Item 6 on the agenda this afternoon is a statement by the Minister for Education on support for disadvantaged and vulnerable learners, and I call on the Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. A young person’s ability to benefit from education should never be determined by their background or personal circumstances. Narrowing the attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers is at the heart of our national mission to raise standards and deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and enjoys public confidence. Secured as part of a budget deal between the Welsh Liberal Democrats and the then Welsh Government, the pupil development grant has led to over £475 million additional investment, which has directly supported over half a million young people eligible for free school meals in reaching their potential.

Year on year the PDG has been expanded, both in terms of the groups of learners it now supports and the scale of the investment. It focuses funding where it has the greatest impact, which we know is in the early years, so we have increased this element of the funding over recent years. And it supports groups that need additional support, including our care-experienced young people, which is why we have strengthened the PDG looked-after children arrangements from this month.

Schools continue to tell us how invaluable PDG funding is. However, I recognise that targeted funding cannot be the only solution. To be blunt, Deputy Presiding Officer, our current system has not always rewarded the right behaviours, and how we measure the attainment gap isn’t as simple as some claim. Science entries are a really good example. In previous years, Wales saw a significant increase in FSM pupils being wrongly entered for BTEC science, rather than GCSEs. Not only did this limit aspirations, but it meant that their performance was masked in our national attainment gap figures. We have taken action to address this, which has led to an increase of 30 per cent, since 2016, in the number of free-school-meals pupils who have achieved at least one GCSE in science. 

Earlier this year, we published the detail of our draft evaluation and improvement arrangements. A previous focus on the C/D boundary supported many, but it excluded others. Instead, schools will now be evaluated according to the difference they make to the progress of every single child. This will require a system-wide culture change and will be essential in raising attainment for all.

Through targeted resources, more intelligent accountability measures, and setting high expectations for all, we will continue to support all learners to reach the highest standards. However, I think most of us in this Chamber can agree that, at times of austerity, too often it is families and pupils from our most disadvantaged backgrounds that struggle the most.

I know that the cost of the school day is an important issue. In the last two years, we have taken a number of significant actions to support families and their children. Last year, I asked Children in Wales to produce a set of guides for schools covering key aspects of this. The guides will focus on opportunities to change culture in schools around disadvantage and provide strategies for addressing particular challenges around the cost of the school day. The first series of guides will be available from September and will be built upon thereafter.

PDG Access, which supports families with the costs of uniforms, kit and equipment, has been introduced specifically to help the families that need it most. Earlier this month, we doubled the funding available to £5 million. This means we have extended eligibility to the start of every key stage. Funding for looked-after children will be available in every school year, maximising the support we can provide to some of our most vulnerable learners. We have also increased the amount available for eligible year 7 learners from £125 to £200, recognising the increased costs associated with starting secondary school. More broadly, I want to make sure we're doing everything that we can to make school uniform more affordable. We recently consulted on new draft statutory guidance, which I hope will come into force in September of this year.

As we all know, for some of our young people and children, the school summer holidays can be a difficult time. Children who benefit from free school breakfasts and lunches can sometimes miss out on these meals and go hungry during the school holidays. That's why we are funding the school holiday enrichment programme. This delivers educational, social and health outcomes, as well as nutritional benefits, and we have further increased this investment so even more children will benefit from the scheme this summer.

Members will be aware that the Government recently announced a further £2.3 million to make period products available to learners in all schools, free of charge. I am pleased today to also announce additional funding of £845,000 to offer the same free service to learners at further education colleges. As well as supporting our disadvantaged young women, the funding will go wider, focusing on dignity, equality and well-being.

Deputy Presiding Officer, it's also important that I touch upon the support we offer to students from disadvantaged backgrounds who aspire to study at university. All the evidence indicates that it is living costs, not fees, that is the greatest barrier to people studying at university. This Government has taken action to address this, resulting in the most progressive and generous student support package in the United Kingdom.

