'Trust is at an all-time low': Shadow Minister speaks out over Welsh education funding row

Commenting on the Welsh Government’s attempts to defend its education record, Suzy Davies AM, Shadow Education Minister, said:

“The Welsh Labour-led Government receives £1.20 per pupil compared to £1 per pupil in England and yet they actually spend less than the Conservative UK Government per pupil.

“After 20 years of Labour in power in Cardiff Bay they need to take accountability and responsibility for our children’s education and their future.

“With Labour in power in Wales, our standing on the international educational stage has continued to fall – our children have the skills and the ability and they deserve better from this Labour government.

“Blaming austerity doesn’t explain the long-standing discrepancy between the spend per pupil in England and Wales. That has existed for years.

“Trust is at an all-time low. More than £450 million fails to reach our schools due to in an increasingly complicated and unfair system of funding those schools. The increased focus on centralised Welsh Government grants is diverting attention from the opaque way councils decide how to budget for schools, leaving big differences in spend per pupil not just between council areas but within them as well.

“That unfairness is compounded by an out-of-date formula through which Welsh Government funds councils. When money is tight, the least school leaders can expect is transparency and they’re not getting that either.”