Free Schools

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:09 pm on 24 September 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:09, 24 September 2019

I thank Carwyn Jones for that supplementary question, Llywydd. I hope he's right; I hope that it was simply that the Prime Minister didn't understand devolution. That would be one thing. But I have an anxiety that behind that statement may lie some intentionality. Some Members here will remember the speech that Michael Gove made in Edinburgh during the Conservative leadership election, when he said that the way to cement the United Kingdom was for the UK Government to set up, in devolved areas, schools and hospitals for which they would have responsibility. It was, I thought, an idea designed to lead to the disintegration of the United Kingdom, and let us hope that when the Prime Minister referred to 30 free schools across the United Kingdom he wasn't echoing that particularly unhappy idea. Education is devolved to Wales; we have deliberately, intentionally, and over the whole time of devolution turned our back on the idea that creating a market in education is the best way to drive up standards. It absolutely doesn't. It simply results in those who have advantages already becoming even more advantaged in future. Our education policies have always been based on our belief that every child should have an equal chance to make the very best use of all the talents that that child possesses and that it should not be an accident of the sort of school that they go to and the type of education that they receive that should determine those chances in life. That's what free schools do. That's why we won't be having them in Wales.