Mark Drakeford: ...: the Business Wales scheme is funded in that way and is very important to businesses in Wales; £103 million secured previously for the third sector in Wales, and over £400 million used by higher education institutions in Wales from exactly those funds. Now, the importance of local government is a point well made, but those other sectors are also very important in making sure that the...
Mark Drakeford: ...what we will lose because the Erasmus+ programme was not replaced by the UK Government to the extent that Erasmus+ operated in Wales; it doesn't include the money that will be lost to Welsh higher education institutions, because participation in the Horizon programme has not been secured; and it doesn't include the fact that we will lose the €100 million that Wales had at our disposal...
Mark Drakeford: ...Government's policy is that set out in the co-operation agreement between my party and Plaid Cymru, and that is to make sure that, during the period of that agreement, we are able to provide a free school meal for every child in primary-aged classes in Wales. I'm very proud of that commitment, and it will be a commitment that requires a great deal of effort on behalf of our local...
Mark Drakeford: ...cash in reserve. A great deal of that money will be earmarked reserves. In other words, it's not money available to the council just to spend. It's there because they have a twenty-first century schools programme, for example, and that money is allocated already to make sure that that programme can go ahead. There is money that, because the UK Government provides settlements to us so late...
Mark Drakeford: ...are entirely—entirely—Anglocentric. They reflect only the landscape that there is in Wales. Not a singe reference to the adult learning network here in Wales, not a single reference to further education provision in Wales, not a single reference to the Hwb platform, which provides the majority of resources that will be necessary for any effective programme here in Wales. The...
Mark Drakeford: We have provided substantial financial support to help higher education institutions deal with the impact of the pandemic. This year's total allocation of funding to HEFCW amounts to over £274 million. This funding, together with our student support system, provides a good foundation for maintaining the sustainability of Welsh higher education.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree with the leader of Plaid Cymru about the work of teaching assistants. And many of them, of course, do get paid during the school holidays here in Wales because they are the bedrock of the school holiday enrichment programme that we have had in Wales from the start of the last Senedd term—the only national system anywhere in the United Kingdom in which...
Mark Drakeford: ...tax goes to everybody liable for the council tax, whether or not they actually pay a bill or not, and that money will therefore reach those who need it the most. Only last week the Minister for education provided an extra £100 for families to meet the cost of the school day. That money will stay in the pockets of those families and will be available to help them with the other costs that...
Mark Drakeford: ..., Islamophobia or any other form of discrimination against groups in our society. As the Member said, the Welsh Government has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The Minister for education has been discussing this matter over recent months. He met with Lord Mann, who is carrying out the review of antisemitism policies for the UK Government currently, and the Welsh Government has...
Mark Drakeford: For over a decade, the Welsh Government has funded the Holocaust Educational Trust to provide its Lessons from Auschwitz programme in Wales. That, and other actions to address antisemitism, will be reflected in our anti-racist Wales action plan, to be published later this year.
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, I thank Carolyn Thomas for the welcome that she has given to the latest actions that the Welsh Government is able to take. I visited a school in my own constituency on Friday last week in a very challenged community, where the welcome for the £100 extra per child was very warm indeed. It really will allow families to participate in the opportunities that the school can provide in a...
Mark Drakeford: Llywydd, our access fund, helping families with the cost of the school day, will enter its fifth year next month. Over that time, it has been progressively expanded. The latest development, a £100 uplift per child to help address this year’s cost-of-living crisis, was announced by my colleague the education Minister on 14 March.
Mark Drakeford: ...Services, to promote the things that we know work in different parts of Wales. It's striking to me that in Carmarthenshire, which we mentioned earlier, there is a single director in charge of both education and social services, making sure that schools play their part in helping those families to stay together. In the budget that was passed on the floor of the Senedd here only last week,...
Mark Drakeford: ...the way the system unfolds gradually, but this is an important milestone in this project. The Member and others who represent the area will know that there's already approval in principle for the school that Powys County Council intend to build as part of the band B of the twenty-first century schools programme within this well-being project, and now Powys local health board will be able...
Mark Drakeford: ...Vikki Howells for that supplementary question, Llywydd. It's very good to hear a reference to Cardiff and Vale College on the day when we hope the Senedd will give its consent for the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Bill to move into its second stage of scrutiny here in the Senedd. And I take the two priorities that emerged from that discussion with their vice-principal very...
Mark Drakeford: ...distressing circumstances, and that we can put together with our partners in local government—and we've been working very closely with them, Llywydd, in recent days—that we can put in place the education offer that will be necessary for children, that they are registered with the Welsh NHS on arrival, that there are housing services being mobilised and third sector support. We know the...
Mark Drakeford: ...It is true that the number of vets from the European Union here in the UK has fallen, and has fallen by 68 per cent between 2019 and 2021. Now, we are doing many things here in Wales. We have a new school at Aberystwyth University, and we are funding young people through our Seren programme, particularly young people from the Rhondda and other similar areas. After 2020, we have funded 28...
Mark Drakeford: ...CAMHS provide, for most young people who need help as they grow up through adolescence, it is those other services—those direct access service, provided by third sector organisations, provided by school counselling services, provided sometimes by online services that young people can simply access for themselves—that have the greatest possibility of intervening early in a problem that...
Mark Drakeford: We continue to move ahead with plans to establish a north Wales medical school. This year, the numbers of medical students being trained in north Wales will rise again, with further increases to follow as undergraduate students are recruited from 2023 onwards.
Mark Drakeford: Well, Llywydd, I thank Vikki Howells for that. It's a real report from the front line by somebody who knows exactly what it is to be on the front line of our education service. And exactly what Vikki Howells has reported this afternoon, Llywydd, is my own experience of talking to headteachers and to school leaders at subject level as well. I understand, of course, with everything schools have...