The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-13203, in the name of Jackie Baillie, on the future of Scotland’s economy.
14:41
Today, Scotland remains a deeply unequal country, and that has a direct impact on our economy. Our objective to boost the economy at the same time as tackling inequality is, I believe, an ambition that is shared throughout the chamber, including by the Scottish Government.
There is no doubt that recent times have been tough for businesses throughout the country. Whether they are large or small, in manufacturing or retail, and in urban or rural Scotland, the economic downturn has had an impact. Markets were tighter, turnover declined and the workforce contracted. In short, the economy struggled, businesses suffered and working people experienced the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.
Things are beginning to improve. The economy is showing signs of growth. Employment is increasing and confidence is starting to improve, too. However, the figures for the most recent quarter show a marked slowdown in that growth. Although I want to recognise the achievements of our businesses in growing our economy, we equally need to recognise that we have nothing to be complacent about. Despite the growth, the recovery is not shared by everyone who is in work. Too many people are caught in one of the worst cost-of-living crises in decades. There is continuing uncertainty, with zero-hours contracts, low wages and underemployment.
That matters if we are to address inequality, because it is not just a matter of fairness. It is also an economic issue. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and others point out that countries that have relatively high degrees of wealth and income inequality have lower levels of economic growth.
Will the member take an intervention?
In a moment.
It is therefore in everyone’s interests to address the issue.
I call Mark McDonald.
Our economy—
I beg your pardon, Ms Baillie.
I am happy to give way at this point if that helps.
Forgive me, Ms Baillie. I call Mark McDonald.
I was perfectly happy to wait, but I thank the member for giving way. Has she had an opportunity to consider the call from the Scottish Trades Union Congress for us to look again at whether powers over employment, for example on the minimum wage and terms and conditions, should be included in the package of powers that are to be devolved to this Parliament, given the circumstances that arose in the recent general election?
I thank the member for his intervention. We will have an opportunity tomorrow to debate the full devolution package. I will also be speaking then, and I look forward to engaging with him on the substance of that issue.
Our economy needs to be rebalanced so that, when we talk about the number of jobs that have been created in our country, we are not simply counting temporary, low-paid, zero-hours contract jobs. We know that much of the vaunted recent rise in the employment figures is almost entirely down to an increase in part-time, low-paid, temporary jobs.
Just this week, we saw the BBC reveal that only 10 of Scotland’s 50 largest employers pay the living wage. Last week, a major employer, which is perhaps renowned for offering low-paid jobs and low-security work, saw the value of its shares rocket when the Tories secured their majority.
This Parliament is not a place to sit on our hands and moan about the United Kingdom Tory Government, although I confess that there will be lots of scope for that because there will be areas where we fundamentally disagree with it. The SNP promise in the general election was about securing a stronger voice for Scotland at Westminster. Our mantra here is surely about securing a stronger voice for fairness and social justice for the people of Scotland in this Parliament.
Scotland could have led the way in promoting better pay and banning exploitative zero-hours contracts through the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill, which was passed just last year. Unfortunately, as we all know, the SNP members joined with the Conservatives to vote against Scottish Labour plans for better pay and security of hours for workers, cleaners, carers and retail staff. They voted against those plans not just once but five times. The Scottish Government should use the power that it already has.
I have heard the Scottish Government demand the devolution of job-creating powers to this Parliament. I support our having a powerhouse Parliament that is able to tackle inequality and pursue social justice, but many of the powers that we need for economic development are already with this Parliament.
Will the member give way?
I urge the SNP to use those powers now to tackle the inequality that hampers our economy and the life chances of too many people. OECD research has shown that inequality has cost Scotland an estimated 8.5 per cent of gross domestic product over the past 25 years, and we know that a fairer economy is a better economy and that we all have a better chance of success if we all have the same opportunities to succeed. Inequality stifles economic growth, so we all want a strong and prosperous economy in which all share in that prosperity.
Will the member give way now?
On the basis that the member has a loud voice, I will give way.
There was I thinking that I was meek and mild.
Never!
On equality, does Ms Baillie agree that this Parliament should have welfare powers rather than see the constant cuts that are coming from Westminster, which are having a major effect and are creating a more unequal society in Scotland?
The record continues in the same groove. I would have more respect for the member’s position if we worked together to use the powers that we have now to make a real difference for people instead of putting that off until some point in the future.
We need to create the opportunities to recalibrate our economy in the long term by making the best investment that any Government can make—investment in our people. Members do not need to take my word for it. A very famous economist, Professor Joseph Stiglitz, proposed three solutions to inequality in his book “The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them”. Surprise, surprise, the third solution is education.
Education is much more than a social policy; it should be part of any Government’s strategy for long-term economic development. However, despite the SNP having had full control over education for nearly a decade, its track record on it, especially in attainment, is a national scandal.
I welcome the cabinet secretary’s tone and comments in her lecture last night, in which she admitted that the Scottish Government should be doing much better in education. We will work with her to improve education in Scotland. However, it was the First Minister herself who said that
“a party that is ... in its second term of office cannot avoid taking responsibility for its own failings.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2001; c 4711.]
In educational attainment, the failings are severe, and we are failing our young people as a consequence. The number of young people in Scotland who are gaining national 3 to 5 qualifications dropped by 20 per cent in a year. That is more than 100,000 fewer young people getting the grades that they need to get on in life. Under the SNP, we have seen literacy levels in primary and secondary schools fall at every stage surveyed. The ministers are shaking their heads, but I did not make that up. Those are facts from surveys that have been undertaken—they are the Government’s own figures. Under the SNP, the proportion of pupils who are performing well or very well in reading fell between 2012 and 2014.
Those declines in performance can be seen at every stage surveyed—primary 4, primary 7 and the second year of high school. However, at every stage, pupils from the most well-off backgrounds are performing to a higher level than pupils in the middle and from the most deprived backgrounds. That should be a concern to us all.
To put that into context, the proportion of second year high school pupils from the poorest backgrounds performing well or very well in numeracy is a mere 25 per cent. That should shame us all.
Let me be clear about what that means. Under this SNP Government, Scotland’s children, especially those from the most deprived backgrounds, are not getting even the most basic skills. Our children’s ability to read, to write and to count has all gone backwards under the SNP. It is, without question, a national scandal. We cannot simply pay lip service and just say how bad the situation is and that the Scottish Government must take action, because this matters not just to those individuals but to the future state of our economy.
The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning said that she planned to take stock after six months on the job. Although I welcome that, let me say as gently as I can that her Government has been in power for eight years, so taking stock after six months is not enough. All those failures, all that regression and all that denied opportunity has been taking place on the SNP’s watch.
A general pattern emerges when this Government is held to account on its record. It is our responsibility in this chamber to hold it to account, but I recall that opponents are often accused of talking down Scotland. Indeed, those who work in a service under scrutiny are used as a human shield. Let me be clear: when I point out the problems in education that we have in this country I am not blaming teachers or students; I am not even blaming parents. I lay the blame squarely at the door of this SNP Government.
Today, teacher numbers are at a 10-year low, with more than 4,000 fewer teachers in Scotland’s classrooms since the SNP came to power. Its 2007 manifesto promise to cut class sizes has been completely abandoned. Therefore, it is little wonder that we have gone backwards.
Closing the attainment gap in education will have a long-term benefit to our economy. Low attainers are more likely to be unemployed, working part-time and earning less. Those earnings are substantially less—they are more than £20 a week less for men and £40 a week less for women. Scottish Labour considers that closing the attainment gap should be Scotland’s number 1 priority, because that would be good for individuals and for our economy, too.
We want to see overall attainment rise. That should be the Government’s ambition, especially in the areas of literacy and numeracy where we have so far failed so badly. Our proposal is to close the attainment gap with £25 million a year of extra investment in our education system, which is £125 million over the parliamentary session. We would use that extra investment to double the number of teaching assistants and to employ 200 literacy teachers, and to focus their work in the communities with the 20 secondary schools and their associated primary schools where working-class kids have been most left behind by the SNP Government.
We are committed to raising the performance of the 20 per cent lowest-achieving pupils where they study. We will support the parents of those children to ensure that they have the reading and writing skills that they need to support their children. Those are the choices that we would make.
Will the member, to inform my speech, give me the cost of employing a literacy teacher and the cost of employing a classroom assistant?
I am happy to tell the member that I am being advised that a classroom assistant costs £20,000 and, we think, £30,000 for a literacy teacher. I am happy to confirm that in writing to the member after the debate.
I also indicate to the member that, as a result of his point of order at the start of business today, we have placed at the back of the chamber a table that gives—I do not think that the member is listening; he is clearly not interested in the debate. Presiding Officer, for your benefit, I will say that we have placed at the back of the chamber the table to which the member referred in his earlier point of order.
I do not need to remind anyone in this chamber that the language of priorities is the religion of socialism. We would make the changes we propose by using the new powers coming to the Scottish Parliament to introduce a new top tax rate of 50p in the pound.
Will the member give way?
I need to make progress.
The investment is not just in our most disadvantaged pupils, so that they get a better start in life, but in the future strength of our economy. It is right that those with the broadest shoulders should pay a little more to deliver the investment that Scotland needs to be a fairer nation. After all, that is what progressive politics is all about.
Before the general election, the SNP wrapped itself in the red flag and adopted swathes of Labour policies: the mansion tax, the bankers’ bonus clawback and the 50p rate of income tax, which, through the Smith agreement, it will have the power to deliver soon enough.
I note that the Government’s amendment removes the mention that we make in our motion of using the proceeds of a 50p rate to invest in our education system and improve attainment. Why is that? Is the SNP about to backtrack on fair taxes? Only a few months ago, SNP MSPs voted against using a higher rate of tax to invest in our education system, yet within weeks the SNP backed the move in its manifesto. Which of those is its position?
Scottish Labour is clear: we will use fair taxes to close the attainment gap in this country, because we believe in progressive politics, and we will build a fairer Scotland and a stronger economy in doing so.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that tackling Scotland’s attainment gap is crucial to future economic performance, in recognition of OECD research demonstrating that inequality has caused a cumulated loss in GDP of 8.5% over 25 years; notes with concern new analysis by Dr Jim Scott of the University of Edinburgh showing that the number of candidates gaining levels 3 to 5 qualifications in the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF), the replacement for standard grades, dropped by 20% between 2012-13 and 2013-14; notes that standards in literacy and numeracy in Scottish schools have fallen since 2012, with 75% of S2 pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds not having the numeracy skills that they should; further notes with concern that spending on education and training fell in Scotland between 2009-10 and 2013-14 whereas it rose across the rest of the UK; notes with concern the subsequent fall in both funding and students in Scotland’s colleges; believes that a renewed focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects is required from the Scottish Government; recognises the recent establishment of the Scottish Attainment Challenge; welcomes clarification from the First Minister that attainment advisers will indeed be placed in every local authority; further recognises that more must be done to address the attainment gap; welcomes proposals by Scottish Labour to tackle this with a further £25 million per year programme of investment, totalling £125 million over a five-year parliamentary session, including doubling the number of teaching assistants and 10 new literacy teachers in each of the associated primary schools of the 20 high schools facing the greatest challenges, in addition to the Scottish Government’s plans and paid for through a 50p top rate of tax; calls on the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser in the Scottish Government to undertake a distributional impact assessment of the attainment gap in Scotland’s schools, and believes that education is both key to addressing the scandal of inequality in Scottish society and a crucial investment in the future of Scotland’s economy.
