School Closures

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:03 pm on 18 January 2023.

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Photo of James Evans James Evans Conservative 3:03, 18 January 2023

I'd like to thank you for that answer, Minister. The Welsh Government do hold all the levers here to prevent the strikes, and it's time that the Welsh Government did take some responsibility for this, by, for example, not cutting the education budget in real terms and rising it in line with inflation. Under Welsh Labour, children in Wales are being left behind. Not only did they miss more school days than anyone else in the UK due to lockdowns, not only are they getting less money spent on them than their counterparts in England, but now they have to deal with these strikes and potentially missing more lesson time, when I'm sure, Minister, you should agree with me that it's better that our teachers are in the classroom, educating our young people for the future.

I do have a suggestion that perhaps the Minister goes back to his Cabinet colleagues and asks them to free up more hundreds of millions of pounds earmarked for vanity projects that aren't in his portfolio, like the expansion of this Senedd, the owning of Gilestone Farm, owning an airport that is losing money. And if the Government gets its priorities in order, I'm sure you, Minister, would have more money to spend on our teachers. So, Minister, given my suggestion, will you stop passing the buck, as you did on tv, and stop using the same old Welsh Government line of blaming Westminster? And what constructive options will you be taking to the table this week for preventing school closures, because this one is surely your responsibility?