6. Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:36 pm on 6 May 2020.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 5:36, 6 May 2020

Well, thank you for that very important set of questions. On the first point, there is work under way already about engaging children and young people in the immediate COVID response. But, on the broader kind of future-looking point, I think she makes a very good point, and it's been clear in the three sets of discussions—even when they haven't principally been about the experience of young people and children, that has come to the fore very, very quickly. The issue of being at home, when perhaps school has provided, in the lives of some children, a more supportive environment, then the question of enhancing or entrenching those inequalities, is obviously very stark.

But then as you look towards older younger children, if you like, people looking for a vocational path, a vocational education—there are clearly going to be challenges when you have employers facing their own pressures in the future. And then you've also got the challenge from reluctant students, if I can use that term—people who aren't sure about going to university now, because of the turbulence. So, there's a whole range of ways in which COVID continues to impact, obviously. And she will have seen the announcements that the education Minister has made, in particular about digital resources and so on, and some of those interventions through school, and free school meals, which are intended to try and alleviate the worst of those impacts. But it's absolutely the case that they will have an effect.

And I do think that the scale of ambition that her question implies is the right test for all Governments to set themselves, really. And I think one of the lessons that we will—one of the points for us to remember in this process, as a Government, is that we have some of the levers for addressing some of the challenges that lie ahead, but, actually, as we have seen in the fiscal interventions for COVID, a substantial amount of that has come from the UK Government. And so, actually working with other Governments to make sure that we are ensuring that there's a different approach to investment across the UK in public services and the funding of the public realm, and for that kind of level of fiscal intervention to be possible, I think is part of the challenge as well, and again is something that came up in a number of the discussions. But, yes, that level of ambition, of looking at the vulnerabilities across the UK of people going into the COVID crisis, which the crisis has emphasised and thrown into stark relief—I think that's absolutely part of the challenge, yes.