where we know that all schools are able to reach that level. We already have categories and percentages for those other schools that are used now. We don't need to create those, because they're already in use. We don't need them on the face of the Bill for that reason; we will through regulations. What's new, and therefore is on the face of the Bill, is that 10 per cent.

Do you think having percentage figures for all three published on the face of the Bill—in the way that is not currently set out in the Bill, but I accept you say will be picked up in regulations—would help aid people's understanding of what each would mean? Because we've heard, for example, from some witnesses, that there may be confusion around the designation, particularly of those in the middle tier, where the term 'primarily Welsh language' may lead someone to think that there is more Welsh language medium education in that school than is actually being taught.

I myself don't believe that there is confusion now. Those schools exist. They already advertise what they do. They are already understood by parents who use them. I don't think the Bill adds any degree of confusion in that way, and, as I say, there will be regulations, it will be laid out there. Schools, in their delivery plans, will be obliged to reflect the obligation that the regulations place on them.

In some of the evidence I've seen the committee have—. What do I think? I think some of the evidence undervalues the sophistication of parents in making the choices that they do, because I think they will be weighing up all sorts of things when they make a choice. And I sometimes think that some of the evidence teeters into a belief that the Bill should narrow parental choice in a way that I don't think would be sensible. So, parents will have the range of information that they have now; they'll have more information in future. It will guide the choices that they make and, in the end, we must allow parents to make those calculations for themselves.

Thank you. And just to move back to the 10 per cent, we heard pretty clearly from the witnesses in, I think, the last evidence session we did, from Blaenau Gwent council, which would obviously be one of those councils where we would have a lot of 10 per cent, if you like, Welsh language teaching schools in Wales, that they couldn't envision a scenario where—. They would have to almost immediately apply for an exception, and realistically couldn't see how they could ever achieve the 10 per cent without needing to continue to apply for an exception, and obviously the day will come where they will need to reach that 10 per cent. So, in an area like Blaenau Gwent, which I know Alun is around the table as well and will take an interest in, is it as feasible there as it would be in Carmarthenshire to reach this figure?

No, which is why the Bill provides two three-year extension periods. I would not expect many schools in Carmarthenshire to need that. I probably do expect that more schools in Blaenau Gwent would. But I am more ambitious than some of the witnesses you may have heard. Not a single school in Blaenau Gwent will be asked to reach this for at least another five or six years. They have a long lead-in time here to set their minds to this and to prepare for it. They will have sources of assistance that they do not have now to do that, and where six years turns out not to be long enough, they will be able to apply for a further extension of three years, and even for three years beyond that. I don't believe it's beyond the capacity of any education authority, particularly given that they're able to co-operate with others in this effort, to reach that bare minimum over that long haul. I think the very good thing about the Bill and the very good thing about the committee's hearings has been that it ought to have a galvanising effect on those local authorities that feel they have the longest journey to travel to make an early start on it so that they can get to that destination.

Okay.

What is the lowest level you estimate in some schools for delivering Welsh-medium education at present?

Well, the only evidence we have is that evidence that was collected during the consultation on the non-statutory target of 10 per cent. There were schools that reported as low as 5 per cent, but I don't think anybody said they had less than that, and it's very hard to see how they could have less than that, given that this has been a statutory obligation on them for 30 years. So, how they would think that they were meeting their existing obligations if they were below 5 per cent, I think, would be a good question to explore with them. But, as I say, the range was over half said 15 per cent was what they were achieving. So, the bottom end was 5 per cent.

And those at the bottom end, hoping to reach the 10 per cent—. Final question from me. Those at the bottom end, 5 per cent sort of region, hoping to reach that 10 per cent: do you envision that most will do that through the teaching of Welsh as a subject, or will they do that through Welsh-medium teaching?

I hope it will be a mixture of both. I think there will be other things in it as well. An assembly once a week conducted in the Welsh language will count towards the 10 per cent. So, there are things that will happen during the compulsory school day that will count towards the 10 per cent, and I think we will see some creativity, some innovation, some new ways of helping this to happen. I hope it will not be simply the teaching of Welsh in the classroom in the way that we have come to know it in the past. I think the Bill will help to drive innovation. I certainly hope there will be some instruction in the way that Heledd said is happening already in many schools, and I think there will be other things as well that schools will be able to do that will help them. Twenty minutes a day—20 minutes a day—and you're almost there. You've then got to do some other things alongside it, and you'll be at that floor, and then we'll be in a position to push on from there.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Tom. I'm going to bring Heledd in really quickly here. I'm really conscious of time. We're running about 20 minutes behind. So, if Members could keep their questions and contributions really concise, I'd be very grateful. Heledd.

