Where does this leave us? Well, we know that schools across Wales face a situation where they can't avoid making substantial cuts in order to cope with the financial deficits, and that means, of course, cuts in staffing levels, in resources, in continuing professional development for teachers, and many other aspects of school activities. The teaching unions have drawn our attention to some of these examples. Fewer teachers inevitably will mean that class sizes will increase—something I know that's very close to the heart of the Cabinet Secretary; less individual attention to the learners; an increasing workload for staff, of course, particularly in terms of marking and assessment, and that, in turn—and we will come to this later—leading to greater stress and long-term ill health in many cases.

There is an increasing reliance on support staff rather than qualified teachers. The staff-pupil ratio is worsening, as I mentioned, and it's increasingly challenging to give due attention to each pupil. There's also an increasing reliance on headteachers, particularly in smaller schools. Now, headteachers very often have their own teaching timetable but also have to do additional teaching hours in order to ensure that their staff get their planning, preparation and assessment time, which is statutory, of course. As a result, they don't have the time required by them to manage the school that they should have.

There are also negative impacts on the curriculum specifically, of course. The reduction in the number of contact hours for curricular subjects is an obvious one, teachers often having to teach a broader range of subjects, which, of course, means that then they teach fewer hours in their area of expertise, and subjects, according to some of the unions, disappearing entirely—music, drama, modern foreign languages, vocational subjects—because, very often, one can't justify running a course with a relatively small number of pupils. That has an impact.

We have seen intensification of unnecessary competition, in my opinion, for pupils because of the funding that comes with them, not just between schools, but also between schools and further education colleges in the post-16 sector. There are negative impacts on working conditions too. We see inappropriate use of teachers doing supply in place of their colleagues, where they are in a situation of being under pressure. There is a restructuring of allowances, although those additional responsibilities are still necessary. Staff are agreeing to reduced hours in certain circumstances rather than facing redundancy, and, of course, if they are made redundant, then that redundancy payment is based on the part-time salary. I could go on, of course. 

Naturally, these ongoing threats to jobs creates an atmosphere of fear and anxiety among the profession. It undermines working conditions and causes stress and ill health, as I've mentioned. I've referred to these figures in the past: 90 per cent of teachers now say that they can't manage their workload within their agreed working hours. Estyn says that teachers in Wales work, on average, 50 hours a week, and it's no surprise, therefore, that we have seen the number of working days lost as a result of stress more than double over the past few years to over 50,000 working days per annum.

And the greatest irony in all of this, of course, is that this goes entirely against the Government's own ambition in terms of moving towards the new curriculum—something that we're all eager to see: a curriculum that will be broad, flexible and multidisciplinary—never mind, of course, the Government's desire to promote things like modern foreign languages and STEM subjects, which I mentioned, while we are now struggling to see those parts of the curriculum being delivered as we would want to see. The Government's ambition to provide support to our most vulnerable pupils is also undermined, and to transform the additional learning needs system, and reach the 1 million Welsh speakers too—all of this is being undermined because of the funding situation facing our schools.

Now, these cuts, as we all know, have already had an impact on much of the non-statutory activities—music lessons and so on are raised regularly in this Chamber—but now the cuts are having such an effect that they are a threat to statutory requirements too.