Thank you for raising this. I think it's really important that whilst for many, many, many young people moving away from home and starting their degree course is an incredibly exciting time and something they look forward to hugely, it can bring significant stresses with it, especially for first-year students, who, as I said, are moving away, perhaps are suddenly responsible for finances in a way they've never been responsible for, for all the day-to-day living that perhaps they've relied on other people to assist them with. So, it can be quite a stressful time. So, it is right that we look at how we can support health and well-being for students, especially mental health and mental resilience. So, I very much welcome the work on the mental health charter, and HEFCW are engaged and keeping a very close eye on what's going on to see the opportunities for Welsh universities to participate in that. But this was on a recent agenda item that I had with HEFCW, and indeed with the vice-chancellors, when I met them last week, or the week before last. So, they are developing their own strategic approach to well-being and health for students, which will be underpinned by a co-created action plan with the universities themselves on supporting students with mental health problems in particular. So, the strategic approach and the action plan are being developed by HEFCW at the moment and HEFCW are also meeting with colleagues from England and Scotland to see the opportunities for a universal approach across the UK to supporting students. The universities, when I met with them recently, all shared a commitment to do better in this particular area. One, because it's the right thing to do, but, actually, stopping people from dropping out and not completing their courses obviously is of a financial benefit to the institution. So, it's actually the right thing to do for their students, they want to do it for that reason, but, actually, there is a strong financial underpinning to ensure that students complete their studies. So, it's looking at, again, each university looking at individual approaches of how better they can do that. But it's not just responding to students who become unwell, it's actually, 'What can we do to in the campus to maintain good mental health?' So, rather than just trying to fix a problem once it's occurred, it's 'What can we do?' And you'll be aware of individual institutions taking different approaches. It's not something that we dictate, but individual institutions—when they do exams, how work is assessed and marked and graded—are taking different steps to promote well-being, as well as then responding to situations where students become unwell. We do know that financial pressures can be a source of huge stress for students, so we are constantly working with the Student Loans Company to make sure that the services that they offer to people are as good as they can be, and that there are no unnecessary delays that, perhaps, put a student under pressure or give students worries about their financial situation. And I would argue our Diamond reforms, which allow students access to a living wage—for some students, completely by a grant, for some students, a combination of grant and loan, with no expectation at all that your parents will contribute, which is not the case in other places where there is an expectation of parental contribution—that actually, hopefully, addresses some of those financial worries that some students may have. But I am aware that if people are waiting for their grant or people are waiting for their payments, that can be a source of stress. So, ensuring that we have good performance by the Student Loans Company is crucial.
Okay, thank you. And I'm sure the committee's very interested to hear the update on that. Are you able to give us any indication of timescale by which you'd expect HEFCW and the individual universities to actually have this work in place?
I'm not sure, but I will write to the committee and let you know. In fact, we can probably provide, from Universities Wales and from the work that's going on centrally, a list of proposals that are being undertaken.
Thank you very much. The next question is from Dawn Bowden.