Full-time undergraduates with household incomes up to £18,370 are entitled to the maximum grant, worth £8,100 a year. Provisional data from the Student Loans Company for 2018-19 shows that around one third of full-time undergraduates have been awarded this maximum level of grant. Our reforms are unique in Europe, offering parity of support for part-time students. Not only have we seen a 35 per cent increase in the number of part-time students receiving support, but latest figures show that half of those supported have also qualified for the maximum amount of grant.

I have also spoken before on how progression into postgraduate study is our next challenge in widening participation. By introducing equivalent living costs support for Master's students, we will address this challenge. I am delighted that the most recent recent figures show a 58 per cent increase in the number of postgraduates supported, and this is an area where we will continue to make real progress.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I have given a brief overview today of just some of the measures taken in the last two years. I am in no doubt there is a great deal more to do, and I am always keen to hear the views of Members, but, as a Government, we remain determined to do everything in our power to ensure that everyone, no matter who they are or where they are, has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Thank you very much, Minister, for that summary of Welsh Government action over the last couple of years. We agree with you that your background should not determine your ability to take part in education, and I think, actually, it would be quite useful to hear from Welsh Government at some point soon about the work that they're doing to combat the effects of adverse childhood experiences. It was certainly something that the late Carl Sargeant was very keen to take up, and I think that any information we have on that front would fit in very well with the statement that you've made today. 

Just on the particulars, I was happy to see reference to the draft evaluation and improvement framework and the acknowledgement, or at least the inference, that our academically brightest children perhaps have not had the attention paid to their progress that they should have in recent years. The Welsh Conservatives have certainly raised concerns about this benign neglect over some time, so perhaps you can tell us when you anticipate that the draft framework will be finalised and published and whether there'll be a specific focus for more able and talented children articulated in that final framework—whether it'll be picked out as something to focus on. 

Thank you also for allowing officials to give us a briefing on the new curriculum today. One of the things that I picked out from that is that the progression steps—and, admittedly, we've only just seen these—are not prescriptive, in the sense that teachers or schools must achieve certain outcomes by certain times. And it's not clear to me, then, how driven schools will need to be to ensure progress, or how indeed they will be driven to ensure progress for every child. And I think the evaluation and improvement framework will have something to help us understand that, when it comes to scrutiny. 

I note happily the update regarding school uniform and sanitary product funding, and hope that, like me, you will be calling on the UK Government to scrap the tampon tax once we leave the EU.

I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about the funding of meals during the school holidays, though, because instinctively, of course, we understand why children in real need would need that opportunity. We see how it works during the school term, nourishing children enough to enable them to learn. So, you won't find us challenging the existence of this provision, but if you start from the premise that it's the parents' responsibility to, obviously, feed their children and that eligibility for free school meals is something of a blunt instrument—I think we've talked about this before in this Chamber—how will you be monitoring and evaluating who is actually using this provision? Will some families who can assume responsibility for their children be using this unnecessarily? But, more importantly, will there be children who are missing out on this? Because, unlike during the school term, there isn't a school attendance officer who can be visiting families. If this is an opportunity not only for children to be fed but perhaps for parents to find work—they might have time to do that if their children are in holiday clubs and stuff—how is that being monitored so that the provision of it is being used most effectively?

Thirdly, I think I've asked you before about whether you have any worries about whether the generous provision of the PDG was masking decisions made by local authorities to provide smaller amounts of core school funding. And, in the course of discussions on this in committee fairly recently, you expressed concerns about the delegation rates on centrally provided grants, about how much and how quickly that money was reaching schools. So, do you have any sense yet of how speedily the money for school uniforms, sanitary products and the holiday enrichment programme is reaching those who should be spending it? Again, is anybody missing out who should be getting this?

