Part of 3. 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 10 May 2017.
Well, thank you for that response. The university, of course, has referred to the competition for students, with a reduction of 8 per cent in the applications to study in Wales, and with Brexit and other factors influencing the situation that they find themselves in. But the important point for me here is that we don’t have a single case here, but we’ve heard over the past few weeks, the University of South Wales talking about staffing reductions from 4.6 per cent, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David talking about cuts of some 10 per cent, and they too referred to many of the same factors. Now, Unison representatives have said that the Government has to consider a package of measures to intervene in this situation in order to protect front-line workers’ jobs. Can I ask whether the Cabinet Secretary for Education therefore admits that we do have a crisis in the HE sector in terms of funding and staffing, and, although the Diamond reforms are ongoing, that the Government needs to intervene as a matter of urgency before the situation deteriorates further?