Huw Irranca-Davies: ...that, during this period, we've delivered on all—all—of our Welsh Government, Welsh Labour pledges. We delivered that unprecedented ambitious pledge on the childcare offer for free early education and childcare, and speech and language therapy and so on for children aged three and four, to all families, working families, for 48 weeks of the year, and we delivered it to 14,500 children...
Huw Irranca-Davies: What investment has been made in schools and colleges in Ogmore since 2016?
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...Britain, and his tireless work in many areas led to the development of a new view of society, one in which a self-sufficient co-operative nation is held together by the pillars of universal education, free-access healthcare and the enshrinement of workers' rights. His actions set in motion a chain of events through which many progressive legislative changes and progressive institutions can...
Huw Irranca-Davies: I will turn to this budget at the moment and how it impacts on my constituency. I look over the last five years in my patch, and there isn't a single town or community that hasn't had a new school built that is affecting its primary or secondary school children, or a college that has had investment. It's the biggest investment since the 1960s in the infrastructure of our schools and colleges,...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...people, who sought to improve their working and living conditions, and whose work led to the development not only of the co-operative movement, but of the trade union movement. He supported free co-educational establishments and legislation on child labour. So, as nations and parliaments around the world celebrate the global legacy of this our son of Wales, should we not also find the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ..., all of the people who've actually made huge efforts over the last year to continue teaching in some form or another, and to provide that welfare support and pastoral support as well through our education system. But I know that I'm having teachers in my own area saying to me now that whilst they are concerned about the welfare, not simply welfare in terms of the pandemic and teaching...
Huw Irranca-Davies: 11. What provision will the Minister put in place to enable pupils to catch up on education impacted by the pandemic measures? OQ56251
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...experience over many years for. If supply teachers are employed directly by councils, they're paid to the scale that they're on, but the fear is that supply agencies are taking over so much that schools are not using supply pools themselves any more, so experienced teachers are earning much less than they're qualified for. A statement, Minister, could also clarify arrangements for supply...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...to explore a concept that I strongly support—which they do in other countries such as Sweden, and so on—where they actually use their resources to provide a proper, actual election going on in schools, contemporaneous with the election going on in wider society, for 14-year-olds, for 15-year-olds and so on, so that they are ready. I just wonder, in the future, would this be something...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Minister, can I just begin by commending the work that's been going on within schools, both with the teaching staff but also with the heads and deputy heads as well to get the progress that we have? I don't want to labour the point, but the Hwb guidance is very, very good but it does give total discretion to the headteacher and school staff based on the conditions in the school, based on the...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...to say we've got a disappointing budget settlement with a single-year spending round, and this will have a major impact, not just on Welsh Government, but on local government, on health services, schools and colleges. It is, I have to say, as Mark Isherwood was just saying, on the whole of our crucial third sector and voluntary organisations. But we're having to make do with what we've got...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...including the recently elected youth mayor Megan Stone, and the deputy youth mayor Tino Kaseke, whose three main priorities for this term this year are youth mental health awareness and supporting schools, ending racism and injustice through education, and supporting LGBTQ+ rights? And, of course, there are also the equalities officers, Cameron Richards and Megan Lambert. So, clearly...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...in the non-remunerated role in chairing the regional investment Wales steering group, but my question lies outwith the work of that group. I've received representations, Minister, from higher education sector representatives in Wales, with their concerns over the UK shared prosperity fund and the UK Government's proposals. And they note that the UK shared prosperity fund will start as a...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...fields and to local farmers and to community farms and local distributors, and then you drive local procurement around it. If you have a right to good food, what you have is children coming out of school who haven't just done one or two lessons on how to make pizzas and so on, but they genuinely understand where the food comes from and how to use it, and then they grow up being able to use...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...arts centres and theatres as buildings in their entirety have to remain shut? Because these theatres are more than simply performance spaces; they provide space for workshops, classes, meetings, educational services, and they're professionally operated and regulated and can meet safety requirements. So, a statement could help clarify that these places, these facilities, can open, subject...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...and for teachers and for headteachers and senior staff. So, thank you for this today. Can I ask you, what do the proposals mean as they come forward for those pupils and students who are already educationally disadvantaged, either because of their past experience of education, or home circumstances, and so on? Will the proposals, as they're developed by the group you've set up, enable them...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...want to keep these closed for residential visits for a minute more than is necessary, and that, once safe, we will get back to having residential visits. She will know that, for many of us, outdoor education centres were the first time that we would have been immersed in an outdoor environment, and learnt through skills and confidence and self-esteem all the benefits that come from that....
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...all people in Wales to be able to breathe clean air and they want the next Government to prioritise the climate emergency, introduce a clean air Act for Wales and clean air zones all around Welsh schools, create more urban green spaces and green corridors where people can walk and cycle, and work towards a goal of net-zero carbon emissions in towns and cities, tackle pavement parking, put...
Huw Irranca-Davies: ...by this virus and who are at greatest risk of suffering the deepening and entrenching of that inequality: those who are in poverty already, in precarious work on low incomes; those with lower educational attainment and skills, in the worst housing, and overcrowded and poor standard private rented housing; single parents, the vast majority of whom are women; low earners from certain ethnic...
Huw Irranca-Davies: Minister, home education can be an informed and positive choice for families and children, so the additional funding from Welsh Government is really welcome. But in June, you announced that due to the pressures of responding to the COVID crisis, it wouldn't be possible to proceed with the proposals set out in the consultation on home education statutory guidance and draft database...