And then, finally, your comments around students from disadvantaged backgrounds aspiring to study at university. Now, young carers in receipt of the most supervised study will lose their carer's allowance, and I hope that you'll take this opportunity to offer some support for the Welsh Conservatives' policy to fill that funding gap for those young people who would be affected by the loss of their carer's allowance. 

I'm very pleased with the news on part-time study and those who choose to take up Master's qualifications, and the living cost support that they are getting. Could you tell me what your plans are though for a longitudinal study of those MA students? Because two of the unintended consequences of the Labour drive for 50 per cent of young people to go to university was an inadvertent devaluing of things that weren't university degrees, different qualifications. It seems to me that more employers are looking for Master's qualifications now to help them distinguish candidates from those who have degrees. Now, everyone who wants to usefully study a Master's qualification should not be prevented from doing that for financial reasons, on that we absolutely agree, but how are you encouraging students to think again about whether it's a Master's that's the best next step for them, or whether another qualification or different training route might be more valuable or suit them better? The reason I ask this is, in earlier comments about the BTEC, you basically confirmed that there was no way that was ever a GCSE equivalent when it could have had parity of esteem if it had tested vocational excellence rigorously—and I'm using 'vocational' in its widest sense here. If you're supporting the MA students in this way, what plans do you have to offer similar support to people taking MA equivalents that are vocational or non-academic, if I can put it that way, if those qualifications suit them better? I think we're all serious about seeing parity of esteem for different types of student and the types of ways that they learn. While of course I applaud what you're doing with the MA, I don't want that to be to the exclusion of other equivalent qualifications for different types of study, so that this doesn't become yet another reason for sending people down a route that may not be the best route for them. Thank you very much. 

Can I thank Suzy Davies for the comments and questions she has raised this afternoon? The Government has a cross-Government approach and a cross-portfolio approach to the issues of adverse childhood experiences. We are very aware of the consequences of such experiences on a child's ability to learn. Myself and my colleague Julie Morgan support a number of initiatives, such as the ACEs hub, which is designed to develop best practice and to engage with educators so that they themselves understand what they need to do in nurseries and in classrooms to overcome the challenges that children who have suffered ACEs experience.

Only yesterday, I was with Suzy at Clase Primary School in her region, at her invitation, looking at how they use the PDG to provide a nurturing environment and specific support for those children who need that support. It's really interesting to see the development of that service. Initially, it was there for the very youngest children, but the teachers have responded to the needs of their entire population and now children in years 4, 5 and 6 have the ability to come in at break time and lunch time, sit down with trained professionals to talk about anything that might be worrying them at home or outside the school that has impacted upon their study. We will continue to monitor the ability to respond positively to ACEs, given, as I said, what we know about the impact that has on a child's ability to learn.

Suzy Davies asked about issues around accountability. We are moving to a more intelligence-based accountability system, which really drives the principles of transparency. This is particularly important to me with regard to the achievement of children on free school meals and children who might be care experienced. What we've had in the past is a system, actually, that has masked the true levels of performance of those children and has not made it easy for us to identify, and for schools to identify, how they are performing to similar schools. It is a source of frustration for me, for instance, to have schools within the same local authority area, in the same city, with the same level or proportion of free school meal children and some of those schools do exceptionally well by those children and others are falling behind. We need to have much more intelligent data to be able to make those comparisons so that we can benchmark, but also to recognise, actually, that every single child in the cohort matters. And just because somebody has managed to get a C, if they had the potential to get an A, that's simply not good enough. Sometimes, for some of our children, especially children from a more deprived background, we have put a cap on their ambitions. Earlier on, we talked about an inverse care law and the consequences for people from a poorer socioeconomic background and their ability to access services. If we're honest, sometimes we've put the cap on the ambition that we have for our children from our poorer backgrounds, and we have to lay that bare and really challenge ourselves and the system to do better for those children.

