Cabinet Secretary, you recently wrote to schools in Islwyn to inform them of the Welsh Government's—

You need to ask the question on the order paper. 

That's the question that I have in front of me. 

4. What action is the Welsh Government taking to help disadvantaged learners in Islwyn? OAQ52048

That is indeed the question.

I got there. 

Through the regional pupil development grant, we continue to invest unprecedented amounts of funding—in this case, £187 million over the next two years—to support schools across Wales to improve outcomes for our disadvantaged learners. Islwyn are benefiting from the regional allocation to the Education Achievement Service of more than £19 million per annum over this period.

Okay. Thank you. The pupil deprivation grant for the youngest learners—pupils aged three to four—has increased from £600 to £700, building on last year's doubling of financial support from £300 to £600 per learner in the early years, a stark contrast to the UK Tory decimation of support for poorer learners. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline, then, what difference the continued investment in the pupil deprivation grant will have in Islwyn schools, and the impact the Welsh Government believes it will have on disadvantaged learners in Islwyn communities?  

It's now called the pupil development grant, because we want to focus on the primary purpose of this grant, and that is to develop the opportunities for some of our most disadvantaged learners. What we do know, Rhianon, is that by targeting investing in our early years, with our very youngest learners, we can address the effects of deprivation on their educational outcomes even more quickly. I have huge confidence in the pupil development grant. If you talk to teachers, which I'm sure you do in your own constituency, they are quite clear about the difference that this money is making. We're increasingly seeing a number of our primary schools that have pupils who are entitled to a free school meal—they're performing at a level on a par with those better-off counterparts, and, indeed, in some primary schools, we even see children on free school meals outperforming their better-off counterparts.

Parents of children disadvantaged by poverty in Islwyn will have heard with dismay of the Welsh Government's decision to scrap the school uniform grant for poor families. Last week, the First Minister failed to give assurances regarding funding and eligibility of your planned replacement scheme. So, Cabinet Secretary, can you confirm that there'll be no reduction in the amount of funding provided for school uniforms under your new scheme and that all year 7 pupils in receipt of free school meals will continue to be eligible for the school uniform grant also?

Thank you, Oscar, for that question. I am very keen to address the impact of disadvantage on children's education in a variety of ways, and for some families, assistance with school uniform is really important. But as we heard yesterday, in a question to the First Minister from Julie Morgan, there are other ways in which more deprived communities cannot take advantage of the full range of opportunities that may be available to them, and that can have a direct impact on that learner's capabilities to progress. That's why I and officials are currently working on a replacement grant for what was previously called the school uniform grant. It will include access to support for school uniforms, but I'm also wanting that grant to be able to provide greater flexibility for parents, for instance, who may not have the financial ability to allow their child to go on a school trip or to allow their child to participate in extra-curricular activity, which could affect their outcomes. So, yes, grants for uniforms will continue, but I'm looking to expand that grant to cover a wider variety of opportunities that, potentially, pupils from deprived backgrounds can't participate in.