Thank you very much. I just wanted confirmation in terms of that 10 per cent. Are you still certain in terms of achieving that B2 with that 10 per cent—that that's still central? Because in the evidence we received on 19 September, the Welsh Government lawyer who was attending the meeting mentioned,

‘In terms of the 10 per cent minimum, or whatever percentage it would be, that doesn’t mean that every single pupil has to have 10 per cent’.

But to be clear, you do expect that—. I take it that you are of the view that, without the 10 per cent, that B2 would be very difficult for the learner to reach.

Yes, and just to be clear—

—the 10 per cent is an obligation on the school, not on the individual student.

Thank you.

Cefin, please.

Thank you very much. There was one additional question I did intend to ask, but the answer you provided to the previous question—or the one before last, rather—has inspired another question. So, if I could just go after that, first of all: you referred to a scenario where the morning assembly would be through the medium of Welsh, and that that could count towards the 10 per cent. I welcome seeing more assemblies through the medium of Welsh, and extracurricular activities through the medium of Welsh, but is there a risk, then, that that draws away from the curriculum, that 10 per cent, and weakens the situation that we’re already in, which is 15 per cent, namely 10 per cent curriculum, and about 5 per cent of extracurricular activity? Is there a danger that we go backwards if that happens?

Well, Chair, the Bill is about more than just the language. It places obligations on schools to create a Welsh ethos. So, when I was talking about morning assemblies, for me, that is part of the broad ambition of the Bill to increase the use of the Welsh language, but to do it in a broader context. So, there will have to be some sort of balance in terms of everything that we’re asking schools to deliver, but, for me, one doesn’t conflict with the other. It is part of that broader effort—about more than the language—to provide the Welsh language and Wales to children in all parts of Wales.

I agree with that, but personally I would want to stick to the 10 per cent curriculum, which is important, and at the heart of the Bill.

But there’s another question I’d like to ask, on the back of a number of similar questions from Tom Giffard. I think it’s fair to recognise that the evidence from a large number of stakeholders had expressed concern regarding the difference between Welsh-medium education and Welsh language education. I don’t think we can ignore that fact. Do you believe, therefore, that there should be more emphasis in the Bill about increasing the Welsh-medium provision—not in competition; I accept that completely—and that there’s a need to emphasise more of that, alongside increasing the provision in dual language schools, or primarily English-medium schools? Many stakeholders see that first emphasis missing.

Well, as I said, Chair, I do acknowledge and recognise those concerns, and I understand why people are raising them, but I don’t think that that will be the impact of the Bill at all. Just to re-emphasise, the Government is entirely supportive of Welsh-medium education, and to seeing more growth in that area too. And the fact that we use ‘Welsh language education’ in the Bill to encapsulate more than that doesn’t conflict with everything that we’ve already done, and everything we want to do in the future—where the Bill helps us to do that too—in terms of increasing the number of children who receive Welsh-medium education.

So, as I said, people have worked so hard to win that ground, and of course they’re concerned if that’s not going to remain the same for the future. But I can't see anything in the Bill, in practical terms, that will have that impact.

We have extra questions from Cefin Campbell, please.

Okay, thank you very much. Can you confirm whether it's the Welsh Government's intention to use the power in section 11 to make regulations to upgrade the Welsh language learning goals of primarily English language partly Welsh and dual-language schools? You say in your letter that these regulations will be in place by the time the statutory school language categories come into effect, so could you provide us with an idea of when those processes would come into effect?

I believe that I have shared with the committee the timetable that we currently have, and in that document it states that the regulations will be in place by July 2027. So, that's the timetable that we have. And of course, we have—. As with any power in the Bill, the lawyers will tell us that it's important to have an intention to use that power. If you don't intend to use the power, then lawyers aren't often too keen for those to be included in Bill. So, we do intend to use that. Now, when will that happen? Well, it depends on how long it takes to get to the point where every school will be able to deliver 10 per cent. When we're confident of that and we're confident that we have the workforce in place and so on, we can proceed in using that power. But the regs will be in place by July 2027.