14:56
I very much welcome the opportunity to debate in tandem education, our economy and how we are to tackle inequality, because they are all inextricably linked. This Government has done more than any previous Administration in the United Kingdom to promote the living wage. It is clear to me that all of us share a commitment to tackling inequality and the at times devastating impact that it can have on our society and our economy. It is important to remember that, rather than an abstract concept, we are talking about real lives and our children’s future. I hope that, if we put our children’s interests and needs at the heart of our debate, we can find some agreement and more ways of generating light rather than heat on such a vital issue.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
Not just yet.
I will address the errors in Labour’s assertion about young people’s achievements in examinations in recent years. At First Minister’s question time last Thursday, Ms Dugdale claimed that recent research showed
“102,000 fewer candidates getting the grades that they need to get on in life.”—[Official Report, 14 May 2015; c 10.]
That is simply not the case, given that there are only ever around 150,000 candidates presenting for qualifications in any year. Labour appears to have confused the number of candidates with the number of entries for examination, yet everyone knows that most candidates are presented for several qualifications.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
In a moment.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority’s data shows that, as expected, the total number of entries and passes at levels 3 to 5 dropped last year, not because of failure but because of success. Our young people, supported by teachers and education authorities, have successfully transferred to the new system in line with changed curriculum models, whereby they take fewer qualifications in secondary 4. That is well known and it does not reflect the performance in exams of our young people or the performance of the system.
I think that the cabinet secretary is correct in her assessment of the number of presentations. Is that in itself one of the key issues, in that there are fewer presentations because of the change to the exam system, which has knock-on effects on highers and advanced highers? Parents are concerned that their children will end up with fewer qualifications, even though the existing ones might be quite well taken.
Ms Smith fails to understand that the overall purpose of the curricular reforms is to maximise the performance of children by the time they leave school. The reasons for the changes are indeed related to the curriculum.
I wonder at times whether Conservative and Labour members remain absolute in their commitment to supporting curriculum for excellence. I thought that we all understood that, in the new arrangements, pupils do an extra year of what we call a broad general education. In curriculum for excellence, children maintain a full range of subjects through S3. Only then do they begin to drop subjects, and they typically focus on a smaller number of formal qualifications in the course of S4. They then go into S5 able to focus in-depth on the subjects that they have continued to study.
I do not accept some of the cabinet secretary’s analysis, and I will address some of that in my closing speech. However, on that particular point, I note that pupils will be able to proceed to a higher level in the fewer subjects that they have studied only if they pass in them. The same SQA statistics as the cabinet secretary quoted show that the pass rate for levels 3 to 5 dropped from 92 to 83 per cent and that at level 5—or what was credit level—it dropped to below 80 per cent and was 79 per cent. Attainment levels have fallen.
Of course, more people took highers, but Mr Gray has failed to realise that the new qualifications mark a shift to deeper learning and more analysis, engagement and understanding. As I have said, pupils generally study a wider range of subjects at S3 and focus on a smaller number of qualifications at S4 on their way to studying highers.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No, thanks.
We know that there is still a small percentage of young people who leave school at the end of S4. Under curriculum for excellence, they will do so with a firm foundation. The percentage of young people who leave school with no qualifications has reduced drastically in recent years—further and faster than under Labour—and the figure now stands at 1.5 per cent. It is really sad that the Labour Party has chosen to misrepresent Dr Scott’s painstaking collection of data. As people read the Official Report, they will be able to see that the facts stand for themselves.
We have a record to be proud of—I will say more about that in my closing speech—but we absolutely do not demur from the fact that much more needs to be done. Nevertheless, it is a pity that those in other parties do not recognise the useful comparisons that can be made between the level 6 qualifications—that mainly means highers—taken in 2012-13 and those taken in 2013-14. The total number of entries for those qualifications has increased from more than 182,000 to more than 191,000 and—vitally—the number of qualifications that have been gained has increased from more than 144,000 to more than 148,000. That is a record number.
I am totally committed to curriculum for excellence, its principles and its approach to learning. It will deliver the skills, knowledge and experience that we want for all our children and young people.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No, thanks.
Curriculum for excellence is a success story that is still being written. The OECD’s review of our education system in 2007 praised our vision in that respect, and its next review, which begins next month, will focus on implementation and the broad general education and will provide us with valuable independent evidence that draws on other countries’ experience.
As Ms Baillie mentioned, last night I set out my priorities, my values and my aspirations for Scotland’s education system. I want Scotland to have a fair education system that provides excellence to all children, irrespective of their background or circumstances. I want an education system that does not settle for good enough but which aims high and gives children the skills that they need to thrive rather than simply to survive.
Will the cabinet secretary give way?
No, thanks.
I want Scotland to have an education system that is focused on attainment and achievement and which is built around delivering equity and excellence and—crucially—aspiration and ambition.
There are promising signs that we are on track to deliver excellence. Programme for international student assessment—PISA—data for 2012 shows that Scotland performed at above the OECD average for reading and science and outperformed a greater number of competitor countries than in 2009. The PISA data also showed that we narrowed the gap between the most and least disadvantaged pupils. We were the only UK country to do so.
However, I make it clear that the Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy results on numeracy in 2014 and this year’s results on literacy certainly show that we need to step up the pace of change. That is why the Government has made closing the attainment gap so that every child in every community gets every chance to succeed at school and in life a key focus of our programme for government. We are investing £100 million through a national attainment fund over four years, targeting support at local authorities with the most deprived communities and providing schools with greater access to expertise and resources through the Scottish attainment challenge. Attainment advisers for every local authority area are being recruited, and the raising attainment for all programme now has 23 local authorities and 180 schools committed to improving literacy, numeracy, and health and wellbeing.
New duties under the Education (Scotland) Bill to ensure that councils and ministers attach priority to the on-going challenge of inequalities of outcome will underpin that work. I trust that we can rely on Labour members for their support at all stages of that bill.
I will finish by offering members reassurance. They should not doubt my and the Government’s passion and sense of urgency for addressing the issue. We know that we have more to do and that we have to do it now. Every school and every education authority needs to take action. We will not rest until we see clear evidence that educational outcomes are improving for every child in Scotland.
The spirit of consensus that has underpinned curriculum for excellence needs to be maintained and applied to the wider effort. We need to keep clear in our minds our key priorities to ensure that every child in Scotland is on a personal journey to excellence.
I move amendment S4M-13203.3, to leave out from first “believes” to end and insert:
“agrees that reducing inequality, including the attainment gap, is not only important in itself, but is vital to create the conditions to deliver sustainable economic growth over the long term; welcomes the successful implementation of the curriculum for excellence (CfE); notes that, under CfE, pupils generally study a wider range of subjects in S3 than previously, before focussing on a smaller number of subjects for formal qualifications in S4; recognises that this approach is designed to ensure that pupils maximise their achievement by the time they leave school and commands the support of teachers, educationalists and the Parliament; condemns attempts to portray this change in the pattern of exams taken as a reduction in attainment; welcomes the reduction in the attainment gap noted by the OECD’s Pisa study; agrees that more needs to be done to raise attainment and close the attainment gap; supports the recent launch of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, backed by the £100 million Attainment Scotland Fund, the ongoing work with the Raising Attainment for All programme and the Access to Education Fund and specific work on literacy and numeracy, and calls on all parties to reaffirm their support for CfE.”
15:07
We, too, welcome this Labour Party debate on Scotland’s economy, specifically on the essential skills, training, qualifications and basic education that are required to ensure that people from all backgrounds and of all ages in Scotland benefit from the opportunities to work and start a business.
I am pleased to note that the Scottish Government now admits, after eight years in office, the drop in performance in both reading and writing. That is a good starting point for the debate. I am also pleased to hear that, after eight years, that has now become an urgent issue.
I would like to quote from emails that I have received from parents and teachers on the reduction in subjects and their concern about limiting choices in highers and putting pupils in Scotland at a disadvantage.
First, I will quote from an email from a parent in Edinburgh, who said:
“We were told that the new curriculum for excellence would result in all schools going from 8 standard grade equivalents to 6. Advised that this was the new way for all and that children would be given more time to devote to subjects and this should improve grades”.
She then discovered that that diktat was referred to as a consultation. When she spoke to other parents in Edinburgh, she discovered that pupils at Boroughmuir high school, the Royal high school, James Gillespie’s high school and others were still doing eight standard grade equivalents, not six.
A teacher in Edinburgh had bright students who wanted to do chemistry and physics in S4, but they could not because of their other choices from the very restricted menu that was on offer. They could do only one science along with physical education or retail. There is nothing wrong with PE and retail—I have spoken out on retail opportunities many times in the Parliament—but try getting into medical school with highers in PE and retail rather than science. That is very difficult to do.
One pupil responded by saying:
“You make us do subjects we don’t want to do for an extra year, and then you don’t let us choose the subjects we do want to do”.
Next year, the same school and the same teacher will run a composite national 4, national 5 and higher class bringing together physics, biology and craft, design and technology into one course. How often has the importance of science-based subjects and understanding been stated in the Parliament?
I now come to the painstaking data from Dr Jim Scott. Another area of concern is the drastic reduction in attainment totals for Scottish credit and qualifications framework levels 3 to 5. The fall in attainment at level 3 is 58 per cent between the year before last and last year. In level 4, there is a 23 per cent fall in attainment and, in level 5, there is a 10 per cent fall. That leads to an overall average of a 20 per cent reduction in attainment last year in comparison with 2012-13. That is based on Dr Jim Scott’s research and I am happy to hand it over to the cabinet secretary.
As if that was not bad enough, we must ask why, given the Scottish Government’s opportunities for all guarantee of a place in education or training—I read the 2011 manifesto before I came to the chamber—29,000 16 to 19-year-olds are not in education, employment or training.
When it looks at schools, the Government must ask what happens between P7, when 66 per cent of pupils perform well or very well in numeracy, and S2, when only 42 per cent of pupils perform well or very well. What happens in two years at secondary school that leads to a drop in numeracy standards of 24 percentage points?
We also learn from Audit Scotland that there is no consistent approach to tracking and monitoring pupils’ progress from P1 to S3. Although some councils test at P1, P3, P5, P7 and S2, others do not. Last night, the cabinet secretary said that assessment tools and systems were already in place at school, local and national level. If so, why are they not being used and why do they need to be simplified before they are implemented?