In terms of accountability, the first stage of accountability comes with the professionals themselves. The education system in Wales can only be as good as the people who stand in front of our children and work with our children and young people day in, day out. It is their professional accountability and their willingness to work to the teaching standards that we have developed that's the first stage of our accountability regime. Of course, after that, we have the issue of governance and school governors, our regional school improvement services, and, of course, Estyn, and you'll be aware that we've already published details of how we expect, actually, Estyn to be in schools more often as a result of our educational reform journey.

With regard to SHEP, the summer programme, I have to say, Suzy, you are right, it is primarily the parents' responsibility to feed their children, but I don't know where you have been if you have not come across families in your region that, despite their best endeavours, sometimes working multiple jobs, they simply do not have the money that they need to pay all of their bills. I meet mothers who go without themselves, go without food themselves, so that they can ensure their children eat. Families—. We've only seen the Trussell Trust statistics over the Easter holidays: there are more people in my constituency relying on food banks than ever before and that's not because they are feckless in any way; it is because they are the innocent victims of a benefits system that simply does not work and their inability to find paid employment that allows them to cover their rent, their bills, and all the other things that they want to do for their children. And, in those circumstances, we can either sit back and sit on our hands, or we can, as a Government, take action to assist these families. Now, in 2016, when we first developed the SHEP programme, five local authorities took part. In 2017, that was up to 12 local authorities. This summer, 21 local authorities will take part in the SHEP programme as we've been able to increase the amount of money that we've been able to work with with the WLGA to deliver that programme.

In terms of evaluation, of course, it's really important. SHEP originated out of work that happened in the Cardiff area. That programme was evaluated, and that's what has given us the confidence to know that we can roll this programme out to more areas. But an evaluation programme is part of the work, and we will continue to look at what more we can do to address the issue of holiday hunger. I know, again, Julie Morgan and I are looking at whether we can extend this programme above and beyond schools and look at other settings where we may be able to address the fact that, during term time, many families, many children, get their breakfast and their lunch, and during the six-week holiday period it is a significant financial strain on families to be able to cover the extra costs of those foods. Gosh, you know that, you've got boys at home. I've just been through the Easter holidays and my three girls have eaten me out of house and home. I seem to have spent the entire Easter holidays in the supermarket buying more food because every time I go home they've eaten—. You know—we all know, that have got children—the additional costs of feeding children during the school holidays. It is significant and we can't get away from that, and I'm proud that we are able to deliver SHEP in 21 local authorities this year thanks to our partnership working with colleagues in local government.

PDG: you heard from Mrs Hope yesterday in Clase Primary School what an important programme the PDG is and the difference that it is making to schools. That money is passported straight to schools and there's no suggestion at all that anybody else is hanging on to PDG money. With regard to the various other funding streams you talked about, each of those schemes is funded in a slightly different way but I, at this stage, am not concerned and have no evidence to suggest that the money for SHEP or the money for period poverty is not getting to where it needs to get to.

Thank you for releasing this statement today and for the advance notice. From what I'm seeing from this statement, the main new point is something that's not far up in the statement, which is support to cover free sanitary products at FE colleges, which is something we've discussed already, but I'm sure wasn't announced when you announced it for the schools, and I wholeheartedly welcome this new announcement. If there's anything new there apart from this, then I apologise if I've missed it, but I think that's what I saw as the new focus here.

And it is important in ensuring that financial status isn't a barrier to basic and necessary products, and this isn't something that's optional for women. I'd hope that it is universally supported, although on social media, I've seen some men not support it, and I'd like to have an explanation from those men as to how difficult a time of the month it is in terms of affordability when they have no experience of it whatsoever. So, I take that with a pinch of salt. The cost of such products can be really high, and it's not something that women don't need on an ongoing basis. I'd also like to thank the campaigners who kick-started this debate over the last few years, specifically Plaid councillor Elyn Stephens from the Rhondda, whose campaign in RCT council was very important in contributing to this wider debate and which is why, I think, we are here today.