Okay. I want to move on to questions about allowing exemptions by schools. The Bill as it stands offers two exemption periods, and you referred to this, I think, in response to the first question, and I understand why you have said that two exemption periods would assure those who are concerned that they're not going to be able to have plans in place and in time, but I'm sure that you didn't intend to suggest that that should be the norm, because we want schools to reach the aim in the Bill as soon as possible and to reach the million Welsh speakers, the sooner the better of course. So, are you comfortable with two exemption periods, and do you see the risk that schools are going to see that as an opportunity to slow down the process?

Well, as I explained in response to Vaughan Gething and Tom Giffard, it's important to have those exemption periods in order to give confidence to those who aren't confident at the moment that they can deliver the objectives of the Bill. But I don't want to see schools using these exemptions as the norm.

I don't believe, in the way that I think the final part of Cefin's question suggested, that schools will be out just to game the system. My own experience of the education system is that it is full of people who want to do the right thing. Sometimes they are not as confident as I would be of their own capacity to do the things we ask them to do. That's why we must give them the comfort of there being some exclusions when they really are up against it, but they are exceptions. They are not the norm, and I think there will be very few schools that see that and think, 'Oh, now, here's a way for us to get around what we're being asked to do.' The vast bulk of schools will want to do what the Bill requires of them, because schools are full of people who are themselves committed to the objects of the Bill. An exception will not simply be a, 'Here's an exception, please take one' system. You will have to go to the local education authority and explain why you are in that exceptional position. And there will be a dialogue, and the education authority can turn that request back and say, 'No, we don't agree with you. We think you can do it. You don't need that exception.' So, I think exceptions will be exactly that, they will be exceptional, because I have great confidence that the system will gather itself around the Bill and do the things that are needed. In the meantime, because of the things that Tom Giffard pointed to and some of the anxieties that the committee has heard, the exceptions are there to make sure that, for people who, when they've done everything they can, still find that more time is needed, that time will be available to them twice, but not more than twice.

Can I bring Heledd in quickly on this question, please?

Taking what you've just said, if you look at section 14 of the Bill in its current form, you could read it as it being acceptable that schools stay static in terms of the Welsh language. Do you think that we need the Bill to be clearer and to include a provision stating that the policy intention is to move schools along the categories in a proactive manner?

Of course, I'm willing to consider any ideas that committee members have. At the moment, I think that the Bill is quite clear. I've tried to explain certain things to the committee this morning, and I'm happy to explain those issues on the floor of the Chamber, too, if that would help.

Thank you.

Cefin.

Thank you very much. There is a requirement in the Bill currently for primarily Welsh language schools to provide Welsh language education delivery plans. We know that Welsh-medium schools do provide Welsh language education anyway, and have done so for over 50 years. Do you see a purpose in asking them to provide this, as these schools' raison d'être is to provide through the medium of Welsh?

I think there is a purpose for schools that deliver education through the medium of Welsh to have a plan. We want all schools to be on a journey in improving what they do, and having a plan will help them to do that. We're not talking about a major plan here. I tried to explain this to the Finance Committee. We're not talking about a lengthy document, but we do need to have somewhere where the governors and the school leaders can just focus on how they can make progress in terms of what's happening in the school—not just in relation to the language. As I said, it's about more than the language, it's about culture and ethos and everything that goes with that. So, there is a purpose for primarily Welsh language schools to have that plan in place, too.

Perhaps I'll come back to that when we talk about categorisation later, because it might be more relevant if we don't change the categories in terms of Welsh-medium education.

Moving on, therefore, currently, you've decided on a three-year timespan for schools Welsh language education delivery plans. That is a shorter period of time than the current five-year duration in terms of the Welsh in education strategic plans. Can you explain the thinking behind that?

There are obligations on schools now to draw up school development plans, and that's one plan every three years. So, we're just trying to draw the two thing together so that they would be on the same cycle, for SDPs and for the new plans. That's the rationale. There's no more to it than that.

