Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank the members of the committee who’ve spoken this afternoon, and the Minister and all the members of the committee who contributed to the inquiry?

Mohammad Asghar, in his contribution, referred to the good record of this Assembly in promoting the rights of the child, which, of course, I’m sure we would all agree to, but I do think that we do need to do a bit of soul searching—all of us—as to how, in an institution that is supposedly committed to the rights of the child, we are now so many years on from having actually cracked this issue. So, I think that is an issue for all of us to reflect on, including the Welsh Government.

Llyr Gruffydd made an important contribution on the importance of advocacy. I particularly welcome the references he made to the importance of the active offer. Clearly, it is absolutely essential that we don’t just have advocacy services there that children aren’t aware of. These are vulnerable children and these services need to be promoted to them so that they can access them. That is a feature of this new national model that is going to be very, very important.

Llyr also referred to the likely inclusion of advocacy in the ALN Bill; clearly, that is something that the committee is also looking at. I’m sure we would all want to see robust advocacy available, but we also must be mindful of the challenges that there’ve been in delivering this, as we look to take this forward into other areas. I would personally very much like to see advocacy made available to children in other settings, including ALN, but also in the important area of mental health. Llyr also raised concerns about the funding issues and, in particular, the rejection of recommendation 4, which I’ll return to when I come to the Minister’s response.

Can I thank Julie Morgan for her contribution this afternoon? I wholeheartedly agree with her that we do just now have to get on with this and make some progress. She made a very important contribution on the particular needs of deaf children and I would like to thank her for her ongoing work in that area, because if children are vulnerable anyway, they are even more vulnerable if they cannot even communicate in the most basic ways. The report does make reference to deaf children and I hope that that is something that the Welsh Government will look very carefully at, going forward. Can I thank Julie also for her reference to the need for a stakeholder advisory group, which I think is absolutely essential, going forward?

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his response today? I do recognise his personal commitment to getting this issue right, which I hope we will now be able to translate into actually cracking this issue. I’m very pleased that the consultation will start now at the end of March on the advocacy standards. I think that is very welcome and I also very much welcome the indication you gave to Julie Morgan just now that you are very willing to look at the formation of a stakeholder advisory panel. The Minister also referred to the importance of Meic, which is also included in our report, and I think we need to be very mindful that having those kinds of universal services available to all children and young people is a very important gateway into the advocacy for the children who may be most in need and in danger. We welcome, again, the fact that the Government has accepted most of our recommendations. The Minister made particular reference this afternoon to those that have not been accepted in full, or rejected. If I can just say, in relation to recommendation 8, accepting it in principle is a step forward, and I note your comments about the need for local government to take this forward. But I think what we would want to avoid at all costs is a situation where there is a continued batting back and fore between local government and the Welsh Government. At the end of the day, the buck stops here in terms of delivery of this, and I think that’s what the committee were trying to reflect in our recommendation.

Just finally, on recommendation 4, the extra funding is very welcome that the Minster has referred to, but Llyr and other Members have referred to the fact that there are real concerns that, when local government is so strapped for cash, that money could end up going elsewhere when it’s in the RSG. So, I do hope that the Government will be able to look again at the issue of independent monitoring so we can be absolutely certain that that money is going where it is intended to.

So, just in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, can I thank everyone again for the opportunity to speak on this important subject this afternoon? I really hope that this will be the last time that we will have to stand here discussing the need for a proper national advocacy offer for children and young people. That would mark real progress, and I hope now that we can go forward and get on with that, and actually deliver that service that we all want to see for our children and young people. Thank you very much.