5. How will the Welsh Government improve the learning environment in schools across Wales? OQ56981

Llywydd, I thank Buffy Williams for that question. Our twenty-first century schools and colleges programme is already halfway through its second wave. The £2.3 billion-worth of investment will create new schools and colleges, enhance and improve our existing college and school infrastructure, and support the needs of local communities.

Thank you, First Minister. I'm really pleased that the ambitious long-term programme of education reform in Wales will continue during the sixth Senedd with a new curriculum for Wales, the Welsh language education Bill, the new additional learning needs system, and twenty-first century schools investment. Yesterday, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council cabinet members accepted proposals to transform Penrhys Primary School and Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhondda into twenty-first century schools. These are really exciting developments for both schools, who are in desperate need of brand-new facilities. Do you agree with me that twenty-first century schools facilities would make a world of difference to the well-being and education of pupils and staff? And will you commit to a further twenty-first century school investment to help close the gap on education inequalities in Wales?

I thank the Member for that very important question. I can't imagine that there is any Member, in the Chamber or online, Llywydd, who have not seen the impact that the twenty-first schools programme has made in the area that they represent. It is an outstanding programme and is making exactly the sort of difference that Buffy Williams referred to in all parts of Wales. RCT has been, as we would expect, a very progressive council in this area, very ambitious for what the programme can do: £173 million spent in RCT alone during band A of the programme; £252 million to be spent during band B, and that includes, as Members will have heard, Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhondda. Very good news to know that the council confirmed that and the other school yesterday.

Llywydd, just in the way that Buffy Williams suggested, it isn't just the number of schools that are being improved or built under the scheme—170 in band A, 200 in band B—it's the quality of the buildings and it's those other agendas that those twenty-first century schools and colleges are now able to advance: the active travel agenda, the climate and biodiversity loss agenda, making them genuinely community schools, so that they have that impact on inequality in different parts of Wales. It is a tremendous programme and we are of course fully committed to it during this Senedd term.

First Minister, for me a learning environment in school extends itself to the quality of the facilities in place, and the twenty-first century schools programme, as you've said, is outstanding. It's fabulous. I've visited many schools myself. My son attends one. They're very, very good. But when I was driving back down from the Conservative Party conference in Manchester yesterday, it became glaringly apparent that the sporting facilities that schools have, whether it be in a deprived area or an area that was better off, were far better than what we have in Wales and what I'm seeing in my region and across Wales as I'm visiting schools.

Personally, I think if the Government are serious about children's health, children's obesity and equality of opportunity right across the board, right across the UK, then we need to have massive investment in the sporting facilities across all schools, not just the new ones that are being built. The sheer scale of updating that is needed, in my opinion, is so big that we can't rely just on the funding from the local authorities; it has to come from this Welsh Government. This drastic and much needed change needs to happen now if we are serious about investing in our children and the future of our country, to ensure that our children have the facilities that they need and deserve. Do you agree with me that this Government needs to invest in our children now?

I certainly agree with what the Member said about the importance of sporting facilities, and the twenty-first century schools programme certainly does provide that, alongside the school buildings that it generates. In my own constituency, where Fitzalan High School is to be a beneficiary of the twenty-first century schools programme, it comes with a new swimming pool, it comes with 4G pitches, it comes with a new cricket academy, doing all the sorts of things that the Member describes. We have provided funding in this financial year for the sports council for Wales to be able to improve facilities for community use at schools that the twenty-first century schools programme hasn't yet reached. So, I agree with everything that the Member said, other than the pretty desperate way in which Members of the Conservative Party in Wales continually wish they were living in a different country.