In terms of the rest of the statement, it does read something like an election broadcast for the Liberal Democrats in the Assembly. Perhaps that's warranted—I'm sure the Minister will think it is. One aspect in terms of supporting college students is access. Distance is often far and there is no statutory responsibility to provide transport beyond the second academic year after 16. There's no consideration for adult learners either, and with sixth-form colleges increasingly under threat and councils conducting school mergers, the cost of providing transport is going to increase. So, I'd like to know what discussions you've had with the economic Minister to tell us what energies you've been putting in place in terms of the White Paper so that we can see more energy being put into supporting students to access transport.

Carrying on from the questions from my colleague Leanne Wood earlier in relation to the education maintenance allowance, these are also issues that have been raised with me via CollegesWales as well, in relation to the fact that it hasn't increased since 2004. Thirty pounds per week went a lot further then than it does now, and we've had this concern raised from the NUS also, whether that should be expanded upon so that we can ensure that they can use that EMA to its full extent. So, I'd be interested to hear from you here today.

And in relation to deprivation and vulnerable learners, I don't think enough focus has been put on adult education. I've heard from quite a lot of different providers in relation to retraining in later life that there is a decline in part-time pathways, which means options for those who need to work have been limited. It is forcing some people to decide whether they'll retrain or whether they enter employment. And if the employers don't support them through that process, then they will have to decide not to take up that additional skills training. So, I wonder whether you can give us some more information on that.

I'd just like to finish by saying that I would agree with Suzy Davies in relation to the support that's needed for young carers. If we're going to be talking about disadvantaged people, we need to talk about young carers. And I know that the previous Minister in this regard I met with following a debate that I led on, and I know that work has been done, but I still think that much more needs to be done to identify young carers in the classroom as one, but also to support them through that process so that they don't feel by the time they get to the end of their school careers that they are disadvantaged in the options available to them for their future careers.

Can I thank the Member for her welcome of the additional resources to ensure that we have period products free of charge in our FE colleges? The Member then goes on to make the point around the non-statutory nature of post-16 travel, and the Member is absolutely right in that regard, of course. I remember very clearly sitting on the committee at the time that dealt with that piece of legislation, the strong opposition the then Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones had to the statutory nature of post-16 travel—and he resisted it wholeheartedly, I believe, at that time—and I think we were on the committee together, and you will remember. Of course, what this Government has done is look to increase the availability of reduced bus fares for young people, not just those who are studying, but young people who may need public transport to get to work or to get to their apprenticeships.

With regard to the issue of part-time study, I'm not sure whether the Member missed the fact that we've seen a 35 per cent increase in the number of students we are supporting at degree level on a part-time basis, but, of course, there is much more to be done. It relates to the questions that Suzy Davies raised about different modes of study. Of course, this Government is also funding degree apprenticeships, which may be the right path for a student to be able to study at a higher level whilst working, and we're looking to make an announcement shortly on individual learning accounts to allow people who currently are in work, who want to study on a part-time basis to increase their job prospects, or perhaps to move into a different career, but need new qualifications to do that, looking to pilot a new and innovative scheme on individual learning accounts, as part of my agreement with the First Minister to ensure that Wales becomes a second-chance nation and that everybody in Wales has a right to lifelong learning.

First, I'd just like to pay a personal tribute to Kirsty Williams for her persistence in campaigning for the pupil development grant, because this is something that she was doing in the last Assembly as well as in this Assembly. I think that it is an instrument for ensuring that we have some attempt at levelling up the opportunities for students from poorer backgrounds. So, rather than making a cheap political point, I think we should acknowledge the successes.

I absolutely agree with you that the greatest impact is going to be in the early years, and I wondered how much attention you pay to the outcomes from those children who benefit from the Flying Start programme in terms of their readiness to start in nursery school—the numbers of words they speak and their motor skills and all that. Because it seems to me that if that is working well, then, there is an argument for ensuring that all children have those opportunities who don't have those benefits from parents who can buy them whatever occurs to them.