Okay. That's clear enough. The final question: in the current Welsh-medium education strategy, there's a trajectory of reaching 40 per cent receiving education through the medium of Welsh by 2050. We have moved back a little bit in terms of reaching that target because of COVID and all sorts of other reasons. Because we've lost so much ground, do you think that we should be looking at that again and setting an aim of 50 per cent, for example, on the trajectory and that that is included in the Bill?

Well, the only reason why I'm not—.

The same reason why I'm not attracted to targets in other aspects of the Bill would apply to the argument there, on the face of the Bill. But the more general question as to whether or not we ought to revise some targets that we have in other parts of our policy towards Welsh-medium education is a more general one.

I don't think that I answered the question—. I just remembered that I didn't answer a question that Vaughan asked me earlier about discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Education. Had I remembered to, I would have said to him that I was discussing exactly the matters he raised with me with Lynne Neagle only yesterday. The Bill does require a connected process between the things for which she has responsibility and which I do, and that general 'do we need to revise our ambitions or do we need to restate them in new ways' is part of that wider conversation. I'm not persuaded that the place to crystallise that is on the face of this Bill.

Thank you. Heledd, please.

Thank you. If we could look at section 11(4), could you confirm that the policy intention behind that is the linguistic progression of pupils as far as possible, for example that they transfer from a primary school to a secondary of at least the same language category? And if so, would you consider amending the wording in that section so that, instead of stating 'the same language category', it says something along the lines of 'a pupil could move to a school that is at least the same language category', so as not to discount the possibility that a pupil may progress to a school with a higher level of Welsh language education provision, given that late immersion and so on is something that we are going to be promoting more and more through the Bill as well?

The intention of the section is just as Heledd Fychan explained it: when children start out in primary schools that provide education in Welsh, they progress to secondary schools that do the same.

I think my anxiety about strengthening the language in the way that Heledd described is where it begins to look as though we are making decisions that properly belong with parents themselves. I'm not sure in my own mind that we are not more effectively to pursue that ambition through the persuasion and the intrinsic arguments that are there for doing that, rather than making the hurdle higher for schools and parents to have to climb over if they were to make a different decision.

I was telling Bethan yesterday that I'd recently visited Ysgol Gymraeg Nant Caerau in my own constituency, which is a Welsh-medium school on the Ely estate in Cardiff. And I can tell you that, if I'd said that to you 20 or 30 years ago when I was first involved in all of this, that would have seemed absolutely extraordinary to you—that you would have had an oversubscribed school teaching entirely through the medium of Welsh on the Ely estate. And every single child in year 6 last year went on to Ysgol Plasmawr, and I think that is utterly remarkable, really, given the other pressures that parents in that school will face of juggling children and the cost of all of those sorts of things. And they did it without needing a higher hurdle in the Bill itself; they did it because the parents were persuaded by the quality of the education, the quality of the argument, that that is something that they wanted to do. And on the whole, I think the Bill gets it right in section 11(4): it puts that expectation there without quite toppling over into something that looks like more than an expectation and looks a bit like an obligation.

But there is a counterargument, isn't there, that you're restricting people from changing. Because if you think about somebody in an English-medium school, perhaps that child is in a school where the Welsh provision has developed confidence that somebody does love the language and that parents really want that late immersion, and that a Welsh-medium secondary school is an option for that learner. By saying 'the same category' rather than 'at least the same category', you are restricting parents' choice, rather than providing them with that option.

Well—. Sorry. Sioned wants to come in.

Just in terms of section 11(4), the aim here—. The learning goals are set in terms of when a pupil leaves compulsory education, so what 11(4) is trying to demonstrate here is a trajectory for primary schools so that they know there's an assumption that this pupil will remain in the same language category, and so there is that trajectory that primary schools plan for and that leads into that. So, that's the legal purpose of 11(4) here—it is to provide that planning steer for primary schools so that they know what the trajectory will be when that pupil reaches the secondary sector, so that the secondary school can reach that aim.

