Questions now from the party spokespeople.The Conservative spokesperson, Darren Millar.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, this Welsh Government, along with its predecessor administrations, has a legacy of underfunding Welsh schools. We know that there are huge differences in terms of school budgets between here and England, and that is putting pupils here in Wales at a serious disadvantage. According to NASUWT Cymru, the per-pupil funding gap, compared to schools in England, now stands at £678 per pupil. That's £678 less for Welsh pupils than for learners in England. We're in the bottom half of the international league tables. Wales is propping up the UK league tables in terms of its education system, and when you were in opposition, Cabinet Secretary, you committed to narrowing this gap. Now that you're in Government, what are you doing to sort it out?

Thank you very much, Darren. What I'm doing in Government is to coping with extremely difficult financial constraints that have been placed upon us primarily by the austerity agenda that is being pursued by your colleagues in London. If we want to do something about education funding in the round, then I would urge the Chancellor, in his budget next week, to follow the advice of the NAHT union and put new additional resources into the education budget, which would then give us an opportunity, via Barnett consequentials, to review our education funding.

Many people, Cabinet Secretary, will find your conversion into an apologist for previous Welsh Government failures to be utterly startling. You blame the UK Government for spending pressures and yet you know full well that the situation is that for every £1 spent on the education system in England, Wales receives £1.20. There can be no excuses for the fact that Welsh pupils are disadvantaged by the funding settlement that your Government—this coalition Government here in Wales—is putting into place. So, given that you won't commit to closing this gap, how on earth do you expect schools across Wales to deliver on your national mission for education, if you won't fund them properly?

Believe me, Darren, in arriving at the budget, I have carried out a line-by-line examination of the resources available to me and to match them to the national mission. The Member will also be aware of this Government's commitment, across Government, to put resources to the front line, via the revenue support grant to local authorities. I'm having very robust conversations with councils the length and breadth of Wales, and they will continue on Thursday and Friday of this week, to ensure that, having put those resources into the RSG, those moneys now find themselves in the classrooms of our schools in Wales.

I say it again, Cabinet Secretary: for every £1 spent on the education system in England, Wales receives £1.20. There can be no excuse for funding schools by giving them less finance per pupil, per head, than is currently the case. It's scandalous.

One way that you could seek to start addressing this particular issue is to target resources at disadvantaged groups, and this is one thing, of course, that the UK coalition Government, when your party was in Government over there, sought to do with the pupil deprivation grant, and of course we have welcomed the previous Welsh Labour Government following suit with that.

One of the disadvantaged groups that we have in Wales is children whose parents are serving in the military. Service children are often having their education disrupted due to parental postings that require school moves and they often need additional pastoral support if their parents are on deployment. We know that the evidence suggests that, without extra support, these factors can actually impact on education attainment and outcomes for service pupils.

In England, the disadvantage has been recognised and the UK Department for Education, not the Ministry of Defence, provides a service pupil premium to schools with service children. It's Remembrance Week, Cabinet Secretary; will you take the opportunity in this important week to commit to introducing the service pupil premium here in Wales?

I'm very glad, Presiding Officer, that Darren Millar supports the Welsh Government's policy of the pupil development grant, which this year will be worth some £91 million to our most deprived children's education. Despite the severe pressure that this Government finds itself under in terms of budgets, we've been able to maintain our commitment to those children who are on free school meals or who are looked after. In fact, despite the constraints, we are expanding the number of children that are eligible for PDG.

Darren makes a very good point with regard to pastoral care for children whose families are in the forces, and that's why I am so disappointed that the MOD has decided to pull its funding for the support of the education of those children. I have written to the Secretary of State for Defence to ask him to reconsider. But, I have to say, Darren, this is a pattern that we are increasingly seeing from the Westminster Government, where it looks to shift cost away from what should be their responsibilities onto this devolved Government.

