Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I have a point on the Historic Wales paper. Shall I come to that now?

Yes, come to that now. 

I think it's underwhelming. I think the ambition for progress and the aspirations—well, the progress, some of it, is risible, and the aspirations aren't particularly stretching, and there's no clear timeline or any metrics at all next to them. So I suggest that we keep a close eye on this and ask for further information from the Minister about timings and clear milestones for us to come back to it.

Yes, I agree, because of course he said in his evidence that he wasn't convinced about an advisory group, which is in the legislation, so if this is going to be his marker for progess then we need to make sure that we can see timelines and achievements, really. Suzy Davies. 

I'd just go a little bit further than that, perhaps as well as asking for those, to say: can you report back to us at regular intervals? It's up to us to choose the interval, so that, actually, we keep him to a timetable as well as in the—. I don't—

Yes, we can factor that in via the team here—put some diary markers in as to when would be appropriate.

Yes, they could be written updates, unless we start to worry that the written updates are a bit thin.

Okay. Any other comments on that or on the other paper from the Minister? 

No. Did you want to comment on the Office for National Statistics?

Yes, that's what I was coming to now—the ONS.

Well, I'm sure Siân will have something to say—. You go first.

Martin.

The census 2021 is planned to take place in the spring of 2021, so whilst it seems a long way away, a lot of the work has now been done. The Office for National Statistics is responsible for the census in England and Wales, and what is happening now is that, as Bethan was saying, there's been a lot of work in terms of investigating, consulting on and testing out questions.

There will be a UK Government White Paper, which will set out the date and suggested census questions, and we'd expect that to happen later in this year, or early in 2019—it depends a bit on getting time in Westminster. Following that, a census Order would be expected to be considered by the UK Parliament in 2019, probably at the end of the year. And what comes here are census regulations, but that would probably be in early 2020. That sets out the delivery and collection methods, so that's really nothing to do with the questions.

So, why this is being considered now, really, is that this is the best opportunity to be able to influence questions in the census leading up to that White Paper. What else is there—?

Yes—what Siân said. [Laughter.]

Martin, did you want to come back on those points? Suzy, did you have anything else to add?

Just some of that, and you went further than what I was going to ask. The question I had, because I was sitting behind Alun Davies yesterday when Mike was asking his question, and Alun said, 'Oh, I don't actually agree with Mike about what type of questions should be asked.' So, I suppose my general question to you is: how will ONS balance the views put forward by the Assembly, which could be different from—I know Alun's not the Minister—whoever the Minister would be, and that they listen to—?

Yes, I think definitely—you're both absolutely right. and the ONS could come and talk to you about the work they do, and I know that there are stakeholders from all around Wales who're feeding in through the census advisory group on an officials level.

The questions that you've raised are all questions that they're considering, and if you get them in, they could talk to you about that, and they'll also talk about the fact that one of the most important things is getting that consistency of data between 10 years—being able to record progress towards meeting the 1 million-plus speakers in Wales, and then looking at other services that they do. They can talk to you about the work that they do in terms of the use of Welsh and the sort of level of detail we need to get into questions and whether they need face-to-face discussions with people.

So, definitely the questions you're raising are the ones that'll be really good to raise with the ONS and now really is the time to do it.  And then, again, you can talk about the balance of how they would view the Assembly's views and different people in the Assembly, and very much the questions that you've been raising that would have been raised in the Welsh language focus groups they've been running as well. 

Sorry, Rhianon—I missed you there. 

I missed it earlier on. With regard to the paper on the cultural delegation to China, obviously we've received this paper to this committee today, as we requested. I'm really interested with regard to how the trade missions occur in terms of, 'Is it chicken and egg?', 'Is it attached to a wider trade mission moving forward?', and if so, in terms of the arts agenda and tourism and around cultural branding, and how important that is going to continue to be to us in the future, 'What is going to happen in terms of reporting back to this committee?' Is there a systemic strategy around arts and trade missions, or is it just something ad hoc that occurs on the back of something else? 

I don't know if you recall, we've got a report imminent on the non-public funding of the arts where we've made certain recommendations. That's yet to be published, so if you have any additional views we can feed that into there. But I think the point we want to make is that when we heard evidence, people said that it has to be more strategic because we know of brass bands from the Valleys that have gone internationally, but potentially haven't been part of what the Government is doing on the economic front. So, we'll definitely feed your views in that way. 

Okay, thank you. 

Could we just add to the record, Chair, our congratulations to you and we wish you all the best? 

Oh, thank you, Lee. I'll bring you all back a present from India. [Laughter.] 

Not chocolate—it might melt. [Laughter.]

No, not chocolates. Something I can carry on the plane, yes. Diolch.