2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:24 pm on 2 March 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:24, 2 March 2021

I'm grateful for this opportunity to reiterate that the Government's priority is absolutely to ensure that children are able to resume their learning. We do understand what an impact this year has had on children, their learning, but also those wider benefits that children get from being in school, which is why we've invested so much this year and in our budget for next year in terms of helping children catch up and so forth. I do know that Members and families at home will be very keen to understand the next steps, and the Minister will be providing that information to colleagues as soon as possible, but, of course, we have that within the context of the three-weekly review. I'm afraid that's all I can say for today, but just to reiterate, really, that this is a priority area for us, and to highlight the advice that we had, which of course was that, if we did return all children to school at once, it could lead to an increase in the R rate of between 10 and 50 per cent. Clearly, that wasn't something that we were willing to do. So, returning children to the classroom has to be done in a phased way and a safe way. But I know that colleagues will be keen to provide more information as soon as we're able to.