If there is evidence to suggest an impact on levels of attainment from schoolchildren because of a whole range of issues that may be affecting them, I will continue to review that as I look to develop and strengthen the pupil development grant. But I hope the MOD will change its mind.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian.

These are questions to Eluned Morgan. First of all, I welcome the full commitment that you made yesterday during the debate on the Welsh Language Commissioner’s annual report to continue with the Government’s aim of reaching a million Welsh speakers by 2050, and Plaid Cymru, of course, is fully supportive of that target. The strategy ‘Cymraeg 2050’ puts education centrally to your vision in order to reach that million. You also mentioned this yesterday.

But in looking at the Welsh-medium education strategy published in 2010, there was a target at that time of ensuring that 30 per cent of children at seven years old receive their education through the medium of Welsh by 2020. In the ‘Cymraeg 2050’ strategy, that target has been reduced to 24 per cent by 2021, and there is no intention of attaining that old target of 30 per cent by 2031.

Most of these new Welsh speakers will be created through the education system, but there’ll only be an increase of 110,000 Welsh speakers through the Welsh Government’s strategy over the next 33 years as compared with the 400,000 more additional Welsh speakers that are needed if we are to reach that target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050.

So, where will these 290,000 additional Welsh speakers come from?

May I thank Siân Gwenllian very much for that? It’s quite right that I have committed to sticking to that target of achieving a million Welsh speakers. Education is crucial. That is the foundation, and that is the only way that we are going to attain it. At present, I am looking at a new strategy for Welsh-medium education for our schools. Of course, you will be aware that Aled is currently looking at the ideas that came from local government. He has been looking at the strategies, and he has discovered some examples in local government where they haven’t gone far enough. So we are looking at the way in which we are going to meet this target, and this will be included in the new Welsh-medium education strategy. We will ensure that we reach those milestones, which are important. Whether we achieve them swiftly or slowly, for me the most important thing is that we lay the foundations properly at the outset—that is what is most important.

So, you may have to review the targets contained within the ‘Cymraeg 2050’ strategy.

In the ‘Education in Wales: Our National Mission 2017-21’ document, there is a suggestion that pupils will not take the new Welsh language qualification, which will replace second-language Welsh, until 2026 at the earliest. Now, that’s a cause of concern because it contradicts what was said in this Chamber on 28 September 2016. I asked the Minister for Welsh language at the time, Alun Davies:

‘Can you confirm…that you will be replacing Welsh as a second language with one single Welsh qualification that every pupil will have by 2021?’ and he responded:

‘The second language Welsh qualification will be replaced in exactly the way that you have suggested in 2021.’

On page 20 of the ‘Our National Mission’ document, it states that teaching the new GCSE qualification will start for the first time in 2024-25, which suggests that we will have to wait until 2026-27 until there is a single Welsh language qualification taken by all pupils. This is entirely contrary to what the Minister told me in September 2016, namely that there would be a single Welsh language qualification replacing second-language Welsh by 2021.

Do you agree with me that it is entirely unacceptable that another generation of children is to be deprived of the ability to speak Welsh fluently because of the lack of pace of this Government?

I do think that there is very much that we can do to improve the teaching of Welsh as a second language to pupils in Wales, but I would like to look at the evidence to see what works. I am a new Minister and I have the right to look at the way in which the new strategy is going to appear. I’m not going to commit to something that will mean that I have to stick to a plan until 2021 until I’ve reviewed it. That doesn’t mean to say that we won't do it soon, but I'm not going to do it this week, as was planned originally. 

In this case, of course, with the new qualification, there is a whole host of evidence supporting the need for this change, and a decision has been taken to accept that. It’s a matter of making progress now, and it’s this sluggishness that concerns me.

The consultation period on the Welsh language Bill White Paper has now concluded, and, again, I welcome your commitment, made yesterday, to keep an open mind on possible changes to this Bill, including the Government’s intention to abolish the role of the Welsh Language Commissioner.

