'We were once the nation that championed education—we were pioneers of state schools, high standards and achievement and had one of the first universities that was open to all. Now we underperform at every level.'

These are not my words, Deputy Presiding Officer; these are the words of the Cabinet Secretary for Education in her leadership speech to the Welsh Liberal Democrat Party conference four years ago, and, today, my speech, actually, is covering her promises and her words and her performance in the last few years.

In her speech, in Newport, she claimed

'a generation of our children have been let down by an education system that continues to struggle.'

Sadly, that struggle continues today. GCSE results this year are the worst in over a decade. Attainment of grades A to C for all ages have fallen in Welsh language, English literature, the sciences and mathematics. This is particularly worrying when you consider that the number of learners taking A-levels have fallen by nearly 10 per cent since 2015. Four years ago, the Cabinet Secretary deplored the poor PISA results for Wales. She bemoaned the fact that, for a third time in a row, Wales fell behind the rest of the United Kingdom in reading, maths and science. And yet figures published by the OECD show that Wales has the worst performing education system in the United Kingdom. For the fourth time in a decade, Wales finished significantly behind all other UK nations in the PISA ranking. Estyn's most recent figures show that 45 education institutions across Wales are currently in special measures or in need of significant improvement. I'm concerned to see that the highest number of education institutions in special measures are in Newport, with Torfaen having the highest number of schools in need of significant improvement—both, of course, in my south-east Wales region. As the Cabinet Secretary said in one of her conference speeches four years ago—the quote is:

'Too many of our schools are underperforming—all of them underfunded.'

Today, schools in Wales remain significantly underfunded, with serious consequences for educational standards across our country. According to NASUWT, the spend per pupil funding gap between England and Wales has widened to £678. This has had a devastating knock-on effect on teacher retention, teacher training, school building repairs and various measures to support the learning needs of disadvantaged groups and children from poorer families. The Cabinet Secretary initially cut funding to educate children of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups, traditionally amongst the most deprived in Wales, and has failed to reinstate the grant in full. Estyn claim the gap between the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals achieving five A to C GCSEs and those who are not remains stubbornly high, and all this on the watch of the Cabinet Secretary who claimed four years ago—again, she said, in her words—

'in Labour's Wales, a child from the poorest background is much less likely to do well at school than children from similar backgrounds in England.'

Quote closed. Deputy Presiding Officer, to quote from the Cabinet Secretary's speech from 2014 one more time:

'This great nation of ours which has so many talented people and such great community spirit, is too often being let down by a lacklustre government that fails to deliver time and time again.'

I agree with that. It is a tragedy for Wales that the Cabinet Secretary chose to join this lacklustre failing Government to keep it in office. Thank you.