Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 16 June 2021.

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Photo of Laura Anne Jones Laura Anne Jones Conservative 1:31, 16 June 2021

Diolch, Llywydd. May I start by welcoming you again to your role, Minister, as I am now formally the shadow education Minister, and it's now official? May I say that I'm very much looking forward to working with you, opposite you, on this hugely important brief, particularly at a time when we're coming out of a pandemic, and we edge closer and closer to the biggest change in education delivery for decades?

Minister, our schools and universities should be places of learning and development, not places of intimidation, abuse and harassment. Therefore, it was very concerning—and I'm sure you're concerned too—that 91 Welsh education establishments are included in that Everyone's Invited website, with some truly shocking behaviour described. I welcome your written statement this morning that Estyn will be conducting a review, but we mustn't leave out our higher education settings in that, as these allegations have shone a light on what appears to be a systemic issue across all the age groups across Wales. Having spoken to my councils since this topic hit the headlines last week, it's clear to me that schools and colleges are already taking action, Minister, and I'm pleased your officials will now be speaking, contacting these schools and offering them support; I know you've been asking for e-mails already. But we need to find a way of collating this information on a national level, because we need to deal with this on a national basis, because it's obviously systemic across the board. And so that's something we need to look into so we can see if things are working and your proposed solutions are working or not. And I believe that this—