Yesterday, the Education and Culture Committee heard evidence from East Renfrewshire Council. It holds comprehensive data on the attainment of all children through the analysis of baseline, standardised tests at P3, P5, P7 and S2, as well as SQA results. If East Renfrewshire schools can collect that information through testing to inform them about a child’s development and support needs, why can it not be done in the rest of Scotland? Unfortunately, East Renfrewshire Council cannot compare its data with those of any other schools because the tests are that council’s and its alone.
We have welcomed the attainment advisers and the £100 million investment over four years, but I was a bit surprised to read in Scotland on Sunday that those posts are secondments for 12 months or 23 months, not four years. Perhaps I will pass the job advertisement to Stewart Stevenson, because there is no salary on it so we do not even know how much they will be paid. I presume that it will be what they are already paid.
Unless we know who needs support to assist their attainment, unless we have accurate data and unless there is an evaluation, we will not know where the £100 million will go.
I regret that you must draw to a close.
I can see that my time is almost up.
A 150,000 cut in part-time college places does not help attainment one bit, nor do the cuts to provision for over-25s, whose lives can be transformed by college. I know that. I was a part-time student when I was over 25 and a single parent with two children. I had all those opportunities before I went to university but that door is well and truly closed for the future. That is much to be regretted and I lay the blame entirely at the door of the Government.
I move amendment S4M-13203.1, to leave out from “welcomes clarification” to end and insert:
“, and is concerned about the high percentage of secondary schools that have reduced the number of certificate subjects available in S4, which, in turn, has reduced the total number of presentations, including in English and Maths, and which, by definition, means that there are fewer pupils who are properly schooled in the literacy and numeracy skills required in the world of work.”
15:13
Throughout the United Kingdom, unemployment has fallen and hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created. Wages are outstripping inflation and growth rates in the United Kingdom are vying with those in the United States of America. That is combined with big tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes.
Let us contrast that with what the recent set of statistics shows is happening in Scotland, where the unemployment level has risen. In particular, 5,000 women have left employment. That contrasts badly with the rest of the United Kingdom and, in that context, the debate is timely.
We need the Scottish Government to examine every aspect of its policy to get Scotland back on the path of falling unemployment to ensure a prosperous economy and futures that allow individuals to fulfil their potential.
I was quite disappointed with the minister’s amendment and with her tone today. The Government must begin to acknowledge its weaknesses and its failings in order for us to make real progress. In the interventions from her own back benchers, the only answer that they had to the problem was more powers for this Parliament. They have no other ideas about education at all—only more powers. It is a stuck record, and they need to reflect on their eight years in power and eight years of failure.
I welcome the Scottish attainment challenge and the funding through the attainment Scotland fund, but the Government has had eight years in which to tackle inequality of attainment and has failed to do so. The minister cannot now, with a great flourish of rhetoric, claim a new start. Children who started school in 2007 are now well established at secondary school. They do not get a second chance. The class of 2007 has witnessed this Government’s failure to deliver its promises to reduce class sizes in primary 1 to 3, its failure to improve teacher pupil ratios and its failure to improve standards in maths, science and literacy.
Let us look at some of the details. The number of teachers has fallen by 4,275 since 2007. The average P1 to P3 class now stands at 23 pupils—far from the 18 that we were promised back in 2007. The PISA maths scores fell in 2009 and 2012. The results of the 2014 Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy, which was published recently, show that performance in reading dropped in primary schools between 2012 and 2014, as well as in the second year of secondary school.
The minister must reflect seriously on that record. Rather than claiming that it is a new start, she needs to take responsibility for the full eight years during which her Government has been in charge.
It is perhaps no surprise that the Liberal Democrat amendment has focused on the early years and on the importance of that crucial period for an individual’s life chances. There is an ever-growing body of evidence about how the quality of early years provision can support a child’s brain development and make a positive difference to their life chances and their future participation in our society. Effective early years education offers the foundations for healthy, all-round development. Studies such as “The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project: Final Report” provide strong evidence for the impact of high-quality childcare and highly qualified staff on children’s outcomes.
We know from that work that better-qualified staff teams offered higher-quality support for children developing their communication, language and literacy skills and their reasoning, thinking and maths skills. That is why we want more of Scotland’s children to benefit from free nursery education. With provision in England outstripping that in Scotland, we cannot say that we are giving Scotland’s children the start that they deserve. That is a concern not only for the individuals but for our future economy. We are asking our young people to play catch-up from the age of two in what is already a hugely competitive global economy.
Let me be clear. I am not doubting—and there is no doubting—the talents and potential of young people across Scotland, but we must do more and we need to do more to unlock that talent to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. That process of unlocking potential starts from a very early age.
The Government must also look at its record of helping disadvantaged pupils and at the continued attainment gap. There is evidence that the pupil premium that was introduced by the previous UK Government has had a positive impact in meeting its aims. An Office for Standards in Education report highlighted how the funding was used by one school to support a pupil who became temporarily looked after in year 11, following a family trauma, as her work began to suffer. The school bought in counselling and other emotional support, as well as an individualised programme of additional teaching, including daily maths tuition, extra English lessons and support in PE. It is that kind of individualised help and support that the pupil premium has allowed and which can truly turn around a young person’s life. I hope that serious consideration will be given to a similar funding approach in Scotland.
Will the member give way?
I am sorry, but I am in my last minute.
Nearly two centuries ago, an American politician, Horace Mann, said:
“Education, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equaliser of the conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”
Education is an enduring legacy of opportunity, and the Government needs to step up to the mark.
I move amendment S4M-13203.2, to leave out from “welcomes proposals” to end and insert:
“recognises research that shows that investment in the first three years of a child’s life is the most influential in changing an individual’s life chances; believes that quality early years education is crucial to closing the attainment gap; further believes that targeted funding for school-aged pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds should be explored in Scotland as a means to give disadvantaged pupils a better chance of reaching their potential; considers that education is the best means to create a strong economy with sustainable jobs, and is concerned that the unemployment level in Scotland is bucking the trend seen across the UK by increasing in the last quarter.”
We now move to the open debate. We are extremely tight for time today.
15:20
First, I would like to consider the motion that has been lodged by the Labour Party. It talks about concerns about a new analysis that has been published by Dr Jim Scott. In trying to get that analysis from the Scottish Parliament information centre, I managed to obtain a sheet with one black-and-white table. That is not analysis in my book. Today, it was replaced by a sheet placed by the Labour Party on the table at the back of the chamber with the same table on it—the only difference being that it is now in colour. If we are going to debate Dr Scott’s analysis, it would be wise to ensure that we could all catch sight of that analysis. We have been told that the analysis was conducted for the Labour Party. None of us has seen it—it is not easy to come by.
I want to correct a couple of factual errors by the member. First, the analysis was not undertaken for the Labour Party; it was undertaken by Dr Scott in his capacity as a research fellow. The data—
I have heard enough, Mr Gray.
The data—
Enough!
Mr Stewart, sit down and let Mr Gray finish.
The data is Scottish Qualifications Authority data that has been publicly available since last December.
What I would say, then, is—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
—why is that analysis available to some and not others?
Mr Stewart, sit down.
Presiding Officer, can you clarify that the rules of this Parliament are that, when you call a member to speak, it is you who determines when that person finishes, and that they should not be shouted down by another speaker?
I thank the member for his point of order. The point that he raises is correct. However, we will now proceed with the debate.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
That analysis is not publicly available. We have not been able to catch sight of it, which I would argue makes it difficult to debate.
I will move on. Other parts of the motion talk about introducing a 50p tax rate to pay for a number of things. I stand to be corrected but, at this moment in time, this Parliament does not have the power to raise the top rate of tax to 50p. I wish that it did, but that is one of the many powers that we still do not have.
Beyond that, in answer to a question from my colleague Stewart Stevenson, Jackie Baillie said that she reckons that it would cost £20,000 a year to employ a teaching assistant and that she thinks—“think” is the word that she used—that it would cost £30,000 a year for a literacy teacher. I am quite sure that that does not include the whole cost of employing the folk who are mentioned in the motion.
Will the member give way?
No. I have heard enough from Mr Gray.
Once again, we have a flaw in a Labour Party motion. It is little wonder that the last Labour Government got itself into financial difficulties, given that the party cannot calculate these things properly but there we go—no surprise there.
I was shouted down earlier for mentioning welfare reform and its effect on people throughout this country. On numerous occasions when I have been out and about, I have talked to teachers and others who say that we have a massive gap in attainment that must be bridged. However, we will not be able to do so while kids are still going to school with empty bellies, because kids with empty bellies cannot learn. One of our major problems is the fact that welfare reform is having a major impact on people right across this country. Of course, the Labour Party could have helped to deal with some of the empty belly problems by voting for free school meals when that issue was raised in this Parliament, but it voted against them. How progressive is that?
Among the key things that we need to do to tackle inequality, bridge that attainment gap and create a fairer society is create a much better social security system and ensure that folks who are in work are being paid properly so that they can afford the things that they need in their daily lives.
Will the member give way?
The member is in his last 30 seconds.
Unfortunately, that is one of the things that the Labour Party and others in this place will not talk about. They will not talk about it because they do not want this Parliament to have those powers. I am quite sure that we would do a much better job than the current Tory Government and previous Westminster Governments, which have failed on this issue.
15:26
Two central economic facts underline Labour’s motion. First, education—especially quality education—is crucial for economic growth; and, secondly, inequality undermines economic growth. That is an orthodoxy now, as it is accepted by the OECD and the IMF as well as by notable individual economists.
Those two facts explain why the attainment gap is not just important—and, indeed, catastrophic for the lives of many people in Scotland today—but harming our economy twice over: first, by reducing the number of people who have the level of education and skills needed to advance in the employment market; and, secondly, by exacerbating the inequality that hinders growth.
Jackie Baillie quoted Joseph Stiglitz on the subject of the relationship between education and inequality. Anyone who doubts that analysis should look at a very short OECD video that I watched this morning. It is less than five minutes long, but it absolutely brilliantly encapsulates that central insight about inequality undermining economic growth.
The video also advocates something else that is quite interesting. I think that we all accept that the OECD is not some kind of Marxist front, but it argues in the video and in other writings that tax increases for the wealthiest are necessary to strengthen the economy, which is contrary to the neo-liberal orthodoxy that we often hear about. Also, of course, those increases are crucial for providing the educational and other opportunities for those who are most disadvantaged in our society. That is exactly what we propose in our motion.
Kevin Stewart is right to say that we have not quite got the ability to do that in terms of tax powers, but there is no doubt that we will have it soon. That is why a central proposal in Labour’s recent election manifesto was that we should use the money from the top rate of tax to employ teaching assistants and literacy teachers, focusing on the most disadvantaged schools. There was also the commitment, which Jackie Baillie reiterated, to support the lowest performing 20 per cent of pupils in literacy and numeracy wherever they happen to live.
