Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 8 December 2021.
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.