I would be the first person in this Chamber to acknowledge the hard work of teachers across Wales, who do their best to support learners to achieve their potential. I want to congratulate as well those young people across Wales, including my own daughter and my own son, who managed to get decent grades in their GCSEs and A-levels this year. I also think it's appropriate to thank the school governors who've contributed to the success and turnaround in many of our schools. We had David Melding talk about his experience as a school governor and I know that there are many, including myself, that are also school governors in this Chamber. But these people are volunteers, giving of their own time, dedicating themselves to their community by serving on those school governing bodies, and I want to pay tribute to each and every one of them. 

The Cabinet Secretary likes to choose and make comparisons with England when it suits her, but doesn't like to make comparisons with other parts of the UK when it doesn't suit her. The reality is that we know that per-pupil funding in Wales is less than it is over the border in England. That has consequences for the opportunities for young people to have the resources in those schools to be able to reach their potential. These are not things that just, you know, I am saying or anybody on these benches; other individuals, the teaching unions, are also adding to a growing chorus of voices, frankly, that are saying you have to do something about this.

And I have to say, Suzy—. [Laughter.] And I have to say, Kirsty, pardon me—Cabinet Secretary—that it's a little bit rich of the Liberal Democrats to do a deal—we would rather Suzy there—to do a deal to go into Government on the basis that an extra £100 million is going to be invested in education to improve school standards, and then whip it away with cuts on the other hand, because you haven't actually increased school spending by £100 million over this term. That is not happening at all and, you know, if you get your calculator out it's very clear that that's not happened because, of course, the spending has been reducing.

I have a lot of sympathy, actually, for what Michelle Brown was saying earlier on in her contribution. Ultimately, it is our economy that will pay a price for this failure in future years. If we don't have a highly educated workforce that is fit for the future, our economy is going to suffer. And in addition, we're not going to attract people in to create the wealth in our country if we've got a poor education system, and we're going to discourage people from staying here also if our education system is poor. So, we've got to raise our game. We've got to make sure that it's better than it currently is.

Mohammad Asghar was absolutely right to point out the failures in recent years. He was absolutely right to talk about the wonderful heritage that we have as well here in Wales, in terms of the pioneering school movements that Griffith Jones of Llanddowror and others established all those many years ago. But the reality is that when we look at those PISA rankings, I'm not sure what the Government's expectation is going to be when the next set of rankings are going to be published, but I think that aspirations are pretty low in this Chamber because no-one feels very confident that we've managed to turn that situation around since the last set of results.

And I've heard what the inspectorate have said—the chief inspector—that we shouldn't expect any significant improvement until 2022. Well, frankly, that's too long for the children, as Caroline Jones rightly pointed out, that are currently in the education system. We've got to be more ambitious than having to wait four years and press the reset button at that point. We need to be turning this situation around right now for those young people, because otherwise they will be another failed generation as a result of this very tired Labour-led Government.

I think also we need to reflect on what is going on elsewhere in the UK, because the situation is improving, actually, in England. The standards are rising. They're holding their own in terms of the world economy and league tables. We're the only ones that are going backwards here to any significant extent. We're the only ones in the bottom half of the world rankings in terms of any home nation in the UK, and that is not something of which we can be proud.

So, I implore you, Cabinet Secretary, I implore you to get more money from the finance Cabinet Secretary in this year's budget round, invest it in our schools so that they have the resources that they need to be able to improve the results in future years. I urge you to pick up the pace of reform so that we don't have to wait for another four years before we see the improvements that we need. I urge you to give a shot in the arm to those teachers—not just in our schools but also in our further education colleges, those lecturers who've helped to deliver decent GCSE and A-level results this year—so that we can really begin to see the sort of potential that we have in Wales being fully realised. Because unless we see that, we won't see the future of Wales being the way that it ought to be.