2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 8 December 2020.

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Photo of Laura Anne Jones Laura Anne Jones Conservative 2:43, 8 December 2020

Business Minister, may I please call for a statement from the education Minister to address a problem in our schools that's now escalated from the last time that I spoke to you? I want to welcome what the First Minister said earlier—that a statement has come out this morning saying that local government and schools are now going to keep open until the end of this term. The First Minister also interestingly said that children are more at risk at home than in schools. To that end, I'm sure he'll share my concerns that whole year groups in some of our schools now are still going off just due to one coronavirus case per age group. For example, in a school in my area, in my region, two year groups have been off for two weeks and have been back in school four days, and now have been told to isolate again for two weeks, and this is all supposedly on just one case per age group. Minister, I'm acutely aware, obviously, as we've discussed today already, that cases are rising rapidly and that public health and safety must come first, and that schools are doing the best on the advice that they have been given, but something isn't working along the line. We are still getting massive differences between council areas on how COVID is being handled in our schools. I know there has purposely been a degree of local autonomy given on these matters, but, looking at these outcomes, don't you think it's time that we got control of this? Children are off school far too regularly now. The Government urgently needs to address this Chamber and state how it's going to address this disparity and how they're going to ensure that everyone can now access home schooling at a level that's close to receiving an education in the classroom. And I'm having reports that's not completely—