I would like to put on record my thanks to the teaching profession for their efforts to maintain education standards during this most challenging of periods. Sadly, teachers and school staff have had one hand tied behind their backs during this pandemic. Despite the Welsh Government's lack of leadership during the COVID-19 outbreak, educational standards haven't suffered the decline that many felt would occur. But, at what cost?

The toll that the pandemic has taken on pupils, teachers and staff has been monumental. While the vast majority of pupils will recover academically, the loss of face-to-face teaching will have had a longer term effect on their mental well-being and emotional development. For many communities, particularly many of those in my constituency of the Vale of Clwyd, online learning is not an option. It is not an option because there are simply no reliable broadband connections. Parents in many parts of the Vale of Clwyd do not have reliable internet, and many of those that have an internet connection don’t have the devices to support Zoom classes for their children as well as remote working for themselves. Even now, we are seeing entire year groups or even schools sent home for weeks on end due to COVID. The on-again, off-again nature of schooling impacts pupils, teachers and parents—all because the Welsh Government failed to get a grip on the pandemic sooner, failed to show leadership and failed to protect pupils and staff.

But it’s the toll taken on an already demoralised teaching profession that will have the biggest impact on our ability to educate future generations. Long before the SARS-CoV-2 virus found its first human host, teachers were leaving the profession in droves. One in 10 left over the past decade. My fear is that many more will leave as a result of the pressures they've faced over the past 18 months. Teaching unions and the Trades Union Congress have reported on the fear experienced by an overworked and exhausted profession—a profession let down by this Welsh Labour Government, a Government who delivered a botched COVID action plan, from a test, trace, protect system that failed to test, trace or protect, to passing the decision making on face masks on to schools. Teachers have effectively been abandoned by Welsh Ministers. If we don’t reverse the decline in teaching numbers, not only will we be abandoning whole generations to falling education attainment, but we will not be training the future medics and social workers that Wales badly needs. I therefore urge Members to support our motion and help ease the burden on our hard-working teachers. Diolch yn fawr.