Mr Chisholm may have more knowledge than I do. Does he have any idea when this Parliament is likely to get those tax-raising powers? At this moment in time, I have no clue about when we are likely to get them—if we get them.
I am very confident that those powers will be coming soon.
As members know, I am not one to bash the Scottish Government at every opportunity, but it and SNP back benchers must face some uncomfortable facts in this debate. I do not think that they can argue with the Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy, which has been much referred to. I think that in the speech that she gave last night, the cabinet secretary accepted that there are alarming declines in the levels of numeracy and literacy in Scotland, and those have to be addressed collectively by us all.
Mary Scanlon made the interesting point that there is a particular decline between primary 7 and secondary 2, and we should perhaps focus on that. I support the curriculum for excellence, but there may have been a loss of focus on literacy and numeracy in the first two years of secondary school.
The cabinet secretary expressed surprise last night at some of the approaches to literacy and numeracy in S1 and S2. I was surprised as well: when I started teaching in the 1970s, language across the curriculum was a central mantra, as well as being the title of a very important textbook. There may be lessons to be learned in that regard, but the points that Jackie Baillie made about the wider issues of teacher numbers and class sizes are equally important.
We have heard a lot about Dr Scott, whose table is interesting. Kevin Stewart spent the first half of his speech saying that there is not enough information in it. I am sure that we would all like more information, but there is some pretty important information in the table, which is in two parts.
On the number of exams that students take in S4, I hear what the cabinet secretary says, but I still have concerns about that, particularly with regard to STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects, which we all accept are so important for the economy. The issue may well be difficult to address, but the same point came up in the science in schools debate earlier this year. If the number of science subjects that are being taken is declining because people cannot do physics and chemistry or whatever, we must at least ask questions about that.
There is also the uncomfortable fact of attainment levels. Iain Gray quoted the most striking part of the table in that regard: of those enrolled, 92 per cent passed in 2012-13 and 79 per cent passed in 2013-14. I acknowledge that that is just two years, but we have to take those figures seriously and express a degree of concern about them.
We also need to focus on STEM subjects in colleges. We keep bandying about the figures on colleges, and the Labour Party’s concerns about them are well known, but I highlight the figures with regard to STEM subjects and the effect on the economy. There were 86,000 places in STEM subjects in colleges eight years ago, while in the last year for which we have figures, there were 56,000. Again, that gives us some cause for concern.
I heard what the cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, said at question time about more colleges courses leading to employment, but that does not seem to sit comfortably with the decline in STEM subjects. [Interruption.]
Order, please. The member is finishing, so no one will intervene.
I am exactly on six minutes, so I do not have time to say what I wanted to say about early years. I will just note that I agree that, in spite of all our talk about schools and colleges, the most important investment for all sorts of things, including economic growth, is probably investment in the early years.
I call Clare Adamson, to be followed by Graeme Pearson. We are tight for time.
15:32
At the start of the debate—indeed, for possibly the first four minutes of Jackie Baillie’s speech—I thought that we were going to get some consensus on the devastating effect of inequality and the challenges ahead, and come together on how we could address the situation. I am a bit sorry that the debate has taken a different direction.
The first issue that I want to raise concerns the research by Dr Scott to which members have referred. I have in front of me an email that I received from SPICe yesterday. It says:
“The research was carried out for the Labour Party and the full document is not publicly available or published online. The party have today”
—that is, yesterday—
“provided the below table to SPICe which summarises the findings of Dr ... Scott and which can be shared by SPICe with enquirers.”
I am unclear about who produced the summary: that is, whether it is Dr Scott’s analysis or the Labour Party’s.
I can answer that question: the table is from Dr Scott’s research. I can also say to Clare Adamson in all sincerity that SPICe is wrong: we did not tell it that the research was done for us. I can only assume that SPICe has made a mistake.
I hope that Iain Gray will appreciate that that is what has led to some confusion among members on the SNP side of the chamber with regard to the report.
In looking at the table in front of me, I am concerned that there does not seem to be any weighting for falling school rolls between the two years in question. I agree with the cabinet secretary that, when the raw data is taken out of the context that was provided in evidence to the Education and Culture Committee—that the number of subjects being studied by pupils this year was going to fall because that was the intention of curriculum for excellence—there is some confusion.
Although we might accept that the overall number of people taking the exams has fallen—I do not necessarily accept that, but let us put that to one side—how can the member explain the percentage drop in attainment? That is not about the respective numbers; it is about an overall fall in attainment, no matter who is sitting the exams.
We have to look at the issue in context. We are talking about the second year of the new fifth year exams, and we do not have all the information in front of us or the full details of the research, which is why it is difficult for us to comment on it. However, I do not think that the Government or anyone else will say that a fall in attainment is likely. As the cabinet secretary has set out, higher levels are showing a continued increase and, year on year, we are doing better in the area. As we are having this debate, I just had to raise those issues.
Will the member take an intervention?
No—I have taken enough interventions. Sorry.
In today’s press, Jamie Livingstone, the head of Oxfam Scotland, talked about research that Oxfam carried out that showed that
“in the UK, just five families had roughly the same wealth as the least well off 12 million people in Britain put together.”
Mr Livingstone says that, although Oxfam is non-political, it takes
“a clear and unequivocal stand against such glaring inequality—an issue we believe is inextricably linked to poverty.”
Oxfam says that tackling poverty and inequality must include
“action to ensure that we have a just tax system in which everyone pays their fair share—each according to their means.”
There is a degree of consensus that the tax system needs to change to achieve that. It is just unfortunate that we do not have the power to do that in the Scottish Parliament at this time.
The article also states:
“Latest figures suggest 820,000 people live in poverty in Scotland. More than half of working age adults in poverty live in households where at least one person is working; the old adage that work is the clearest route out of poverty rings hollow.”
That is no longer relevant to the situation that we find with in-work poverty today.
The Welfare Reform Committee has frequently taken evidence on increased food bank use and the effects of the sanctions system on families who rely on social security. We have seen that poverty is increasing as a result of the Westminster Government’s austerity agenda. Mary Scanlon spoke passionately about the numbers, but she forgets that in those figures are children who are suffering under her Government’s austerity regime.
With regard to the further cuts that are coming our way, Westminster’s Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has stated:
“We would have to have done the work on it.”
He continued:
“as soon as we’ve done the work and had it modelled we’ll let everybody know what that is.”
We have £12 billion of cuts coming, but there is no cognisance of what the welfare budget needs to be and no reason for the cuts other than the austerity ideology. No regard is paid to the devastating impact on families who rely on social security or to equality impact assessments. There is no sense of fairness or need in the UK Government’s agenda.
The science and engineering education advisory group report on STEM subjects highlighted that
“even relatively small improvements in educational standards can have large impacts on the economic, social and cultural well-being of nations that may offset and perhaps exceed the cost of effective educational reform.”
I believe that the Government, working with partners such as SEEAG, is moving towards that position. I know that that is happening because, on 26 and 27 March, I attended the learning festival in North Lanarkshire, which was opened by Dr Alasdair Allan. The festival looked at creative learning and giving teachers opportunities to learn more about what exists to help them to meet the challenges that they face in tackling the attainment gap.
15:39
I rise to support Jackie Baillie’s motion and to contribute to the debate. One can understand why the Government wants to focus on all the plus points in our education system, and there is no doubt that we are gifted with the professionalism of our teachers, and those who support them in education day and daily, in dealing with the pupils and students in our schools. However, as Willie Rennie touched on, we need to look at the reality of what happens in our schools and what has happened every day during the eight years of the SNP Government. It is about pupils. It is about one chance in life—a chance that is given to them by education to move out of deprivation and poverty.
The cabinet secretary was right to acknowledge last night her concerns about literacy. I add to that concerns about numeracy. She made comments alluding to some teachers’ impacts and their understanding of the challenge. Those observations have been picked up by some people as a criticism of the profession. Therein lies the heat at the centre of our debate. Too often we are diverted from the key issues that we are trying to understand.
Education is particularly important not only to our economy and for what it adds to our ability to participate and compete in this world. It is also of particular significance to people who come from poor areas—those who face deprivation of opportunity. For those who live in such areas, education provides one of the only chances to escape poverty.
This week in the Daily Record, Joanne Martin from Possilpark reported that she had succeeded in achieving grades that should have allowed her to pursue a career in medicine, only to find that she was being frustrated in taking her chosen career path, in her belief, because of the social stratum that she comes from and the family support that she received—great support from her mum, who is a part-time cleaner. Her view was supported by Vonnie Sandlan, the president-elect of the National Union of Students Scotland. When we look at the position, we discover the fact that in the most deprived 10 per cent of areas in Scotland fewer than one person in three leaves school with at least one higher, while four out of every five pupils in the most affluent parts of Scotland leave with at least one higher. With a Government that seems to be committed to social justice and equality, those statistics are difficult to face.
Dr Jim Scott of the University of Edinburgh has shown that the number of candidates who are gaining level 3 to 5 Scottish credit and qualifications framework qualifications—the replacement for standard grades—has dropped by 20 per cent. That is a challenge to any Government that seeks to deliver equality of opportunity.
Standards of literacy and numeracy in Scotland’s schools have fallen.
I want to be clear that the number of people who are achieving qualifications at levels 3 to 5 did not fall by 20 per cent. It fell by about 6 per cent. The mistake that Labour keeps making is that its members talk about people—as in candidates—as opposed to the number of qualifications. You cannot compare apples with pears. Typically, there were two entries for standard grades at general and credit level, whereas with level 3—
Cabinet secretary, we have to hurry along.
I hear what the cabinet secretary says. It is one thing to bemuse us with statistics, but the reality is out there to be faced, and it is reported every day in our schools.
College admissions have fallen by 37 per cent, or some 140,000 places, since the SNP came to power. That pathway for leaving deprivation and poverty is becoming choked off by the decisions that are being taken by this Government, in this country, under the powers that are available to it now. At the same time it is spending £7.599 billion from the budget to deliver for our children. If the SNP Government is truly committed to delivering in this respect, it should pay attention to Dr Jim Scott’s opinions on the matter. He is a respected academic who reported to committee earlier this year, and—
Will the member take an intervention?
I will finish the sentence. When I spoke to Dr Scott at a committee meeting, he informed me that his report was submitted to Government officials earlier this year and that he supported the contents of that report. It was interesting to me particularly because of the meeting that I attended. On that occasion the cabinet secretary—not the present one—reported on the successes that had been achieved in modern language teaching in Scottish schools. Dr Scott reported exactly the opposite from a statistic that he had gathered for his report.
I beg the cabinet secretary to connect with reality to give us the opportunity to see improvements in the access to education that is offered to people in deprived areas and those who live in poor circumstances.
15:45
I am happy to welcome this debate on education, as it appears in the motion, although I have to say that the title, “The Future of Scotland’s Economy” is somewhat misleading. The link between education and the economy is very strong, but it would have been helpful if the Labour Party had said that in the title of the motion. However, I accept that Labour has been in something of a muddle recently.
