Labour’s record on education is poor.
The matter is devolved and the serial mismanagement of our school system by successive Labour Ministers for 25 years has left Wales languishing.
Teachers are already having to contend with larger class sizes under Labour, with the number of teachers falling by 10 per cent in 10 years, meaning 4,000 fewer teachers despite there being 7,000 more pupils in our schools.
Labour’s failure to address recruitment and retention is clearly having an impact, as Wales consistently languishes at the bottom of British GCSE and PISA rankings.
Labour is obsessed with forcing their new relationships and sexuality education curriculum (RSE) on pupils, against the will of many parents and has even resulted in a court case against the Welsh Government.
Sex education was crying out to be updated and I initially supported the realisation of this, but never thought that it would result in pushing gender ideology and not allowing parents to opt-out their children.
Creating more awareness and understanding, at an age-appropriate time is welcome, but making this government’s version of RSE mandatory, without consent from parents is not right.
Nor is some of the literature that is being pushed onto very young children, which is wholly inappropriate for their age, which is why my colleagues and I voted against it.
It doesn’t stop there, the Labour government in Wales is now intent in following Scotland down the path of self ID.
I have questioned Mark Drakeford and his Deputy Minister over this, but they are driven to make it a reality, no matter the risk to women and children.
When questioned on their record, Labour is always keen to deflect responsibility to Westminster, but this myth needs busting.
In Wales, the Labour government holds the levers of power for education, receiving £1.20 for every £1 spent per pupil in England, yet they make the political choice to only spend £1.05 per pupil.
So the natural next question is, how do they spend the other 15p? Their spending priorities include a litany of vanity projects.
The rollout of blanket 20mph speed limits across Wales that has made some headlines in recent months, which will cost upwards of £32 million.
Their fanciful universal basic income pilot cost the taxpayer £20 million. Trialling the scheme was completely pointless, as rolling this out to everyone in Wales would cost more than the entire Welsh budget, leaving nothing whatsoever for education delivery.
To top it off, £100 million is the estimated price tag for expanding the size of the Welsh Parliament and sending 36 more politicians to Cardiff Bay. A change that the people of Wales did not ask for.
Time after time, the Labour government makes the political choice to focus its time, efforts and taxpayers’ cash on vanity projects as opposed to the people’s priorities: health, education and growing Welsh pay packets.
Our children and young people in Wales deserve better.
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