Lord Davies of Gower (Con)

My Lords, I, too, begin by adding my condolences to the family of the person who tragically died last night in the terrible accident at Llanbrynmair. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, to her place as the Minister dealing with devolved issues. I am sure that we will have some interesting engagement in future. I speak on behalf of the Opposition on this matter. I am grateful to the Government for bringing these regulations forward. They are simple and give effect to the Welsh Government’s decision to replace the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales with the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research. I am bound to say from the Conservative Benches that, as a Conservative Government, we have had a strong record on education in England. Successive Governments have made significant improvements in this area. England now has the best readers in the western world, and the numbers of students going to university across the UK are at near-record levels. We on these Benches want to see students continuing to achieve good outcomes. We will be holding the Government to account on their record. In particular, we are concerned that the Government do not choose to go down the path of the Labour Government in Wales, who have failed so comprehensively on education. The OECD’s head of education said that the education system under Labour in Wales has seen its performance decline and has “lost its soul”. Indeed, we have seen the attainment gap between students from poorer and wealthier backgrounds increase under Labour in Wales. The PISA results for Labour in Wales show that scores have decreased since 2018 in mathematics, reading and science, by 21, 17 and 15 points respectively. I have two questions for the Minister. First, while I recognise that education is devolved in Wales, can she explain to noble Lords what practical steps the Government are taking to support the Labour-run Welsh Government to drive up educational attainment in Wales? Secondly, can she confirm whether Education Ministers have met their Welsh counterparts to discuss their plan to deliver better standards of education to students in Wales? As I said, I am grateful to the Government for bringing this order forward. I look forward to the response to my questions.