One of the SNP’s flagship policies has been free university education. It is fascinating that universities are not mentioned in Labour’s motion. Does Labour look down on academic achievement and the universities? Does Labour want to move resources from universities to schools and colleges? Labour is perfectly entitled to call for that if it wants, but to call for more emphasis on one area without stating that there should be less emphasis on another strikes me as being less than transparent.
We would all like more money to be available for colleges, as for other areas. However, I would not want to return to the previous arrangements, which became purely a numbers game, with students, including some with learning disabilities, being parked on courses that were of no use to them.
As well as how much money colleges get, there is also a question about how they are run. The situation in Glasgow has been of concern to me for some time, with the apparent turmoil both at Glasgow Clyde College—with the change of principal—and at the overall Glasgow Colleges Regional Board. One of the key ways to reduce inequality in Scottish society is to have strong and effective colleges. The six community-based colleges in Glasgow, which have now been merged into two—Glasgow Kelvin College and Glasgow Clyde College—have had a fair degree of success in that respect. Can the cabinet secretary give us any reassurance in relation to both Glasgow Clyde College and the Glasgow Colleges Regional Board that that money will not be wasted on expensive bureaucracy and duplication, but will be channelled into front-line education and that the regional board will be able to handle that?
Does John Mason believe that more people are moving into further education and that there are now more staff in further education than there were prior to his Government’s reforms?
I believe—because the Scottish Parliament’s budget has been cut—that virtually all spending, apart from on the national health service, has had to be reduced. That is the reality.
This week is Scottish apprenticeships week. I was out in Baillieston with some Glasgow Housing Association modern apprentices on Monday, which reminded me again that we need to find the right role and employment for each and every individual.
In the past there has been too much emphasis on academic results in schools. We have seen some improvement, in that we have been moving away from that, in recent years. There is still, however, overemphasis on exam results—which are relatively easy to measure—compared to the emphasis on the value that is added by a school, which is much harder to measure.
I agree with the Labour motion when it mentions the STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects. That focus is needed especially for girls and women, as we found at the Equal Opportunities Committee when we carried out our inquiry into women and work. There is still a tendency for men and women to take traditional career paths. It is not just money that is needed to change that. However, there is very little detail from Labour about what can or should be done to get more people into STEM.
There is a strong emphasis on STEM in the Government and Parliament, but we are not seeing that being worked out in practice at the grass roots. When I had a school visit from one of my local secondaries recently, none of the pupils—boys or girls—was considering engineering. Why was that? Are schools pressing too much for arts and academic subjects, rather than for more practical and technical subjects? Do we need schools to emphasise more to pupils where future jobs are likely to be? How do we change attitudes in society so that engineering is valued more highly? How do we help young people who lack self-confidence and vision, perhaps because no one in their family has been at college or university before? Although I accept that school resources are a key element, those kinds of questions are not just about money.
While we are on attitudes, the attitude to self-employment is another challenge. Many of us did not, when we were at school, seriously consider setting up our own business but assumed that academic achievement and being employed was the way ahead. However, some of our most successful business people do not have fabulous academic records. Some gained qualifications later in life, but some did not. The link between the economy and education that has been made in today’s debate is important, but it is not the be all and end all. I am reminded again that we need to find the best outcome for each individual young person and not to take the too-simplistic approach of counting what is easily measured.
With my finance hat on, I believe that we have to live within our means. At the moment that means, largely, the block grant. Cuts from Westminster, as I have said, have led to cuts in most areas of the Scottish budget, which is hardly a shock to anyone here. I am very open to the idea of a 50p higher rate of income tax, and ideally we should combine that with national insurance. However, even with a 50p income tax rate, the 2p national insurance rate makes the combined rate of 52p less progressive. I would like us to look at a combined rate of perhaps 60p.
However, as my colleague Kevin Stewart asked, when is the 50p rate to be available? Will it be when this Parliament gets powers on income tax or will it be when Labour gets into power at Westminster? Either way, it seems that we will wait for quite a long time. We have estimated that we would get from a 50p rate of tax an extra £13 million; I am not sure that that would quite achieve what Labour’s motion hopes for.
The economy and education are two very important topics, and the challenges that face us in both areas are slightly more complex than Labour seems to suggest.
15:51
Jackie Baillie spent a large part of the first section of her speech talking about areas of economic policy that do not appear in the Labour Party’s motion, then got into the substance of what the Labour Party wants to debate. Mr Mason is quite right that the information that SPICe provided suggests that £13 million is what would be achieved by a 50p top rate of income tax in Scotland, which is not the £25 million that Labour says it would use from a 50p top rate. Beyond that, there is also a question whether, with regard to the numbers of employed staff to which the motion refers, the numbers would add up—either in respect of the £13 million or of the £25 million—if on-costs are included.
The central point of the debate is inequality and how best to tackle it. I do not dispute the notion that education is a means by which people can escape the trapping effect of inequality. That is well understood. However, that is about individuals doing something in spite of their circumstances, rather than about the circumstances being materially changed in order to improve the individual’s outcomes. If Labour is saying that we need to focus our efforts on particular areas in order to work against the external factors that affect children’s educational outcomes, I agree that we should do that. Based on current evidence, the cabinet secretary has also said that she wishes to do that. However, we have also to look at how we can address the external factors that impact on particular children, families and communities. We want such children to have the best possible educational outcomes, but we also want to ensure that the lifestyles around them are materially improved.
Will the member take an intervention?
Perhaps I will, a little bit later. I want to develop my point further.
It cannot simply be the case that working to help children to escape the situations in which they find themselves as a result of the inequalities that exist in society will resolve those inequalities, because adults, family networks and communities are affected by deep inequalities that will not be resolved by working through the education system alone. The issue goes wider than that.
I take Mark McDonald’s point on the wider issues about poverty, but does he not agree that by focusing resources on education we will start to break people out of the vicious cycle of poverty and that education is in itself a way to tackle poverty, not overnight but on a generational basis?
There is no disagreement from me on that. I think that I made that point earlier in my speech.
I represent a constituency that has poverty amidst plenty. My constituency office is based in one of the most deprived communities in the city of Aberdeen, but in my constituency I also have communities that have child poverty rates of less than 5 per cent, so I recognise the need to ensure that resources are focused on the areas that need intervention.
That brings me to the other aspect of the inequality agenda, which is about the economy, employment and creating circumstances in which individuals in deprived communities can access well-paid and sustainable employment. That is what led me to my intervention on Jackie Baillie. I am not one of the folk who see more powers as being the answer to everything, but we must look at where the powers rest that can best tackle the societal inequalities that deprived communities face.
I absolutely agree—and I have already said—that we need to focus on education, and the cabinet secretary made that point very clearly, but beyond that we have to look at how we affect individuals’ material circumstances. How do we make people’s incomes and employment better? One way in which we do that is through wages policy and employment policy. It is through being able to take measures to tackle things such as exploitative zero-hours contracts, and being able to take steps to address the minimum wage policy in a wider context than simply looking at the living wage, which is narrowly confined to the public sector because that is the only place where we can implement it, at present. Until we are able to take that basket of measures forward as well, we will be hamstrung in some of our efforts.
Teachers are doing a fantastic job in our communities, especially in our deprived communities, but when a child arrives at the school gate with an empty belly because their family has to rely on food banks, or when they are affected by circumstances outside the classroom, the school will only ever be working in a situation where it is battling against external factors and it will be unable to develop the child’s full potential. I absolutely agree that we should focus on education, but we must have a wider focus than simply on education. Otherwise, schools will continue to battle against external factors and will not be able to work to achieve the best possible outcomes for children.
15:57
We all know that the future of our economy is crucial to the future of our people and the cohesiveness of our society. In many ways, Scotland’s economy is successful, especially when we compare it with other less-prosperous nations around the world, but it has a massive and glaring fault line running through it—the unequal distribution of the gains of our economic success and the poverty that many members have mentioned.
Low pay and job insecurity are at the heart of our country’s problems. On Monday night, an excellent “BBC Scotland Investigates” documentary exposed the crushing, debilitating and grinding impact of low pay on people and their families, showing how it saps morale and impacts on every aspect of family life. People are unable to pay energy bills and are left staring into an empty fridge, and children go without the very basics. That is the harsh reality not just for a few people but for one Scot in five. I am ashamed to say that that is happening in my street, in my village, in my region and just yards from this building.
People are crying out for action. They need our help now and we have a moral responsibility to do something about it. We need action not next month, next year or at some time in the future when we gain additional powers and the Government of the day may or may not use them, but now. We cannot continue to blame someone else or hide behind someone else’s actions or inactions, appalling as they may be. That will not feed a single child. Let us take our jobs seriously and think about how we can effect change. We should do it quickly and do it now.
The Government did not embrace radical change last year when the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Bill went through Parliament. I hope that it recognises that that was a mistake and that we can and should revisit it now.
I wonder whether Neil Findlay has read section H1 in schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998, which reserves the Employment Rights Act 1996 to Westminster and therefore deprives this Parliament of the power to legislate on what people are paid. I absolutely agree that we should do it—we could make common cause in doing that thing—but does Neil Findlay take the legal point?
As a matter of fact, I was just reading that five minutes ago. I cannot help but recognise the glee with which Mr Stevenson tells us that we cannot do anything. That is the problem—we should be doing what we can to help people now, not gleefully talking about what we cannot do.
We should go back to the European Union and ask a different question on procurement and the living wage. I suggest that we ask how we can use public procurement to extend coverage of the living wage. We should look at how the Government pays out grants through regional selective assistance and other subsidies. Money that goes to charities, agencies and all the rest should have criteria and conditions relating to pay and conditions attached as part of the grant-awarding process. We should ensure that inward investors such as Amazon, which we paid £10 million to locate in Fife, pay fair wages and offer decent conditions, as part of the grant award. We should look at the small business bonus scheme and have a different rates for businesses that pay the living wage and meet other fair employment criteria. We should urge organisations in the charitable and social enterprise sector to lead the way as exemplars in their employment practices. I know that many do that, but not all of them do.
With the will, we can bring all the parties together to tackle the matter head on, co-operatively alongside trade unions and civic society—or we can sit back, point the finger and say that it is not our fault. I hope that the Government will set aside its previous approach and move on, thereby showing that this Parliament can put aside political differences to act quickly. I am up for that; I wonder whether the Government is.
The Labour motion focuses on the important issue of education. The Government’s record on educational attainment and college policy could be described as poor at best, and offensive at worst. As has been mentioned, we have witnessed a drop in the number of young people who are gaining national 3 to 5 qualifications. The cabinet secretary jumped up to tell us that the reduction has been not 20 per cent but 6 per cent; she must forgive me for not offering her congratulations and a round of applause on her performance. Two and a half thousand college jobs have gone and 130,000 college places have been lost. Once again, the poorest communities that are suffering the most are being failed because of the lack of focus on those who have not enjoyed their share of this country’s wealth.
