2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:12 pm on 16 January 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:12, 16 January 2018

Well, thank you very much for that. That's very important. In terms of the first one, we have a large number of very difficult decisions to make in terms of resourcing and so on, but one of the things that's really good about where we are in schools' resilience is the fact that we have now got Hwb out to every single school and pupil across Wales. And although it's not quite the same as hearing somebody in person, we can now get a lot of those resources onto Hwb and make sure that, actually, all schools have access to some of that material. I'm sure the Cabinet Secretary's looking very carefully at that, and if Llyr would like to write to the Cabinet Secretary and outline some of the very specific concerns, I'm sure she can address that in the light of some of the developments that we've had. I've been having some discussions with her where it overlaps my own portfolio about how we can use those resources in just that way to make sure that all schools benefit from some of the things where it's not possible to get individually around all of them.

In terms of the Welsh language additional funding, I'm told that it frees up the additional £13 million for future years, so the Member should be reassured about that. And, again, in terms of the very specific issues, I think the Minister is taking those into account, and she is due to come forward with a statement. I'm not quite sure what the timescale for that is, but I know she is due to come forward with a statement on where she is with some of the revisions for the Welsh language policy, and I'm sure she'll take that into account when that statement does come forward in due course.