SCHOOL teachers in Wales are being short-changed according to Jonathan Edwards MP.

As the new school term gets underway, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr has accused both the Welsh and Westminster governments who of "short-changing" Welsh teachers who await the pay rise they were promised.

At the start of the summer holidays the Westminster government announced it would be delivering a fully funded pay rise of up to 3.5 per cent - or between £800 and £1,366.

However, it emerged last week that Westminster has not implemented the pay rise for teachers in Wales, nor has the Welsh Government committed to funding the rise.

Whilst education is devolved to Wales, the matter of teachers' pay and conditions is reserved to Westminster, and will not be devolved until September 2019.

After seeking clarification on the matter during a parliamentary debate in July, Mr Edwards has since raised a motion and called on the Leader of the House of Commons to explain why Welsh teachers are without their pay-rise.

He said teachers were being "left in limbo due to a devolution grey area", with both the Westminster and Cardiff governments "failing to take responsibility."

Mr Edwards added: "The Treasury claims the pay rise for teachers is fully-funded, but in Wales we currently have a situation that school budgets may have to be used to honour the commitment made to teachers.

"That is completely unfair and would inflict profound consequences on individual school budgets.

"It is the consequence of a half-baked devolution settlement that both the Westminster Government and Labour Welsh Government can get away with blaming each other for the shortfall.

"The fault here lies with Westminster, but what is the point of a Welsh Government if it is not adequately standing up for our teachers?"

Adam Price, AM for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, said: "We all want to see more teachers spending more time in the classroom focusing on raising standards.

"We want to create the conditions whereby teaching is a highly-skilled, highly-motivated and highly-paid profession once again.

"We can't do that if we have two governments abdicating responsibility for honouring a pay pledge. This has to be sorted promptly."