5. What discussions has the Minister had with the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd on ensuring that Welsh education bodies receive adequate funding, ahead of the Welsh Government's budget being announced? OAQ54563

Andrew, I continue to have discussions with the Minister for finance to ensure that the budget settlement for education is sufficient to support delivery of our priorities. This includes ensuring that our education bodies receive adequate funding.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I've had correspondence with the headteacher and chairman of governors from Evenlode Primary School in Penarth who have highlighted the real difficult and challenging financial environment they and many other schools face across Wales. Hopefully, there will be consequentials flowing from the announcements made in Westminster, and some of those consequentials, obviously, are directly in your field of education. Are you confident that those consequentials, when the Welsh Government makes its decisions, will find themselves in the education budget so that the shortage of teachers that are available to fill many of the key posts that primary schools need to fill will be there and the budgets will be there to pay them? The evidence that they provided me has shown that across Wales there are nearly 1,300 extra pupils but there are 278 fewer full-time equivalent teachers and 533 fewer full-time equivalent teaching support staff. So, obviously, if the budget is there, then schools can go out and obviously make these employment choices. So, can we have an assurance that those consequentials will find their way into your budget lines?

As I said in answer to earlier questions, Andrew, we are working across Government to prioritise front-line services, whether that be education, social services or the range of other public services that the members of the public expect this Welsh Government to deliver. The vast majority of education funding does not come from the education department. It comes, as was identified by your leader earlier on in questions, via the revenue support grant for local government. We will do everything that we can to ensure both education and local government get a great deal in this budget.

Thank you, Andrew, for raising this very important question. Like Andrew R.T. Davies, I too have had many talks with local high schools and primary schools but also with the local authority as well, and I welcome the announcement made yesterday, and that was actually my line of questioning to that. So, I welcome that and thank you, Minister, but can you just reassure the Assembly that those cross-Cabinet conversations will continue over the next few years? It's clearly uncertain and worrying times for local authorities and school providers.

Presiding Officer, can I thank Jack Sargeant for his welcome of the additional resources that we've been able to make available to help cover the costs of teachers' pay rises? And, yes, I absolutely can confirm that those discussions, on a cross-Cabinet basis, will continue and there is a determination across the entirety of Welsh Government to prioritise front-line spending on those public services that mean the most to our constituents.