If I could just come in on that, what concerns me are the scenarios where we're losing pupils who have received Welsh-medium education and then, perhaps, haven't continued in Welsh-medium secondary schools, more in west Wales than in the area that you and Heledd are describing. And we know of examples in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Gwynedd, and so forth, where they opt out of Welsh-medium education at 11 years of age. The point I think Heledd is making is that, rather than assuming, we make it a bit stronger than that—that we expect them to continue, because if they don't continue along that language continuum, those skills are lost. And we know that that is a fact in west Wales.

Well, of course, I don't want to lose anyone from Welsh-medium education, but at the end of the day, those are choices to be made by parents. And there is nothing in the Bill that would provide hurdles for those who want to move from English-medium education to Welsh-medium; we've done a great deal of work to help people do that. I'm willing to consider the issue, but at the moment, I don't believe the case has yet been made to strengthen the Bill in a way that will look to some people as if we are seeking to make decisions that truly sit with parents.

Could I bring Vaughan in here, please?

I'm curious about this section of the Bill that we're focusing on now, because it seems to be about two different things. Just correct me if I'm wrong in my reading of the Bill. It's the Welsh language goals for schools, about how they set Welsh language goals, ethos and the learning that comes in other parts of the Bill—that's what my understanding is about what this part of the Bill is. And it appears that we've moved from there into admissions criteria and choices that parents will make about where they want their child to go. There is a policy objective about wanting more children to learn more Welsh, and be more successful in all the different streams. It seems to me that this section isn't about admissions at all, and it's not about parental preference. I just want to be clear. Have I got that wrong, or is it—? I just want to be clear about what—. Because there's a different policy objective that I think is being pursued here and I just want to be clear about whether we're in the wrong section of the Bill to be dealing with this.

I'm going to try and answer and then I can be corrected. I think this Bill is about planning and setting planning parameters that local education authorities can operate within. What I don’t want, myself, is for those planning parameters to topple into a space where they appear to confine the choices that are ultimately for parents themselves to make. So, I think there is a relationship with the planning expectations that this section sets out, because if you state them too powerfully, I think they begin to impinge on those choices that parents can make. But it's not primarily about parental choice, it's primarily about planning parameters.

Okay. Thank you.

Back to Heledd, please.

Thank you, just a question on late immersion. We heard evidence from the Welsh Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Education in Wales that they see a role for the Government in terms of promoting that, not only local authorities, and that they feel that there's a need to reassure non-Welsh-speaking parents of its benefits, with stronger national messaging. Is this something that you're considering, either as part of the Bill, or do you see it as part of the communication and promotion work that's required on a broader level, in terms of what this means for the Welsh language?

I think it is broader than the Bill. It's important to do in order to celebrate the fact that we have created something quite novel, haven't we? We have done a lot more in the more recent period, and we've succeeded in doing that too. There's an increase in the number of children going through that late immersion process, it's increased, and we've demonstrated to people that we can succeed in a period of—. It's only a few weeks that we're talking about, where children learn to speak Welsh in a way that means they can then continue with Welsh-medium education. If I could ask Bethan for one sentence on the experiences that we've just had in Newport, where the system is already succeeding.

Certainly. It's those local case studies that encourage and provide confidence to parents that it is possible. So, I think that Newport is an example of success. They were the pilot in terms of Estyn, so late immersion will have Estyn inspections from now on, and they put their hand up to be a pilot in that. And there was a great video on Facebook, just last week, by a little girl. She'd won the second-language recitation prize for years 3 and 4 in the Urdd Eisteddfod, and had told her mother that she wanted to go to a Welsh-medium school, her mother wasn't sure, but went along with it, and she was 11 years of age on this video and encouraging other people to go on this journey, and I think those things are powerful, not—. Clearly, as a Government, we're going to support this and we support the late immersion network across Wales. There are 60 practitioners that come together three times a year to share best practice and innovation. These centres also support children to strengthen the language skills of those who need additional support.

Thank you.

I'm really conscious of time. We are running far behind. Would the Cabinet Secretary be willing to stay for an extra 10 minutes, please, if you have the time?

Yes.

Thank you very much. Questions from Lee now, please.

