Susan Elan Jones
Main Page: Susan Elan Jones (Labour - Clwyd South)Department Debates - View all Susan Elan Jones's debates with the Wales Office
(9 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alun Cairns
In the first instance, we need to recognise the success of pupils who passed their A-levels and GCSEs in the summer. However, there is a worrying gap between the trends in Wales and England. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has said, the results speak for themselves. With free schools, academies and other reforms in England, 1 million more children are in good or outstanding schools here—sadly, those reforms have not been made in Wales.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
One great success story in Wales is the growth of Welsh medium schools and the emphasis on language learning in the Welsh curriculum. We have put paid to the nonsense that people in this country have to be monolingual. How will the Minister share that success right across the nations of the UK?
Alun Cairns
There has been great success in encouraging people to learn Welsh in Wales. Of course, that should not come at the cost of any other language. It is important that we champion that success: bilingual education can work and does work. We will encourage as many people as possible to learn not only Welsh, but modern foreign languages in Wales and across the UK.