Thank you for raising this, and I do find it quite staggering to hear the shouts of 'good question' and 'hear, hear' from the Conservative benches when, as a result of austerity, funding per head of the population for day-to-day devolved public services, such as schools in Wales, will be 7 per cent lower next year than it was a decade ago. Between 2010-11 and 2019-20, the Welsh budget will have fallen by 5 per cent in real terms, when repayable funding's excluded. So, that's equivalent to £850 million less to spend on public services every year, but nonetheless, we're clearly prioritising the NHS, we're prioritising education, and we're prioritising social services.

So, with regard specifically to schools, we are directing to local authorities all of the £23.5 million announced by the UK Government last September towards funding school teachers' pay award in 2018-19 and 2019-20. And, in addition to this, we've gone further and announced an additional £15 million of funding that is being deployed over this financial year and next to help local authorities meet those cost pressures associated with teachers' pay in particular.

However, I do absolutely recognise the huge pressure that local authorities are under at the moment. We've given the best possible settlement, but we're under no illusion that it does mean difficult choices for our local government colleagues.