A TORFAEN MS has called on the Welsh Government to "explore every possible avenue" to ensure young people in Wales can continue to benefit from life-changing student exchanges in Europe.

Lynne Neagle MS, who as a student from a deprived background had never had a foreign holiday, said she had been able to study at the University of Paris thanks to funding and support from the European Erasmus student exchange programme.

She said: "There are real fears that thanks to the UK Government’s spiteful, self-defeating and totally unnecessary decision to withdraw from Erasmus many young people in Wales will lose out, especially those that are most disadvantaged."

The MS used a question to the first minister to express her concern at the UK’s decision to pull out of the Erasmus+ programme and the "inferior" replacement Turing scheme to ask about speculation that a way might be found to enable young people in Wales and Scotland to continue to participate in Erasmus.

She asked Mark Drakeford for an assurance he would "explore every possible avenue to enable Welsh young people to participate in this life-changing scheme."

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In reply, Mr Drakeford, who agreed that international exchanges were a life-changing experience, said the Welsh Government had been told by the UK Government that it did not have the competence to join Erasmus+ as an independent participant alongside Scotland.

He said his Government would continue to consider every way in which it might be possible to find opportunities for young people to take part in exchange schemes.

He referred to recent conversations he had had with Germany and the Republic of Ireland over possible avenues.

Mr Drakeford said: "We want young people from Wales to be able to visit, to work, to study, to get all the advantages that Lynne Neagle pointed to, and we want young people from other parts of the world to come here to Wales as well - a possibility completely ruled out in the Turing scheme."