Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:40 pm on 15 June 2021.
Thank you. I'm certainly old enough to remember the planting of trees in 1973 and 1974. You may be aware, Mike Hedges, that the Deputy Minister for Climate Change is going to be leading a deep-dive exercise into how we can increase tree planting. Clearly, I'm sure he'll be very interested in your suggestion. We've also begun to create the national forest, which was one of the First Minister's manifesto commitments. Again, I'm sure there is something we can do around the national forest also.
In relation to supply teachers, as you say, they can be employed either directly via local authorities or schools or via commercial supply agencies. Obviously, headteachers and governing bodies are responsible for all staffing decisions and to make sure that they've got an effective workforce. We introduced the National Procurement Service supply agency framework back in September 2019, and that has resulted in a number of improvements to pay and conditions for agency supply teachers. We've also got the inclusion of a minimum pay rate, which resulted in a pay increase for framework agency teachers.