Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 18 September 2019.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:49, 18 September 2019

It's nice of Nick Ramsay to join us because, of course, in answer to the first question this afternoon, I was able to talk to Lynne Neagle about our approach to education and the priority that we are putting on that. The education Minister is quite right that the gap is actually closing and I think that that is something to be welcomed. I was able to outline at the start that education spending per head in Wales has increased to a point at which it's 5 per cent higher now than education spending per head in England, and I think that's important.

Over the recent years, we've made more than £265 million available through direct education grants to local authorities, and that includes regional school improvement grants, the pupil deprivation grant, and also the local authority education grant, which includes the PDG access and so on. In terms of capital spend, we're doing an incredible amount of work through our twenty-first century schools programme, and hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested in that programme as well.