First of all, I would like to praise our teachers and the staff in our schools for their ongoing commitment to the increasingly difficult task of teaching our pupils. They work under very specific limitations in terms of a lack of resource and funding and far too much intervention in their day-to-day activities. The profession is under huge pressure at the moment, and we need to thank them for continuing to try and inspire our children and young people in the classroom, which is, after all, their main task, but the context is a challenging one.

The serious funding crisis facing schools across Wales is having a detrimental impact on the education of our young people, and this is highlighted in the report ‘Cut to the Bone?’: £324 less is spent in real terms per pupil as compared to nine years ago, and, according to the Government itself, two fifths of schools in Wales are in deficit in terms of their budgets.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers quotes data on the number of teachers, noting that there's been a reduction of 1,416, namely 5.6 per cent in the number of teachers, and often these are experienced teachers who have left the profession prematurely as a result of cuts.

We know that the cake is getting smaller as a result of Tory austerity policies, and it's interesting to note, therefore, that the motion before us today does detail one specific aspect of school funding. Plaid Cymru does agree that there is a lack of transparency and some confusion regarding the formula, and we also agree that we need to look at the efficiency of all the funding streams for schools and perhaps we need to create a single funding stream and to agree as to how we assess success.

What is disappointing is that the Government, through its amendment, seem to think that everything is fine. Well, I can tell you that everything is not fine. We know that the problem starts with the Conservatives in London and the ideological attempt to undermine our public services through their austerity policies. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Tories in Wales actually look at the minutiae, ignoring the elephant in the room, namely that the public funding pot generally is getting smaller and that we need to invest rather than cut our public services. But I would also argue that, yes, the cake needs to be bigger in the first place, but we also need to portion it in a way that accords better with some of the Government’s main strategies in Wales. The preventative services aren't given a sufficient share of Government funding, and what better example of a preventative service than education? We need to look in a far more holistic manner at the budget as a whole and to move away from these crude allocations. We need more appropriate funding for services that prevent problems from developing.

And what about the slice of the cake actually provided for education? Is there enough of that going to our schools, and what can be done to ensure that the funding is spent appropriately? I do very much hope that the work of the Children, Young People and Education Committee can feed into that discussion.

The job of this Government is to look long and hard at the evidence, to come to conclusions, and to take action as a result. The amendments, such as the one tabled today, do nothing to help anyone. We need to listen to what the profession is telling us. There are some who are asking whether the consortia are absorbing too much of the funds, whether there is duplication of services across the various layers involved. Do we need three-year budgeting? There is concern that funding provided through grants can vary from year to year and create uncertainty and create a patchy approach that doesn't reflect the local priorities on all occasions, that there’s a bureaucratic burden and that far too large a proportion of them is used for tracking and monitoring and so on and so forth. I could expand on those specific issues that need to be addressed, and I look forward to contributing to the work of the committee in contributing to those efforts.

The view that 'everything in the garden is rosy' doesn't strike a chord, and it's another case of this Government burying its head in the sand whilst our schools are creaking and our young people are being let down.