Chamber and committees

Mr Bradshaw, I think that you said that around 61 per cent of young people are going on residentials. How is that paid for? How many of the residentials are entirely paid for by a pupil’s family and how many by the school?

Presumably, if there is a smaller number of poorer kids in a better-off area the school can cover that. However, I have schools in my constituency that cannot even come here to Parliament because they cannot afford the bus fare. What hope do they have of getting a residential? Should we be means testing for those who need support, or should provision be across the board, which is the intention behind the bill?

Ms Lillis, we seem to have a lot of good will from teachers at the moment. You want to discourage that, as I understand it; they should do only what they are paid for. However, cost is a challenge. Everybody accepts that residentials are a good thing, but if we are going to argue that teachers must be paid overtime for every hour that they work on a residential, it just will not happen, will it?

I accept that. What about using parents or maybe other volunteers in the community? Would it take pressure off the teachers if some of the parents were willing to go on the trip?

That is quite impressive. What kind of state are they in? Are they in a good state, or do you need money for capital spending? Where are we?

Mr March, is that the case across the board?

Finally, is there anything else on the financial side or the financial memorandum that any of you would like to comment on? If not, that is fine.

You called it a “learning village”. What is it?

That is great. Thanks very much.

At the moment, we have a lot of volunteers, do we not?