The purpose of any new legislation on the Welsh language should be to simplify the standards process, but also to enhance the basic rights of Welsh speakers, which means extending standards to other sectors. There are numerous examples as to why those standards need to be extended into the private sector, and those have been highlighted over the past few months: Santander and Lloyds Bank refusing to receive papers through the medium of Welsh, and Great Western Railway flatly refusing to use bilingual signage and announcements. Members of your own Government have been critical of this lack of respect for the Welsh language, including the First Minister yesterday.

You mentioned yesterday the need to take a carrot-and-stick approach, but the attitude of companies such as Great Western Railway demonstrates clearly why that method doesn’t work. It has failed to secure the rights of Welsh speakers to receive services through the medium of their own language. The examples of Great Western and others—

You need to come to a question.

It shows a lack of respect for the Welsh language. Do you agree that the recent history and experiences of people show that persuasion alone won’t be an effective tool in securing the rights of Welsh speakers?

Certainly, at times you need the stick in addition to the carrot, I quite agree. But meanwhile, while we’re awaiting the new standards, for example on health—and I will be looking at those over the ensuing weeks—what is important, I believe, is that we keep the pressure on these private companies. I’ve already asked the officials in the department to ensure that I know of any cases where the companies aren’t going as far as they should so that I can write directly. I have asked whether I can write to Great Western Railway, for example, to ensure that we keep the pressure up on them. There is no reason whatsoever why they cannot demonstrate slightly more recognition of the Welsh language and its use as a matter of respect for our nation, and we will be keeping the pressure on these companies.

UKIP spokesperson, Caroline Jones. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, in March of this year you were featured in the media talking about equality and bullying in schools. The announcements largely focused on homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in the schools. Can the Minister confirm to me that no form of bullying is acceptable and that whilst the article concentrated quite rightly on tackling bullying of this nature, bullying that is not motivated by such issues will also be the subject of zero tolerance and dealt with every bit as robustly? 

I would be very happy to give the Member that absolute assurance. I have a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of bullying in Welsh education. 

Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. Also in the media coverage at that time, you quite rightly spoke about the damage that bullying can do to the learning and progress of children in school. Would you agree with me that bullying among teachers, aside from the distress it would cause to the teacher's personal and professional life, could also impact negatively on our schoolchildren, as it would almost inevitably lead to unhappy teachers who are likely to have their performance in the classroom negatively impacted, and low morale would be present in the classroom producing a no-win situation? 

I thank the Member for that. In our national mission, we establish a new priority, which is the issue of well-being, recognising that children cannot make the most of their educational opportunities if issues around their well-being are not being addressed. I also want Wales to be the place to be an educational professional. Issues around work-life balance, respectful workplaces and workload are really important to our teaching profession, and I would expect all our teachers to feel supported when working in Welsh educational establishments.  

Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. So, will you undertake to investigate the prevalence of school staff bullying to make schools a bully-free zone not just for the children, but for all kinds of staff involved in the running of the school, and consider a specific disciplinary route for the investigation of claims of bullying, giving it the special status that it has rightly been afforded when it is between schoolchildren? And will she undertake to ask schools to report to her so that she can make available to us any figure relating to allegations and findings of bullying taking place among all kinds of staff in our schools? Thank you. 

I think it's important to remember that as a Welsh Government we do not directly employ teachers; that is a matter for individual schools and governing bodies. I would expect any teacher who had concerns about how they were being treated in their workplace to be able to raise that with the headteacher, but if that was not appropriate, then with their governing body and within their union, as most of the profession are members of the union. As I said, I want Wales to be the place to be a teacher. Teacher well-being is important to me. That's why we've instituted the workforce survey, so that I can hear directly from teachers about the issues that are affecting them. But if the Member has evidence of bullying in schools that is not being taken seriously, then I would ask the Member to write to me and I can assure her that my officials will make the necessary investigations.  

Questions 3 [OAQ51263], 4 [OAQ51259] and 5 [OAQ51285] are withdrawn. Question 6, therefore—Neil McEvoy.