I'm interested in that exchange with Cefin there about the expectation that children who are educated in primary continue in secondary, and I'm putting words in his mouth now, because he's not said this and I'm sure he doesn't mean it, but there's an impression that we're letting the progress of the language down, and I'm just very conscious of a sort of danger or a sort of moral censoriousness creeping in to some of this. It's not what will be intended, but that's how it will be perceived by some, in what can be a sensitive cultural area. Bearing that in mind, you heard the evidence from the WLGA and the Association of Directors of Education in Wales, their concerns about the potential for tensions and conflict, if this wasn't handled properly and if the funding wasn't there. We touched upon this in your previous evidence. I'm just wondering what your further reflections are, given that evidence, and how can we best make sure that doesn't happen.

Well, my reflection on the point about children who have their primary education in the Welsh language and then choose to go to an English-medium school is not a point of morality, it's a point of investment. We have invested—the system has invested—in those children a significant period of their compulsory education. They will have benefited from that. I am loath to see that investment not built upon further. That's the reason why I am keen to see children move on into secondary education through the medium of Welsh, because I think it means that we get the most out of the investment we've already made.

But it's why I have had more reservations than Heledd and Cefin have had about strengthening the expectation in the Bill, because, I think, some people will then begin to feel that we are making a judgment on the choices that they make. I think the Bill is a careful attempt to preserve the enormous gains that have been made in my lifetime in creating that wide consensus around the importance of the language and the investment that we make in it. I remain of the view that we have to be sensitive to that and that's what the WLGA were saying to us, that if you force the pace too far, if you appear to be asking for things that are unreasonable, you run the risk that you will lose not just the argument about the specific, but it will affect people's more general attitudes and support for the language.

I went back after I was in front of the committee last time, Chair, to what we said in 'Cymraeg 2050' were our ambitions for the language in 2050:

'The Welsh language is thriving, the number of speakers has reached a million, and it is used in every aspect of life.'

Those are the two things that we normally say. But if you look at the next sentence it says

'Among those who do not speak Welsh there is goodwill and a sense of ownership towards the language and a recognition by all of its contribution to the culture, society and economy of Wales.'

So, we sometimes don't say as much as we do about the first sentence about the second, but if we don't get the second right then we will have not succeeded. That's why the Bill has the timetable that it has. That's why it has the incremental approach that it has. That's why it has some exceptional arrangements for people who think that this is a lot to ask of them. As I say, I have more confidence that, in practice, it will not be the mountain that some people think, but I think the sensitivity to that point of view is to be found in the Bill.

Yes, I agree with that because, arguably, the school system invested in my physical education abilities up to the age of 16; it's a very poor return on investment. [Laughter.] But there was no expectation that I would go on to do GCSE PE and no sense that I'd have wasted that investment by not doing so. And I just think we need to be very careful about the way that we describe these things.

I just want to move on to some other evidence we had on the role of tertiary education. There does seem to be a lot of goodwill in the sector for getting this right, but there does seem to be some ambiguity, they feel, about the way that both the framework and the Bill are clear on where that responsibility lies and who has the responsibility for regulating it. I presume you've also reflected on that evidence. Do you think there's merit in providing that clarification?

Chair, I'm conscious that I said at the very beginning that I wanted to be open-minded about a number of things that the committee would want to explore, and I feel I've spent quite a lot of the session actually explaining why I don't think that certain things should happen. But in this area, I think there is more that we need to do as a result of the evidence that you have heard. So, I think there is more that we can do in the explanatory memorandum. There may be some things we might even want to do in the Bill itself to be clearer about the roles and relationships of the major players in this tertiary post-16 field. So, you will have heard from the coleg cenedlaethol, you will have heard from Medr on that point.

I've talked already with Bethan and others about what we can do better to set out how we see those relationships working, and to provide the clarity that some people have asked for. I'm more persuaded about that than I have been about some of the other things that we've been talking about this morning, and I think there's scope in the explanatory memorandum. I think there's scope in some of the memorandums of understanding that will be created between these new bodies to get the clarity that people have asked for.

Chair, given that answer and the time, I'm content to leave it there.

Thank you. We now have some questions from Vaughan, please.

I'll try and be quick. There's a question about whether there's enough evidence in the Bill on the early years sector, given its role in helping children to start their journey of becoming Welsh speakers and accessing Welsh early. So, the question is about whether there should be a greater role for the sector in the national framework and local authority WESPs. In the Bill, the early years sector is mentioned in the national framework in section 23(3) and (4), and it's mentioned again later. So, it's not just about the emphasis in the Bill, but also when drawing up plans, whether they should be added to the list of statutory consultees in sections 26 or 28. And if not on the face of the Bill, whether there'll be a commitment about how the Welsh Government expects the early years sector to be engaged in the consultation around those respective plans in the framework.

