7. Will the First Minister make a statement on pupil and student safety on foreign field trips? OAQ(5)0585(FM)

Yes, up-to-date advice for trips is produced by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That advice is also signposted in the all-Wales guidance for education visits, written by the outdoor education advisers’ panel for Wales and the Health and Safety Executive, and that is accessible from the Welsh Government’s website.

On several occasions, I’ve implored the Government to intervene further in the case of Glyn Summers, who lost his life on a foreign college trip to Spain. Glyn’s parents, with great dignity, have demanded full transparency in terms of the woeful investigation that followed their son’s death, and they believe that there should be an automatic right to an independent investigation in such circumstances. In his last letter to me on this matter, the First Minister said he did not believe there is anything further that he can do with regard to their concerns, but since then, the public services ombudsman has found that the investigation into Glyn’s death was flawed. The ombudsman has called on the local authority to apologise to Glyn’s parents and have further called on the Welsh Government to review its policies further. Will the First Minister say sorry and will he reconsider his Opposition to the right to a full and independent investigation into death and serious injuries on foreign field trips?

The Member misrepresents the position that I gave. First of all, it was an awful event that occurred, and it’s been a very hugely difficult few years, as we can all imagine, for Glyn’s parents. The matter has rested with the ombudsman. The ombudsman has now reported. There are recommendations for us as a Government, and we will, of course, take those recommendations exceptionally seriously. The issue for me was: was there anything else that we could do as a Government that would add to what the ombudsman has already found as part of his investigations? I will keep that as an open question, because I think these things have to be looked at hugely carefully, and as a result of the ombudsman’s findings, I’ll look once again to see whether there’s anything more that can be done following the report itself.

I’d like to echo Steffan Lewis’s concerns, and also offer my condolences to the family of Glyn Summers. I think the question is: how can the Welsh Government ensure that schools are able to reflect on occurrences—those rare occurrences—when something adverse happens on school trips? And the First Minister said he’d keep it as an open question. Would he be willing to elaborate on how schools can learn from each other in these circumstances?

The ombudsman’s recommendation is that he will invite us as a Government to consider reviewing our policies and guidance in respect of educational visits abroad. As part of that process of review, it’s hugely important to understand where the best practice lies, to consult, once again, with the outdoor education advisers’ panel, in order to make sure that the recommendation that the ombudsman has put to us is satisfied in full.

I share the concerns that have already been expressed in the Chamber, and, of course, the sympathy to the family of Glyn Summers, but would you agree with me, First Minister, that we need to get the balance right here in respect of any changes that might need to be made, going forward, to improve the risk-assessment processes regarding school trips? Because we do want people to be able to access an enriched educational experience by taking part in trips, so it’s important that any change to Welsh Government guidance, any local education authority guidance or, indeed, any regional consortia guidance, is something that doesn’t prohibit trips from taking place and is fair and proportionate to all those taking part.

I couldn’t disagree with the words that the Member has used, but in these circumstances, there has been a death. It’s hugely important that there is as much transparency as possible, and that as much information as possible is used in order to strengthen policies as far as the future is concerned, but, yes, of course nobody would want to see a situation where school trips don’t take place because of what are seen as regulations that are overly burdensome. But it is important, in the circumstances that we’ve outlined today, that a full investigation leads to a full set of recommendations in order to minimise—we can never remove risk; it’s impossible; life is not like that—but to minimise any potential risk in the future.