5. How is the Welsh Government ensuring the highest possible quality of school education in South Wales West? OQ59205

I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. Democratically elected local authorities are primarily responsible for ensuring the quality of school education in their localities. The Welsh Government supports those efforts through, for example, the implementation of the new Curriculum for Wales.

Thank you. First Minister, the last Programme for International Student Assessment results in 2018 showed Wales at the bottom of UK rankings for the fifth occasion running. We'll see what happens when the 2022 results come out later this year, but since then, we've only seen significant disruption to children's education in Wales over the last three years because of both the COVID-19 pandemic and now teacher strikes as well.

On top of this disruption, Labour-run Bridgend County Borough Council is proposing to cut school funding by 2 per cent in 2023-24. By comparison, neighbouring Neath Port Talbot council is proposing to increase like-for-like school funding by 8 per cent. Now, those two councils are important, because they have a similar population, similar levels of reserves, and similar council tax increases proposed for the next year. The only difference is the one that's cutting it is run by the Labour Party. First Minister, we know that Bridgend County Borough Council's decision will have a detrimental impact on education in Bridgend for years to come, so what's your Government doing to ensure that pupils across Wales receive a quality education, wherever they live, even if they live in areas with short-sighted councils?

Llywydd, first of all, just to remind colleagues that Wales was the only part of the United Kingdom to see an improvement in all three PISA dimensions when those figures were last published. I know that Conservative Members think it's their job to run Wales down, but, actually, the PISA results were at the opposite end of that spectrum. If I was the Member, I wouldn't have necessarily ventured down that path with the rest of his question, because the information I have is that, in the information that local authorities are required to notify to Welsh Ministers and their governing bodies as a result of the School Funding (Wales) Regulations 2010, for Bridgend, the proposed school budget shows an increase of 4 per cent. I wouldn't, if I was the Member, enter for the mathematics element of the next PISA round.