1. What further action will the Government take in response to serious disruption to education early in the new school term due to an increase in COVID-19 cases? TQ567

I recognise that this has been a challenging start to the school year. We continue to work closely with schools, local government, the teaching unions, and public health specialists, to monitor the situation and to decide what steps are needed to ensure our shared goal of ensuring that children can be learning at school.

Thank you for that answer. I do believe that you need to show sympathy with the concerns of parents and young people and staff, and show that you are listening and considering action, if it's necessary—that is, you're willing to tighten the rules, if necessary. Explaining the rationale in terms of who should isolate and who should go to school would be a help, and constituents tell me that the advice that they're receiving either conflicts or they don't get any advice at all, and that needs attention.

Despite the efforts of front-line staff, problems and major inconsistencies exist with the test and trace system. So much more could be done in terms of ventilating buildings as well. Parents and children and young people and staff need to have assurance and certainty that schools are as safe as possible, and there is a duty on you to ease those concerns urgently and show that you are willing to take action as well. Do you agree with that?

I'd like to put on record my thanks to the education sector for the hard work that they've done in keeping schools as safe as possible. I wrote to headteachers and college leaders just yesterday, recognising the work that they have been doing. I acknowledge, as I did in my response to the previous question, that the recent times have been very challenging indeed, with numbers increasing. The interests and well-being of our young people are at the heart of every decision I take as Minister and the decisions that our Government takes. In the letter I wrote yesterday, I explained the current situation and the steps that we are taking—for example, the vaccination plan for those between 12 and 15 is to commence next week. We are continuing to monitor the situation in terms of the advice that we provide, of course, and I do understand that there are concerns about some of the regulations currently in place, and we are looking at means of communicating that more effectively so that people understand what the rules and regulations are and what the rationale behind those is. That's also important.

We have confirmed that the fund continues to support supply teachers in this period, that the carbon dioxide monitors are starting to arrive in schools, or will be arriving next week, and we'll also look at what else we can do to support the test and trace system to ensure that they do their very best too. We have heard from parents and teachers about special schools and pupils with particular medical needs, and there will be further advice in those two areas issued very soon too. I'd also like to say that the context, of course, is challenging for headteachers and teachers looking at how they deal with staffing challenges, and looking at the impact that has on timetables and so on. So, I am fully aware that these decisions are challenging at the moment.

We have seen in the figures published at the beginning of this week that the case rates in children under the age of nine and under the age of 19 have reduced in the past week. That is an early signal, but I hope that it's a hopeful signal for us too.

I'd like to, firstly, thank Siân Gwenllian for bringing this topic to the Minister's attention this afternoon, because I want to focus on my constituency in the Vale of Clwyd in Denbighshire, where even today we've had a school closure due to COVID cases, causing big disruption to children's education. I'm just wondering—. Well, sorry, I want to focus on rural areas and what contingencies the Welsh Government have to provide ongoing education facilities to those people who may be struggling to get broadband connections in rural areas so no child misses out due to COVID cases in schools. Thanks.

On the Member's last question in relation to support for rural schools—indeed, support for all schools—and the need to be able to provide for remote learning as and when that's required, obviously, I think we're in a very different position now than we were at the start of the pandemic, partly because of the very, very significant investment into making sure that schools are able to provide to learners tablets and laptops for them to be able to work remotely, and also the MiFi and other devices that we've been able to fund in order to help with some of those challenges around broadband that the Member identifies in his question.

It's been a really important part of our renew and reform funding, which I announced in the summer—in the last term—and that has been acknowledged by the Education Policy Institute and others as having a particularly beneficial impact in terms of the digital provision. I know that he shares with me the view that that's very, very important.

Minister, following on from what Gareth just said, he's outlined the extreme of what's going on: it's the end of September and we're already seeing school closures and we're seeing whole year groups going off. Another reason for that has been staff shortages, with people going off with COVID, so I'd like to know what your contingency plans are that you've got in place to help those schools affected by that particular problem.

One of the issues also with people missing out on education at the moment is the lack of clarity, as I have raised with you in committee—the lack of clarity that parents have about what to do if they have a COVID case within their families. You say it's very clear, the Government advice, that, if someone has COVID the rest of the family still go to work, school and whatever else, but headteachers are under enormous pressure and coming to me from all angles saying that parents are confused about what's going on, pupils are confused. They're upset by the fact that people are coming into school when they know that someone else in their family has COVID, and there are concerns around that.

I think the three-week cycle is too long, really, to react to what's going on, with COVID numbers rising considerably at the moment. So, how are you going to relook at that and look at the advice? As the Minister for mental health said earlier, I know it's a juggling act, and getting it right is so important. We want children in school, but we also want them to be safe. I know you're under a lot of pressure, but I'd like you to just quickly comment on that.

Also—just quickly, Presiding Officer—we're at a point now where children between—young people, sorry, between—10 and 19 years old are the biggest group presenting with COVID at the moment, with around 2,000 per 100,000 cases now, and that's just the average; in some parts of Wales, that's increasing every day. So, the roll-out of this 12 to 16-year-old vaccine is vital, and I know its delivery is starting on 4 October, but what plans do you have in place to really speed up that delivery of it? Thank you.

We anticipate that all children in that age group will have received the offer of vaccination during the month of October through invitations to mass vaccination centres. Just on the point that the Member made about the increase in cases in the 10 to 19 cohort, just to say that the very, very extensive testing of asymptomatic pupils in that age range will necessarily lead to the identification of more cases. That's obviously what it's designed to do, and I think last week a little over 40 per cent of all the tests undertaken on a walk-in basis were for children aged 18 and under. So, that is partly an explanation for the numbers that we are seeing, and I'm just echoing the point that I made earlier that that particular cohort—the case rate appears to have reduced in the last week as against the week before, which I know that she would also welcome.

Just on the guidance, it is important for this to be clear, and the guidance is set out very clearly on the Welsh Government website, in the communications that we give, but I will take this opportunity of setting it out. We keep this guidance continuously—both in school and beyond—under review to reflect the best, most recent evidence and guidance that we get. At alert level 0, anybody under the age of 18 who is a close contact but who is not symptomatic is not required to self-isolate. So, asking people to self-isolate in those circumstances requires a very special justification, and I think asking young people to abide by rules that are more stringent than the rules that adults abide by, when they're less likely to be harmed and adults have—the vast majority have—been vaccinated, I think that’s a very challenging place to start from.

There is a common-sense assumption, which I completely understand, that all family members will catch, or most family members will catch, COVID from a household case. That isn't actually borne out by what we understand the evidence to be at the moment. Obviously, these things are kept continuously under review, but that isn’t borne out by what we currently understand the picture to be. What is borne out is the sort of thing we heard the Member's colleague James Evans describing in questions to the Deputy Minister for mental health earlier, which is the very significant adverse impact on young people of not being in school. So, that tells us, on our current understanding, that the balance of harm supports the current policy.

Thank you, Minister. The next question is to be asked by Joyce Watson, and to be answered by the Minister for Social Justice. Joyce Watson.