I congratulated you, education Minister, earlier in remarks, along with everyone involved, on the improvements that we have seen in the PISA results on this cycle. Reading your statement earlier, I was just a little concerned that you might be becoming a bit too self-congratulatory on these ones. The remarks that are positive, yes, but not perfect, for instance, I thought was a bit too much, and it's not as good as the rest of the UK. But I think in what you said now in the answers to both the spokesmen before—. And you also you added at the end of your statement—the verbal version—that this must just be the beginning, and I do recognise that. However, when you say that we spent far too long lagging behind other countries—you said Netherlands and Switzerland, and then you said, 'Well, Scotland and Northern Ireland, for that matter, we now join them in the OECD mainstream.' Do you recognise that Scotland and Northern Ireland are significantly above that mainstream for reading, and we're not quite there yet in the overall comparison?

Could I refer to the—? We had some slides circulated earlier that were jointly badged Welsh Government and Education Wales. And one of those was on high performers. You also mentioned just now the improvement at level 5 or above in reading from 3 per cent to 7 per cent—a significant improvement, and behind but beginning to approach the OECD average of 9 per cent. On the maths, not quite as good—we've gone up from 4 per cent to 7 per cent, and that compares to the 11 per cent average. You said in your statement just now—an increased proportion of top performers in the other two domains, referring to maths and science. And we also see this in the slide that was shared earlier. In science, it says it went up from 4 per cent in 2015 to 5 per cent in 2018 at level 5 and above. However, in the results report that was also circulated to us earlier, I note at page 194, it says that for science, only 4 per cent got level 5 or above for Wales in 2018. So, I just wonder if we could check that, and if we haven't seen the improvement compared to the 4 per cent in 2015, if we could, at least, correct that while recognising the improvements in the other areas at this level, which matches the emphasis you put earlier on the A* proportion at A-level. 

Since you came into the role, I've questioned you quite a lot about the Seren project, and it has struck me that it has been something you've been pushing personally and persuading colleagues to get behind as well. Perhaps we do see some of those outcomes coming through. Again, though, while I'd say there have been improvements and I am prepared to welcome those, I just caution against getting too far ahead of ourselves in comparisons to the rest of the UK about where we now are with Oxbridge or the Russell Group. Yes, there have been improvements, and I'm really pleased that admission staff are recognising that. But do you agree that there's still a long way to go, and keeping that trajectory going is really important if we're going to be saying that we're better than other parts of the UK? I would caution against suggesting we're there yet. 

One area I would like to ask about is, you have the ambition to close the attainment gap in terms of the socioeconomic basis and also to raise standards, and I just wonder if, as we push towards that, whether a tension may emerge between those two aims. The attainment gap is relatively flat for Wales when you compare with the rest of the UK, but particularly with the OECD average, where there's a very steep upward trajectory across the socioeconomic groups. And internationally, quite a lot of countries will actually see more spending for kids of well-off parents than poorer ones, and perhaps may correct for that, to a degree. But we're very unusual in going far beyond that and having substantially higher spending for the children of less well-off parents than for the better-off parents.

And I just note, when you compare with England in reading, most of the difference with England is in the top half of the socioeconomic distribution, and there, we're averaging 30 to 40 points less on the reading tests than England. I just wonder, if we are to close that gap with England, we may need to see significant improvements at that level of the socioeconomic, as well as the lower level where, if you were to do it all through a closure of the attainment gap, you would be seeing attainment that would be really quite extraordinary at the lower levels, and I welcome your ambition on that. But I just wonder about the funding of some of the schools, which have their socioeconomic intakes in the upper half, and I've been struck at the primary level by barely £3,000, a bit more sometimes, per year, per child, and to some extent, at secondary. And in England, what we're seeing is a levelling up of those lower spending schools, and I worry that, if we don't also see that in Wales it will be very hard to get up to that 500 level, and particularly to get our levels close to England on the reading side in particular. 

Finally, you refer to advice from the OECD, and after the poor results last time, you emphasise these results and this advice and engaging with them, and I just wonder, can you clarify what that is? We've got this 262-page results report. I don't know when you've received that or whether you've got other material for them that we haven't seen yet. What is it that you do with the OECD in terms of advice? Is that an ongoing relationship? Do schools who participate in PISA have an opportunity to benefit from that as well? And what, so far, do you see as the key bits of advice as to what they're saying to you as to what's required now, having looked at these results and the improvements relative to last time, albeit still lagging behind the rest of the UK on many measures?