Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:05 pm on 30 April 2019.
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.