Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 24 January 2017.
There is, I believe, a vacancy as Donald Trump’s press secretary for the leader of the Welsh Conservatives by his presentation of alternative facts. It is a fact indisputable that GCSE results have improved over the last three years; it is a fact indisputable that A-level results are improving; it is a fact indisputable that his party wanted to cut education spending by 12 per cent. They boasted about it. They produced a mini manifesto that included that figure in the mini manifesto—or is that an ‘alternative fact’? The reality is that if his party had come anywhere near education in Wales, they would have destroyed the education system through cuts, they wouldn’t have built schools, they would have kept children being taught in schools that were falling apart. We have never done that. Education is moving in the right direction, with improvements across the board, and that’s exactly where we will take education in the future, not backwards to the days when education was underfunded by the Conservative Party in London—a party that truly does not care about education for all and does not care about the opportunities that are available for youngsters in Wales. That’s what we stand for. They will never understand what it means to get a good education and good opportunities, because they’ve never had to fight for it themselves.