2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:59 pm on 19 February 2019.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:59, 19 February 2019

I'll begin with your first point, which was on the school budgets, and, of course, UK Government's sustained austerity agenda has led to a cut of nearly £1 billion in Wales's overall budgets, but we will continue to call for additional funding to be spent on our public services, including our schools. I will say, with regard to the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru open letter on school funding, that we simply do not recognise the figure of £450 million referred to in the letter. Officials will be meeting with ASCL later this week to discuss the points that they have made with regard to local authorities and consortia.

Insofar as care home provision is concerned, of course we already have a joint health and care strategy in 'A Healthier Wales', which was our response to the parliamentary review. But, as you say, you will be raising your further questions directly with the health Minister in due course. The Minister will have heard your comments on the probation service, and I perhaps will ask for a written response to come forward to you on that.

Certainly, we are very keen to hear the voices of children and young people insofar as the challenge of climate change is concerned, because we know that young people clearly will be very, very much at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, and young people can certainly participate in shaping this dialogue with schools, Welsh Government and others in order to bring about the actions that strengthen our response to climate change. We support many activities that provide opportunities for young people to contribute to tackling climate change, including our eco-schools programme, which operates in 95 per cent of schools in Wales. That's one of the highest participation rates in similar projects in the world, and ultimately of course we want all of our young people to be ethical, informed, valued members of society, and these are the very same principles that are guiding our development of the new school curriculum.