Well, thank you, Vaughan, for that. I think I have read a number of sectors putting the argument to you that they are under-represented in the Bill and that, therefore, there should be steps taken to strengthen references to them. Early years education was one, I think the youth service was another. I think you've heard a number of them. On their own merits, I think you can always make that case. I am anxious about adding further ambitions to a Bill that is already ambitious in the things it wants to do, and where adding new obligations in will lead to more of the anxieties that you have heard from people who think we're already asking them to do quite a lot.

However, in particularly the early years space, I'm a bit more sympathetic there, given the fundamental importance of early years education to achieving the ambitions of the Bill. I'm happy to think about ways in which we can better represent that. The list of statutory consultees is not an exhaustive one, because there is a final category that allows other people to be consulted. I'm very interested to hear what the committee think as to whether or not, in the early years space, that is better left to local determination, knowing who the most important players would be to consult, or whether you think that there is an organisation that can be identified that completely represents that sector. I've been trying to do that in my own mind, and I've had a bit of a struggle to know—. It's easy to identify the coleg cenedlaethol, it's easy to identify the commissioner. If you were putting a specific consultee on the face of the Bill to represent the early years sector, who would that be?

I guess the alternative would be about whether there's a responsibility to ensure that the pre-compulsory education sector is identified, and Welsh Ministers make arrangements for it to be consulted, both for the framework and also for the WESPs to take place, so that it's definitely included in the consultation and the formation of the framework in those local plans. Because I accept your point, that it may be the case that in one authority that sector may look different in terms of who you talk to compared with the neighbouring one.

Yes. That is the issue, isn't it? You want to talk to the right person, and the right person—. The coleg cenedlaethol will be always the coleg cenedlaethol, wherever you are in Wales. The early years sector in one part of Wales may be better represented, in a way. What I'm clear on is that there is no policy objection at all; in fact, the opposite from the Welsh Government, in the construction of the Bill, to make sure that the early years sector is fully involved in making the Bill a success.

And the point about the youth service was this broader point about extending where Welsh is used in social situations. We'll have to capture this in our report, but it's about outside the education sector, where people do and don't use Welsh being a big factor in whether we get to a million speakers and how people describe their ability. But we'll need to think about that in our report, and, hopefully, for the Government to think about how that can be engaged in its real expectations for use of the language.

Well, Part 5 of the Bill is very much about how the language is used beyond compulsory education, and not just in the classroom either. I would absolutely expect—and I think, in a way, I'm making the same point here as Heledd made earlier in relation to the use of the language as a medium of instruction—that, actually, these things happen already. So, in adult Welsh learning, there's an enormous encouragement, as part of the formal learning, to find ways of using the language in more social settings, because if you don't find ways of using the language—. My own direct experience is the only way to learn the language is to use it, and—

Yes. That's why I should order more beer through the medium of Welsh. [Laughter.]

The Bill does that already. I promised earlier this week that we would write to Mike Hedges on the youth services side of things, and I'm very happy to share that correspondence, Chair, with you, if that would be helpful.

Yes, please. Thank you.

And finally finally just a point around transport and Welsh-medium education. It's regularly raised as one of the practical barriers. It's whether you'd consider adding that as one of the aspects a local authority must consider in its WESP. If you don't have a fully formed answer now, then I'm sure there'll be things the committee will want you to write to them about to consider it so that I don't deny Alun Davies his moment of glory in asking some questions today as well.

I think WESPs already require a reference to transport as part of the efforts to extend the availability of Welsh-medium education. I would fully expect that to continue to be part of the remit of WESPs in future, but I don't think that this is the Bill that can solve the complex issue of school transport.

Thank you.

Alun Davies, please.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you, Minister. I'm looking through Part 5 of the Bill. You've just said, in answering Vaughan, that you would expect the learning Welsh institute to facilitate the language in the community. I don't see anything here in the Bill that actually says that clearly. It talks about making arrangements and supporting learning Welsh, but it doesn't say anything about encouraging or facilitating the Welsh language.

