17. Children, Young People and Education Committee Debate: 'Impact of COVID-19 on children and young people'

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:34 pm on 15 July 2020.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 6:34, 15 July 2020

Can I thank all our witnesses, and other members of the committee as well? I hope that other Members here agree that this was a very pragmatic way of preparing a report in time for the school holidays, and it gives us the chance also to say thank you again to those families and children who've done their very best to continue with learning at home, and to those teachers and others working in education for helping make that happen.

The vulnerable and those from disadvantaged backgrounds have been at the forefront of our minds, and you've heard about that in the Chamber today. It's worth reinforcing, I think, the point that we don't just have Lynne's 'missing middle' but we have Dawn's 'missing new vulnerable' as well for the Minister to consider, reinforcing again that right to an education being a right for all. And I'm glad that we've spoken about the relevance of face-to-face learning in the debate today.

We know from our inboxes and from witnesses that provision and take-up have been inconsistent and that's why we'd be interested, Minister, to see those reports from consortia that you had back in mid June, not just to see the answers you've had—some of the data that Siân was talking about—but actually what questions you asked.

Staying with children's rights, I think most of the regulations brought in under the Coronavirus Act 2020 have not been subject to impact assessments, as we understand them, and so haven't been subject to children's rights impact assessments. And I'm not just talking about regulations that obviously relate to children and young people. We do understand, of course, that Welsh Government has had to act urgently in many cases, but an understandable lack of prior consultation can't also permit a loss of scrutiny on the effect of those regulations on children and young people, and I look forward to hearing from you with some information about when you might be reporting back on that. We need to know that, because, of course, we need to know whether your actions have been proportionate.

That's particularly true when we think about something that Hefin's already raised—those statutory obligations that benefit children with special or additional learning needs, which have been temporarily downgraded to a 'best endeavours' basis. And you've explained, Minister, in one of your letters to us that you would be monitoring the effect of this, especially for children who are at home rather than in school. So, if you could give us some indication of when this information will be gathered and when we can expect a report on that, I think that would be very helpful too.

Also affected—and again you drew the committee's attention to this in one of your letters in reply: local authorities for now only have to use their best endeavours to provide schools with their individual school budget for the forthcoming financial year. And you know our concerns about school funding, Minister. We understand that some consequential funding has come down from UK Government and into the Welsh Government COVID pot, if I can call it that, and that it's being used to support local authorities and schools to meet the costs of COVID. This is important, I think, because it comes on top, of course, of the costs connected with curriculum reform. Whereas finances for schools before lockdown were starting to look promising, cuts to both your and the local government budgets to feed the Government's COVID pot now place that optimism in danger, so perhaps you could give us some indication of when you might be able to get back to some certainty for schools about their finances in the coming year.

I have the same question as regards further education funding—there's less than seven weeks to go before the new term, and colleges still don't know what they'll be receiving from Welsh Government from funds that have come down as UK consequentials. When will your star chamber decide on this? And, at the same time maybe you could update Members on the awarding of qualifications that require a live demonstration of practical skills. It's about now that students would normally expect results.

And then, finally, just to go back to universities, the effects of COVID-19 on the economy leave very few opportunities for part-time work as students or more permanent work for new graduates. You may have seen the case of Rutendo Dafana in the press today. So, I'd be curious to know whether actually there is some work in development on student support that can be provided through Government and that the position is not as bleak as Lynne suggested.

We know that the financial challenge to universities was made very plain to us—we could be talking of up to £0.5 billion here. Current information suggests that satisfaction rates are positive and that applications from students, whilst still depressed, are perhaps a bit better than we thought. But application numbers are not the same as take-up numbers, and I suspect that this will be a hot topic when we come back in September and something that'll need both our Governments to be ready to discuss in order to support the sector. Diolch.