Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:27 pm on 24 January 2017.
Vikki Howells
Labour
5:27,
24 January 2017
I’d like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement here today. As a former teacher myself, just like my colleague Rhianon Passmore, the Member for Islwyn, I know first-hand that this is a key issue for my colleagues in classrooms across Wales. I also know that class size is a really important issue on the doorstep in my Constituency, and I’m sure in constituencies across the country too. I particularly welcome the extra detail that you’ve provided here in the Chamber this afternoon around the way that the policy could work with our childcare offer across Wales, too. That was an issue that was actually raised with me on a visit to Craig yr Hesg school, which is a really good pathfinder school in my constituency that actually trains up other schools with excellent practice.
My question for you this afternoon, Cabinet Secretary, is very much in line with the question from my colleague Llyr Gruffydd, and it’s around the practical way that the policy could be implemented. I, too, was concerned about some possible issues around the physical space that would be necessary to split classes in order to deliver the policy and I wonder whether you’d considered how that could possibly be resolved by working with the twenty-first century schools programme that the Government is currently offering?
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
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War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
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In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