Although new policies including the attainment challenge and the like are welcome, they are a drop in the ocean against the backdrop of the savage cuts to local government. West Lothian Council, which covers the cabinet secretary’s constituency, has had a cut of £88 million to its budget. In order to meet the Government’s demand on teacher numbers, the council needs 42 more teachers, but how many will funding from the Scottish Government deliver? It will deliver nine more teachers. Budgets for other services that have already been cut will have to be cut again and again. That picture is repeated across budgets and local authorities throughout the country, but the cabinet secretary seeks to blame the teachers. It is everybody and anybody’s fault but hers or that of the Government that she has been part of for the past eight years.
We cannot go on like this. Cohesiveness in our society will be achieved by driving up incomes; education is a key ingredient in that. We can either work together to do that or point the finger and blame someone else—anybody else.
16:04
I am somewhat bemused by the debate. The final paragraph of the motion states that
“education is both key to addressing the scandal of inequality in Scottish society and a crucial investment in the future of Scotland’s economy.”
As Mark McDonald lucidly pointed out, it is but one key—albeit a very important one—to addressing both those issues.
My bemusement is also caused by the motion’s call for an impact assessment of the attainment gap in Scotland’s schools. The Education and Culture Committee is doing that very thing with, I have to say, significant input from its two Labour members and Mrs Scanlon. We believe that the route to closing the attainment gap—our committee will consider this—is by improving skills and achievement and thus the economy. Apart from money, we will consider all the other things that contribute to investment. We will also consider the assessment of the roles of parents, teachers, associated organisations, local authorities and so on.
At the heart of that is fairness. Tackling inequality is part of that and supporting equality of access to education is a priority. Inequality in education is a hurdle to overcome as we plan for ever-greater sustainable economic and environmental growth. However, as I say, other issues have an impact on that.
In that one context, the motion rightly speaks of education as one key element in Scotland’s future economy, but the motion goes astray elsewhere. It references the OECD report. I have a copy here. The report makes no mention of Scotland. It does, however, highlight that, as the motion should have recognised, the ever-increasing disparity in inequality is one of the UK’s making over the past 30 years. If you doubt me, read the full OECD report or, more important, read Joseph Stiglitz’s informative book, “The Price of Inequality”.
Education attainment, and our economy, has been at the mercy of that lemming-like philosophy of financial greed as pursued by UK Governments over that period of time. There was rising income inequality amid two recessions; in the latter one, that curbed Scotland’s ability—despite what Mr Findlay says, I do not know where we will print all the money—and curbed Scottish budgets from the UK.
Income equality rising by only three Gini points has dragged down economic growth by 0.35 per cent a year for not just the past seven years, but in the past 25 years and, given the economic drag, for some time before that. Between 1990 and 2010, economic growth would have been—could have been—nine percentage points higher had income levels been held steady at the 1985 level. From that growth would have flown more revenue and the ability to spend more if the Government so willed on areas such as education and reducing the inequality gap.
To help you again, 1985 is 23 years before this Government came to power. Successive UK Governments have not only run finances into the ground, but put consumption before investment in our skills, our productivity and our children. There is no evidence anywhere of tackling inequality, unfairness or injustice, which now sees the UK with the fourth-highest level of income inequality in the OECD countries. I repeat that Scotland’s budget has suffered as a consequence.
I welcome Neil Findlay’s comment about talking and working together. However, there is no point in Labour coming here weeping crocodile tears having hitched its wagon to that lot in last year’s referendum campaign. If we are to address—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer.
Mr Brodie, could you—
If we are to manage—
I have a point of order, Mr Brodie. I was also about to speak to you about unparliamentary language.
Presiding Officer, I understand that we are expected to talk to colleagues in a courteous manner. I do not think that referring to the Conservatives as “that lot” is courteous in any way.
May I ask through you, Presiding Officer, that the member apologises and retracts that statement?
Under the standing orders, members should be courteous to each other. They should also address their remarks through the chair, and they should not speak while the Presiding Officer is speaking.
Mr Brodie, please resume.
I accept that and I will apologise, Presiding Officer. The point is now made.
If we manage not just to address poverty, which is critical, but to address lower incomes and the redistribution of wealth through a unified tax and benefits system, we can further expand attainment, personal development and the skills that are allied to vocational and academic aspirations.
Will the member take an intervention?
No—I have already had one.
I am afraid that Mr Brodie is closing.
That can come only with full financial responsibility. We must acknowledge our elevated place in the global education galaxy, but we must still recognise the importance of core education skills.
We can swap conflicting numbers, as some members appear to want to do, but we need to get behind our excellent teachers, our college lecturers, parents and the pupils themselves to focus on supporting the changes and tackling the challenges that we face. We need to provide funds such as the attainment challenge fund and to promote school improvement partnerships. We need to work together to make the necessary changes and diminish the challenges that we face, so let us do that.
16:10
Jackie Baillie’s motion highlights the OECD research that was published in December last year, which found that income inequality has a negative and statistically significant effect on medium-term economic growth. That same analysis tells us that the Gini coefficient for the OECD increased from 0.29 in the 1980s to 0.32 in 2012, so inequality is a growing problem right across western developed societies.
Inequality is a particular problem in the UK—the union that Jackie Baillie and her Conservative partners in Better Together campaigned so vigorously for Scotland to retain. They said that we were better together. Indeed, as part of the Smith commission, Labour continued to repeat that mistake and dug in its heels to prevent a transfer to Scotland of powers that would allow us to reduce inequality in our society, most notably through the minimum wage and welfare measures. Perhaps Labour members will now consider the folly of that position in the light of the general election result, when the people of Scotland told them exactly what they thought of Scottish Labour and its position.
I understand the member’s argument; it is a cyclical one that she makes constantly. I point her to Joseph Stiglitz’s view that, of the three determinants of inequality, education is the one that provides a solution. Responsibility for education is wholly devolved. What has Joan McAlpine’s party’s Government done to tackle inequality in the past eight years?
I am very glad that Jackie Baillie mentioned Professor Stiglitz. If she is a real admirer of him, she might have heard him on Radio 4’s “Start the Week” this week, on which he praised the Scottish Government’s record on using education as a means of reducing inequality. He spoke at some length about how the Scottish Government was pursuing social democratic policies that were absent in the rest of the UK. He was unstinting in his praise of the Scottish Government with regard to education.
Only this week, European Union research told us that the UK is the most unequal country in Europe. Professor Stiglitz—who, as we have heard, is the world’s foremost authority on economic inequality—has made clear his view of the UK and, in particular, its following of the American model of higher education, which has entrenched and driven inequality, not just in the US but in other societies that have followed that model. It would be interesting to know what Professor Stiglitz thought of the UK Labour Party going into the general election arguing that students in England and Wales should pay £6,000 a year in tuition fees for university. He certainly would not have approved of that. That proposed arrangement compares very poorly with our record in Scotland, which is second to none in Europe.
Does Joan McAlpine think that Professor Stiglitz would approve of cuts in bursaries for the poorest students in Scotland compared with those for students in the rest of the UK? We have the poorest support and the highest drop-out rates. I would have thought that anyone who was committed to equality in education would at least want to look at those statistics and think about what we could do now to make a difference to the lives of the students concerned.
The NUS has praised the Scottish Government’s package for students as the best in the UK. Research by the NUS shows that participation in higher education decreases by 4.4 per cent for every £1,000 increase in fees, so we can add up the cost of Labour’s proposal to charge students £6,000 a year in university fees.
Given that we are debating a Labour motion, it is worth noting that Labour voted against the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Act 2013, which put into law for the first time a requirement for universities to widen access for students from poorer backgrounds. At that time, Labour refused to listen to people such as NUS Scotland; John Henderson, chief executive of Scotland’s Colleges; and Professor Sir Timothy O’Shea, then principal of Edinburgh university, all of whom praised a bill that Labour inexplicably voted against.
Will the member give way?
No. I have already taken two interventions.
The member is also approaching her last minute.
The effects of welfare reform and social inequality that my colleague Kevin Stewart talked passionately about have been self-evident for some weeks now. In fact, the Welfare Reform Committee has been taking evidence on the effect of austerity on families, and when we took evidence from social work chiefs a few weeks ago, they talked about the effects on families and how the number of children at risk or being taken into care was rising as a result of welfare cuts. We also know from Sheffield Hallam University research that those cuts impact most directly on couples with children and single parents.
If that is what is happening at the sharp end, it follows that attainment will be affected by a rise in austerity—I have to say, the Labour Party did very little to counter that in the last general election campaign with its support for £30 billion of cuts over the next few years that can only make the situation worse.
I will finish off by quoting the name of the day—[Interruption.]
Order, please. The member is closing.
In “The Price of Inequality”, Professor Joe Stiglitz says:
“The facts shouldn’t get in the way of a pleasant fantasy.”
That is a lesson for the Labour Party. It should note the facts of its own record in supporting Tory austerity—[Interruption.]
Order.
—and get away from the pleasant fantasy that the SNP is responsible for everything.
16:16
Addressing the attainment gap in our society is our top priority, because breaking down the barriers that are faced by those in the poorest communities is not just the right thing to do but something that makes economic sense. As a result, we welcome the Scottish Government’s recently announced plan to try to tackle the matter after eight years in office.
Given that educational inequality is a symptom of the deeper problem of poverty that we need to address, the focused nature of any programme is vital. I have used this example before but in Cumbernauld, where I live, the variation in educational attainment is massive. In the Cumbernauld North ward, child poverty is 8 per cent, which is already far too high, but when we take the two-minute walk across the footbridge over the M80 into Cumbernauld South, the figure almost trebles to a staggering 23 per cent. As I have said, that difference in child poverty impacts on the educational attainment of young people, which can stop them breaking out of poverty’s vicious cycle. As a result, any measures that we agree to tackle attainment must be focused on our most deprived communities.
With that in mind, Scottish Labour would use the additional revenues from a new 50p tax rate, redistributing resources from those who can afford it to those who need it most, to invest an additional £25 million per year over and above the Government’s proposals to tackle educational disadvantage. We would double the number of teaching assistants in every primary school associated with the 20 secondary schools facing the greatest challenges of deprivation. We would introduce a new literacy programme for schools and recruit and train literacy specialists to support pupils in the associated primary schools and first and second-year pupils in each of those 20 secondary schools. We would also offer support to parents so that they could learn with their children, and we would introduce a special literacy support programme for looked-after children.
We would ask Education Scotland to carry out an annual review on progress in tackling educational inequality in Scotland’s schools through the schools inspectorate programme, including a specific report on looked-after children. Moreover, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning would report to the Parliament on the progress that was being made annually on reducing the attainment gap to allow that progress to be monitored and scrutinised by us in Parliament.