I was particularly happy yesterday to learn about the gardening club at Springwood Primary School in my constituency, which is in Llanedeyrn, for years 1 and 2 students. Because, for those who don't have a garden or access to a garden themselves, there's a huge benefit for children from the after-school provision, which is the enrichment programme that it's really important that all schools can offer. Because that levelling up simply won't exist if we don't have music clubs, or gardening clubs or sports opportunities for the very young who can't take themselves off to those things.

The free swimming entitlement that the Welsh Government pays for, it seems to me, is one of the best kept secrets, I'm afraid, by our leisure centres, certainly in Cardiff. It is hugely difficult to find out when these things are taking place, and the people who really need the free swimming are simply not being properly informed about it, so I think there's a real barrier there. I appreciate it may not be in your portfolio, but it's something that one of the committees needs to do some sort of evaluation on.

I also very much appreciate the consultation you've done on school uniforms, because we don't want school uniforms to be expensive items; they need to be hard-wearing, value for money, and then we need to encourage schools to have an exchange programme so that they can be passed on, because some children grow like beanstalks and they're practically new when they've grown out of them. So, as part of our climate emergency things, this is a really important issue—to ensure that little-worn items are reused in the right place.

On the period products, how much guidance is being given to institutions to think about reusable products? Because, mooncups are not for children when they first start their periods, but, in FE colleges, it'd be hugely important that they then know that they've got them for 15 years. So, that seems to me much more important than just something as a temporary stopgap.

I hope that the revised evaluation and improvement framework, which places importance on the value added by schools for each pupil, is going to put a stop to those schools—and they do exist, in my constituency—where pupils are excluded because they are needing extra help or their attainment isn't going to be in the top, or they're not going to be high attainers. It seems to me it's absolutely vital that all schools will value every single child and ensure that they progress to the extent of their ability.

Lastly, I think the 35 per cent increase in part-time students, half of whom qualify for the maximum amount, is a huge achievement and I just want to congratulate you on that.

Thank you, Jenny, for your comments. With regard to free swimming, that is not a matter for me; it is a matter for the Minister. He is in his seat and he has heard your words, and I'm sure he'll want to feed back to you on what more we can do to advertise the availability of that fantastic opportunity. There aren't many places where you can go with your children and do something for free that is particularly good for their health and well-being, and he will have heard those comments.

With regard to period products, actually, one of the conditions of the grant is to have a percentage of those products be sustainable products. So, products such as Mooncups will be available, and, as you say, for our FE colleges and perhaps for older girls, those are a particularly important provision to have in place, so I can assure you that that has been factored into the grant conditions.

With regard to school uniform, you are right. I have heard some people in this Chamber and, indeed, I have heard people outside this Chamber who have mocked the issue of school uniform affordability and have tried to dismiss this as a non-important issue. Well, I can assure you it is an issue. It's an issue for those young people and it is an issue for their families. We have had an overwhelming response to the consultation—some 900 responses to our consultation on making guidance on affordability statutory. We are in the process of reviewing all of those consultation responses, and I hope that we'll be in a position to have that guidance on a statutory footing by September.

You are right—we need to make the connections between compulsory schooling but also support that is available to families from when their children are born, and we continue to work across portfolios, as I said, to see where we can really get the advantages of the success of Flying Start and ensure that that then is fed on into more formal compulsory education.

With regard to part-time students, we have seen over a number of years, for very obvious reasons, a massive decline in those people who are able to study for a degree on a part-time basis. Those numbers continue to plummet across the border in England. The fact that we have seen a 35 per cent increase in the number of students studying part time for a degree and that we are able to financially support them to do it demonstrates there was an unmet need in Wales. We are meeting that need, and those people have the opportunity to develop their full potential. Like you, I am immensely proud that we are doing that.

Thank you very much, Minister.