00:00 Rhoda Grant. The Deputy First Minister will be aware that Highland Council has cancelled 10
00:06 new school buildings. That also means that desperately needed affordable housing will be
00:11 lost. It is due to delays with her Government's learning estate investment programme. Will she
00:20 now make decisions about the fund so that local authorities can build schools? Will she apologise
00:26 to pupils, parents, teachers and communities that have been so badly affected?
00:31 First, the LEAP project has been enormously important in terms of the phases 1 and 2.
00:42 Thirty-seven projects were announced, including three in the Highlands, through the first two
00:47 phases. In terms of the third phase, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will be
00:52 updating Parliament in due course. One of the issues that we have had to look at
00:57 is the position of RAT schools in relation to phase 3, and to ensure that they receive
01:03 the priority that they require. Despite our cut to capital budgetsâgoing forward,
01:14 that will be a cut of nearly 6.7 per centâit is very difficult to build schools, hospitals
01:22 or anything else. I hope that the Member will join us in making sure that we say to the UK
01:29 Government that we absolutely need that investment in capital, in the same way as the Welsh Labour
01:36 Government has said. I met the Treasury with the Welsh Labour Government yesterday, and we are
01:41 saying exactly the same. It is just a pity that Labour Members in this place are not aligning
01:45 with our Welsh Labour Government.