Other issues that are related to poverty and inequality are impacting on educational attainment, such as the increase in the use of private tutors and the use of placing requests. There has been a 300 per cent increase in the use of private tutors in the past year alone. Wealthier families have the ability to give their children an extra boost. They should be compared with children in families who cannot afford private tuition. That extra boost can be used when a child is struggling in a particular area or to help in the run-up to exams. In itself, that is not a bad thing, but where is the support for the pupil from the poorer background when they are struggling or when they need that support during exam time?
We have supported the provision of high-quality wraparound care for primary school pupils, such as the provision of breakfast clubs and homework clubs to give pupils a productive start and end to the day and to suit the needs and requirements of working parents. That provision would give all pupils, regardless of their family income, extra support in their learning.
Supported study sessions are often run in the evenings in schools at exam times to support pupils, but they are offered by committed and motivated teachers who offer up their own time to support their pupils. That is an excellent way of supporting pupils at exam time, but provision is patchy across the country and across subjects. There is a transport cost issue for pupils who would normally get the school bus home. Again, that impacts disproportionately on families with lower incomes.
The placing request system is also creating a two-tier system of education and is causing problems for education authorities in managing school staff and the school estate. As soon as a particular school starts to get a reputation, or there is a perception among parents of its slipping or failing, or another school starts to get an excellent reputation, parents with the means to pay for transport will use the placing request system to move their children out of their catchment area to another school. As a result, only children from the poorest families in the area attend some schools. The impact that that has on attainment levels is clear to see.
I am glad that the Government is making educational attainment a priority after eight years in government. I hope that it will look at some of the areas that we have spoken about. It can start by improving its plans, redistributing wealth, and increasing the resources that are available to families in our poorest communities.
The final open debate speaker is Stewart Stevenson. You have no more than six minutes, please.
16:22
I will posit an approach to how we might deal with the issue that is before us. We should describe the problem, obtain information about it, extract meaningful data and normalise the data across the timeline over which it is spread. From that, we should identify solutions, compare the identified solutions with one another, select solutions to take forward, find the finance and undertake implementation. We should then start again, because it is unlikely that one time round the loop will solve the problem.
One thing that has come out of the debate is that, in our describing of the solutions, there is comparatively little difference between us across the chamber. We accept that there is before us a challenge that will endure over the long term, but we must make progress on it.
We are not doing quite so well at obtaining information. We have a table from Dr Jim Scott’s research, but there is no context.
How many times in the past eight years have finding data, interrogating it and finding solutions already been done? The point is not to diss the evidence that somebody has presented but to accept that there is a problem and ask whether we are spending the money on the right things.
I am concerned that SNP back benchers, rather than the cabinet secretary, seem to want to close down the debate and argue about the evidence rather than agree that there is a problem and come to an agreement on what the solutions might be.
It would be helpful if the member listened to what I said. I acknowledged the challenge that is before us, and I do so again for the hard of heeding, if any thus described are present now.
To return to Dr Scott’s data, such extract from it as there is tells me almost nothing of itself. It tells me nothing because it fails a number of the tests that I described. I accept that it is data. It has a timeline, but I have no knowledge of what normalisation has been done between the different parts of the timeline so that it is proper to compare one year with another.
Will Stewart Stevenson take an intervention?
I will make a little progress, but I might come back to Mr Findlay.
I also have no information about the sources of each element of data that is on the single sheet of paper that has been provided.
Will Stewart Stevenson give way?
One moment, please.
An academic paper would normally have the information that I mentioned. I expect that the whole paper has it, but I say gently to my Labour colleagues that it would have been helpful to their cause and to good debate if we had had the whole paper.
It is abundantly clear that neither Dr Scott nor anyone in the chamber is on the same intellectual wavelength as Mr Stevenson, but that comes as no surprise to any of us. Perhaps, in his wisdom, he could tell us what the problems are in Scottish education. We will all sit here rapt at his intelligence.
I am conscious that I have six minutes but, although I accept the plaudits that are due more to the genetic inheritance from my parents than my own efforts, I make the point that the real issue on which we all have to engage is that we must make common cause to get the whole picture in front of us so that we can pick out and start to agree on the bits that we want to prioritise.
The Labour Party’s motion moves to solutions. For example, it talks about
“doubling the number of teaching assistants and 10 new literacy teachers in each of the associated primary schools of the 20 high schools facing the greatest challenges”.
I cannot possibly rebut that proposal, because I do not have any of the workings for how we have arrived at it as the magic bullet. By the way, it might be the correct answer. I do not reject it because it has come from the Labour Party, but neither can I accept it, because I have no workings, so I do not know on what axioms it was based, what the in-built assumptions were or even what the policy objectives were in any detail.
I turn to the underlying numbers behind the Labour Party’s proposal. Earlier, I asked how much it would cost to employ a teaching assistant and a literacy teacher. I got a fairly definite £20,000 for the former and a less certain response on the latter.
Perhaps Mr Stevenson will excuse the memory of an older man. The correct figures are £36,705 for a literacy specialist and £14,880 for a teaching assistant. That includes national insurance and pension payments.
That is excellent. I will certainly go away and look at that information and I am sure that colleagues will equally do so. However, I say gently that it would be helpful to have such information before a debate rather than when the last back-bench member speaks, and I asked for it earlier in the debate.
In my last 45 seconds, I will illustrate how numbers can mislead. An article in today’s Financial Times says that productivity in the UK is falling and that that is a good thing. The reason is that some of the relatively low-skilled jobs that have been difficult to fill in places such as London are being filled. That is helping the overall economy, even though productivity is going down because those jobs are being filled. That is an example of how numbers can confuse without explanation and discussion. Let us have explanation and discussion.
16:29
I was intrigued by Stewart Stevenson’s remarks. He talked about finding common cause across the chamber to get the whole picture. The Government has had eight years to get the whole picture, and one page produced by an academic has created more debate than any information that the Government has provided in those eight years. Perhaps it is a bit too late for the SNP to look for the whole picture.
I will praise an SNP member: John Mason made an interesting and thoughtful speech, as he often does in finance debates. He addressed real questions about the performance of Glasgow colleges, about the balance between employment and self-employment and the value of self-employment, and about the strict analysis of exams and numbers versus a more rounded approach to the analysis of the wider goals of education.
John Mason’s focus on education, employment, work and the economy was a lesson for other SNP back benchers, who should perhaps ask more questions of their Government rather than point fingers at every other Government and at everybody else who might have some responsibility for the issues. After all, we are in the chamber to hold the Government to account, whether we are Liberal Democrat, Labour, Conservative or SNP back benchers. We all have a responsibility to hold the Government to account, so I advise SNP back benchers to follow John Mason’s great example today. He asked serious and thoughtful questions about the Government’s performance, as well as wider questions.
Joan McAlpine’s speech was quite interesting. She decided to lecture everybody else about student finance, but she forgot that, since 2007, students here have been taking out double the amount of loans, while bursaries—Johann Lamont referred to them—have fallen to £600. Far from dumping the debt, the SNP has doubled the debt for students.
We have seen fewer students from deprived backgrounds in Scotland entering higher education. That trend has not been followed in England, where we managed to change that. We bucked the trend in England, and perhaps the SNP should look south of the border for another lesson.
Does that mean that Willie Rennie does not regret his former party leader’s backtracking on making universities free? Does he support the £9,000 in tuition fees that are imposed on students in England and Wales?
It is pretty well known that my views on that are on the record. It is disappointing that, when faced with a serious question about people from deprived backgrounds, Joan McAlpine chooses to point the finger at somebody else rather than reflect on the SNP’s record. That is the Scottish Government all over.
We have made a serious contribution to the debate by proposing two serious, liberal, person-centred and focused approaches to tackling inequality. I take Mark McDonald’s point that this is not just about education but about standards in employment and the living wage aspects of the debate. I do not disagree with him on that, but I aspire to more for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. I do not want them to aspire to be just above the living wage; I want them to aspire to be even greater than that minimum, living-wage level. That is why I believe that the route out of poverty is at its heart about quality education from the early years. We need the pupil premium that we implemented down south, but we also need to create more jobs to give people opportunities.
I know that the member does not seek to be disingenuous, but I, too, aspire to that same level of attainment. However, he must accept that dealing with the here and now is just as important as dealing with the future for such young people, because it is only through dealing with the here and now that we improve their future, and that includes the external factors as well as the educational ones.
I do not disagree. However, what so often happens in education and economy debates in this Parliament is that we look to something else that is a bit beyond our reach as the solution, rather than tackle the problem at the heart of the matter. The Parliament and the Government need to rise to the challenge of providing more nursery education. Malcolm Chisholm talked about that. We must ensure that those from two years old upwards get a good-quality education, because creating that foundation is the best way of changing their life chances.
The other thing that we must do is target support. A sum of £2.5 billion in support was channelled into the pupil premium south of the border to provide direct support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Rather than say that a whole area is deprived, it focuses on the support that individuals need, which ensures that they get the chance to get up and get on. I do not deny what Mark McDonald said about the other factors in society, but I want us to focus on the debate at hand, rather than look for reasons why we cannot possibly act in the areas that SNP back benchers have suggested.
I will conclude on the point that John Mason made about asking pupils how many of them wanted to go into engineering. I am a scientist, and I want more people to study STEM subjects. I am also keen that we get a better gender balance in STEM subjects. Far too often, women who study science in higher education institutions leave the profession to go off and do something else. We need to stem that flow and ensure that they stay in the science and engineering sector. That is fundamental to improving skills and opportunities for everyone across society.
16:35
This has been an interesting debate. In particular, I would highlight the thoughtful speeches from Willie Rennie, Graeme Pearson, Malcolm Chisholm and John Mason, which show that there is agreement across the chamber that this issue is the most important one in education. That is because the greatest gift that we give to any child is the ability to read, write and count. It is therefore of considerable concern when, yet again, we see laid bare the true facts about the issue that we have with literacy in our schools—I do not think that it matters which data we are using, because they all point to the same thing. Obviously, the issue has a detrimental effect on the skills that many pupils will take into workplaces, which are increasingly diverse and competitive.
For us, there is particular concern on two fronts. First, in the past, and over a long period of time, Scotland had a proud record when it came to school education for all pupils, irrespective of their background, especially with regard to the acquirement of the three Rs, so we must ask why we are not now making the progress that we ought to be. I do not accept that pupils are less bright than before, so something else must be wrong.
Secondly, despite all the initiatives—the Scottish Government’s literacy commission, the work of the Scottish Book Trust, the play, talk, read initiative or, indeed, the curriculum for excellence itself—we do not seem to be making the necessary progress.
I know that the Scottish Government will come back and say that it is too soon to judge the curriculum for excellence, and I have a little sympathy with that point of view, but what I will not accept is that there is something new about all teachers being involved in teaching literacy. As Malcolm Chisholm rightly said, one of the reasons why Scottish education was admired around the world was precisely because all teachers were conscious of their role in teaching literacy, irrespective of their subject, and they were trained to do that. A point that was made in last week’s Times Educational Supplement—I think that it was also made by the literacy commission—is that we perhaps need to revisit the teacher training programme with regard to literacy skills.