Well, if I could ask Bethan just to be clear as to what the Bill actually says.

There is an attempt in Part 5 to ensure that it's not just providing teaching, that there is promoting innovation and continuous improvement and also promoting equality of opportunity for everyone to engage with learning Welsh.

Yes, it says that, I agree, but it doesn't say 'hyrwyddo'—that's my question. That's what I understood in the Minister's response to Vaughan, that facilitation was part of that.

Well, I'm happy to consider that point. As I said, on the one hand, the Bill doesn't include everything that's ongoing already. There's a great deal of work being done to find ways, through the mentrau iaith, Merched y Wawr, yr Urdd, young farmers' clubs and so on, to find opportunities for people who learn the language after school age to use the language. And perhaps we could refer to that more specifically in relation to the athrofa—we'll consider whether we can do that.

Dwi'n hen ddigon bodlon gyda hynny. Dŷn ni wedi cael sesiwn arbennig o dda bore yma dros ddwy awr, ac mae'n dda cael yr amser yma i actually trafod rhywbeth gyda Gweinidog yn lle jest rhuthro trwy bethau.

Felly, yr unig gwestiwn sydd rili gen i ar ôl ar ôl y drafodaeth rŷn ni wedi'i chael yw'r perthynas dŷch chi'n gweld rhwng y sefydliad dysgu Cymraeg newydd yma a Medr, achos mae'r ddau'n edrych i fi fel eu bod nhw'n gweithio yn yr un maes, a buaswn i'n licio deall sut ydych chi'n rhagweld bydd y ddau sefydliad—ac mae'r ddau sefydliad yn sefydliadau newydd, wrth gwrs—yn mynd i gydweithio gyda'i gilydd.

Well, that's why I said to Lee Waters, when I said that we are open to considering how we can provide more clarity, perhaps in the Bill, but more likely in the EM and so on, to explain that relationship. We're talking about two statutory bodies here. Now, from the Government's perspective, we don't want to see them wasting resources or time by working separately where they could work together, so there's more work that we could do in order to provide more detail as to how we can provide clarity. What we want to see is two bodies collaborating and having the greatest possible impact through that, rather than conflicting with each other.

So, there's more we can do, Chair, I think, to work on that and to provide more information to the Senedd as the Bill progresses to make sure that these are joint efforts, using their resources to the best possible effect, not where there's any sense of competition or treading on one another's toes. I accept from the evidence that you have heard so far that that could be made clearer, and I am happy that we make the effort to do that.

I think that Heledd would like to—

I'm satisfied with that, by the way.

Thank you.

Just one question on Medr. Clearly, the sixth form is captured under Medr. In the Bill, we're talking about compulsory school age education. Clearly, the Welsh Language Commissioner has shown, in terms of the language continuum, the role of the sixth form in that. So, could I ask you: how do you see this Bill securing an ongoing route for pupils in terms of the Welsh language, given the issue of sixth forms and what happens beyond the compulsory school age?

Well, one of the reasons—and I didn't say this in my original answer to Cefin Campbell—that I want to see plans for delivering education through the medium of Welsh is that I want to see a plan that shows how the schools will provide information to parents to help people to see the case for continuing into the sixth form in a school that's providing Welsh-medium education. They don't have to do it. Pupils don't have to go on to do it. But, with the plan, they can do part of the work that Heledd has referred to.

To be clear, there are possibilities there, as I mentioned in the answer that I gave to Lee Waters, where we have invested in children now, not just in the primary sector, but they have gone on, and now they can continue with the next step, and just to provide more information and more encouragement to people to have the confidence to do that. The plan will help us to do that.

Thank you. Thank you for your time this morning. We really appreciate you joining us, and we also appreciate you staying over your time as well. You'll be sent a transcript in due course. Thank you very much.

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much.

I will now move on to item 3, which is papers to note. Full details of the papers are set out on the agenda and in the paper pack. Are Members content to note the papers together? Yes. Thank you.

Moving on to item 4, I propose, in accordance with Standing Order 17.42(ix), that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of the meeting and for the whole of the meeting on 6 November. Are Members content? Yes. We will now proceed in private.