5. Will the Minister provide an update on how schools in Powys are benefiting from the 21st century schools programme? OQ57319

Powys has benefited from a £79.5 million investment during the first wave of the twenty-first century schools and colleges programme, and a further £113.5 million is planned during the current wave of investment.

Thank you for your answer, Minister. Of course, in rural areas of Wales such as Powys, whilst the twenty-first century schools funding has been used for new school builds, many older school buildings are being retained due to their geography or for rurality reasons. I heard the responses, Minister, to the earlier questions today, but can I ask you how you envisage twenty-first century schools funding particularly supporting school extensions or refurbishment of existing school buildings to support schools becoming carbon neutral, particularly in the context of the challenges of meeting the Building Research Establishment's environmental assessment method standards? You do seem to be in a generous mood today, Minister, so you also have an invite from me to visit a school in Powys with the cabinet member and officials to discuss this particular matter in more detail.

One of the joys of the role is the opportunity to visit schools in all parts of Wales, so I'm obviously very happy to do that. The Member makes a point about the availability of the existing twenty-first century schools and colleges programme for non-new build, if I can put it like that. It is of course available for major refurbishment and extension projects, and in fact those projects will themselves need to be net zero from 1 January 2022. But it's also the case that that programme isn't the only means by which school buildings are refurbished and capital invested in our school estate; it's also available through local government funding more directly for smaller scale work. I'm sure he'll be interested to know that over 450 schools have benefited from the small and rural schools grant to date, and in addition, a number of small and rural schools have received capital funding from the reducing infant class sizes grant, and indeed also from the twenty-first century schools and colleges programme.