In her speech last night, the cabinet secretary said that the Government’s education policy would be driven by evidence and not by dogma or ideology. I am pleased to hear that. However, let us remind ourselves of the evidence that has been produced by speakers in this debate. The proportion of pupils performing well or very well in reading has fallen across all groups. In primary 4, it dropped from 83 per cent in 2012 to 78 per cent in 2014. In writing, 72 per cent of primary 7 pupils were doing well or very well in writing, but that fell to 68 per cent in 2014. In basic numeracy skills, 69 per cent of primary 4s are doing well or very well, but that falls to only 42 per cent by secondary 2.
The cabinet secretary has rightly said that those statistics are not acceptable. They are not, particularly after her party has been in government for eight years. However, let us continue to take an evidence-based approach about what is wrong.
For a long time, most primary school teachers and heads have been saying that there needs to be a more structured approach to literacy teaching and more rigour when it comes to testing reading, writing and arithmetic. They will tell you that an approach in which there is a tacit understanding that teachers will use the tests only when they feel that the pupil has reached the right level to pass does not work. They will tell you that there have been too many escape routes and that it has been far too easy for there to be different approaches to testing in different parts of Scotland, a point that my colleague Mary Scanlon raised.
Sometimes that has happened because heads or local authorities wanted to ensure that the timing of the tests coincided with the publication of schools’ performance results; and sometimes there was a reluctance to apply the tests on a uniform basis because there was a perception that they would be too stressful an experience for many of the children. The critics sometimes tell us that formal testing makes pupils and their parents overanxious. However, I suspect that those parents will be a lot more anxious if their son or daughter becomes one of the 9,000 pupils who leave school still unable to read or write properly. Teachers are highly professional people and are perfectly capable of administering the tests properly and allaying the anxieties of pupils and parents, so I am afraid that I do not accept those excuses.
That brings me to our amendment on the change to the number of exams that are being sat. There is a division of secondary education into the phase of broad general education and the senior phase, which is very important when it comes to making subject choices. The new exams mean that there has been a decrease in the number of subjects that are available in S4. In most schools, the number of subjects has come down from eight to either seven or six.
Ironically, that change was made in the interests of promoting a broader educational experience in S1 to S3. However, unsurprisingly, it has led to a decrease in the total number of presentations in S4. That is not to say that there are falling standards across the board. However, it means—and will continue to mean, particularly in relation to its impact on highers and advanced highers—that pupils will have fewer qualifications when they leave school.
Will the member give way?
I am afraid that the member is drawing to a close.
That issue is a concern. It is impacting on colleges and universities and parents and pupils find that the Government has not yet been able to explain it. It is a very serious issue. That is why we have lodged our amendment. On top of that, the overall standard of literacy is very much a concern. As the cabinet secretary has said herself, it is simply not good enough.
16:41
I was very much looking forward to the debate, given my previous background in the youth employment brief. Much of my work over a number of years now has been on supporting connectivity between the world of work and the world of education. The work that I led on developing the young workforce is indeed an agenda that I remain deeply committed to. Youth unemployment is at its lowest level for seven years but—make no mistake about it—we still have a lot to do in our economy and in education to address systemic and structural youth unemployment.
Is the minister happy about the fact that, out of 3,767 looked-after children, only 20 per cent were in employment, education or training after leaving care?
No, I am most certainly not happy about that. One of the themes in all our work—and in education in particular—is the need to focus firmly on looked-after children. I hope that we will come back to that in the Government debate next week.
Depending on your perspective, this debate has been either spirited or ill tempered. We have heard the more considered tones of the likes of Malcolm Chisholm and Clare Adamson, which I think was appreciated by all.
Many members have spoken about Labour’s table of Dr Scott’s data. I will reiterate very quickly—because I want to respond to other substantive issues—that the number of people achieving qualifications at levels 3 to 5 did not fall by 20 per cent in 2013-14; it fell by around 6 per cent due to there being fewer pupils in S4 and fewer presentations at S3 and due to curriculum for excellence’s focus on doing fewer subjects in more depth.
I say to Liz Smith that fewer qualifications in S4 will not lead to fewer qualifications at S5 or S6. That is a point that the university sector has also reiterated and supported.
Will the minister give way on that point?
Maybe later. Just for clarity, I will put the full details of the Government’s analysis of the issues in and around Dr Scott’s data in SPICe. No doubt it is an issue that we may well return to. However, I want to focus on the substantive issues that were raised by many members.
Willie Rennie spoke about the pupil premium. I have looked at that very carefully and I will continue to look at interventions that provide a more targeted approach, get resources and services to the children who are most in need of them and support those on the front line. In essence, that is the philosophy underpinning the Scottish attainment challenge: flexible funds that can be used to support the kids most in need and those on the front line.
Some of the evidence around the pupil premium has been less than clear. For example, the social mobility and child poverty commission said that the money was often used to alleviate cuts from elsewhere and did not always get to the children who were most in need. I assure Mr Rennie that I share his high aspirations for all our children, and that we will continue to look at how to target resources better, building on a strong platform of universal support.
Liz Smith is right to focus on the central place of literacy and numeracy in our curriculum; we will come back to that in more detail in the debate next week. Although most children are performing well or very well—for reading, the figure is eight out of 10 children—there is no doubt that the survey results for 2012 to 2014 show a decrease. We cannot have that, so we need to redouble our efforts. In various debates and in response to parliamentary questions I have spoken at length about the work that we have undertaken in the past year and what we are doing to redouble our efforts now.
Mary Scanlon eloquently raised some of the concerns of parents, none of which was new to me. I remind her—not to apportion blame but simply to state a fact—that local authorities have a statutory responsibility for delivering education, and they therefore have operational responsibility for many of the matters that she raised.
We need comparable data that allows us to track and monitor individual children so that we know what is and is not working, and what we need to do to make a difference in the here and now. In my speech last night, I echoed the words of Sue Ellis, another academic, who said that we need to have a national debate about the sensible use of information and data. It is very important that we have the right information—not pointless information that we do not need; we do not want to increase the bureaucratic burden—about individual children at a local authority level and at a national level. Some of the work in and around the national improvement framework is about bringing all that together.
I make no apologies for investing £51 million to protect teacher numbers. I am very proud of the fact that we have a graduate workforce of professional first-class teachers, and I do not want the number of teachers in our system to fall any further. The important point is that teacher numbers have stabilised since 2011 at around 50,000 to 51,000.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
No, not quite yet.
If, following the action that we took earlier this year to reach a new agreement with our partners in local government, we find that structures and funding methodologies are standing in the way of doing what is right to ensure that our children get the best education, nothing will be off the table.
It is very important that we shine a light on the successes of Scottish education as well as giving an honest evaluation of what we are not getting right. Our biggest priority is the attainment challenge: the gap between children from the least deprived and most deprived communities. We also need to do more on literacy and numeracy.
However, we have had considerable success in our school system. For example, we have reduced further and faster the proportion of young people leaving school with low or no qualifications. However, we want young people to leave with the highest level of qualifications. We have increased the proportion of young people who leave school with the minimum qualifications at Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 5, but we need to aim high for all our children.
Unlike Labour, we halted the decline in our international standing; the PISA results show that we perform well in maths and are above average in reading and science.
Cabinet secretary, you must draw to a close, please.
The reality, however, is that we are still middle ranking, and that is what we have to change.
I say briefly to Jackie Baillie and Willie Rennie, who said that we should focus on the powers that we have, picking up on the point that Mark McDonald made—
I am afraid that it must be brief, cabinet secretary.
I say that I agree, but we will always argue for more powers. Nonetheless, while we will do everything in our power to eradicate poverty, it will never be an excuse for failure.
I call Iain Gray to wind up the debate.
16:50
Attainment in our schools is not the only link between education and the economy and economic growth. In a country such as ours, where our whole history is built on skills, knowledge and inventiveness and where we still have many world-class education institutions, one would expect that a Government that had been in power for eight years would have a worked-out economic strategy. One would expect that at the core of the strategy would be the idea of leveraging the excellent research that is done here to provide new knowledge-based jobs and to push our industries ever further up the skills chain in order to compete in a globalising world.
The truth is, however, that the Government’s economic strategy amounts simply to the imaginary benefits of hypothetical powers. It is an economic strategy that posits the idea that constitutional change would, in and of itself, automatically lead to growth rates that would be unprecedented in our history and, indeed, the history of the western world. However, not only does the Government not have the kind of strategy that we need, it does not even provide support for such a strategy. In recent times, we have seen cuts to the global excellence fund, which supports exactly the kind of research that we need in our universities to create jobs through commercialisation. We have also seen the abolition of the intermediary technology institutes, which have been replaced with innovation centres. The centres have been tasked with creating 5,000 jobs in five years, but they are now two years in and, as far as I can see, the only jobs that they have created are the 65 within the centres themselves.
Much of the debate—all of it, really—has focused on schools and attainment. That is because, across the chamber, we agree about the economic importance of unleashing the potential of our people. If we fail to equip our young people for their futures, our greatest shame is that we blight their lives, but perhaps the greatest price that we pay will be the price of economic failure.
That is outlined most tellingly in the OECD report that is referred to in the motion. I say to Mr Brodie—I think that he mentioned the issue—that, although the report does not refer to Scotland particularly, the numbers are so dramatic that I think that we can draw our own conclusions from it. It says that, if all youngsters in the UK could reach a basic skills level by 2030, that would add £2.3 trillion to the nation’s economy. We know that, in Scotland, we have the attainment gap and that our youngsters do not all reach the basic skills level, so we must know that the impact on our economy is also dramatic. Although the greatest failure in our problems with literacy and numeracy is the moral failure of letting down those children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, it also matters for our economy.
We see from the Government’s own literacy survey that we are making no progress on reducing the attainment gap and that there is a fall in literacy at all levels and for all economic deciles. Last year, exactly the same situation prevailed in numeracy. I realise that the Government and the cabinet secretary acknowledge that—she has done so today. However, she cannot somehow declare that this is year zero, as if the Government was starting all over. Last night, the cabinet secretary told local authorities that they must own their attainment gap; I say to her that she must own her Government’s record for the past eight years.
I am not saying that the SNP Government has done nothing in schools for the past eight years. It introduced curriculum for excellence. For the avoidance of doubt, I point out that we support the principles of curriculum for excellence—we began their development. However, the implementation of curriculum for excellence has been entirely the work of the SNP, and for years teachers, headteachers, educationists and parents have been warning that there are problems.
Jim Scott’s figures are only the latest alarm bell that has been sounded about the impact of CFE itself and of the new national exams and the way that they have been introduced.
I regret what I think is the cabinet secretary’s rather patronising and foolish attempt today to debunk both those statistics and Dr Scott’s credibility as a researcher. The statistics that we have discussed today were made available last week. They clearly show a 12 per cent drop in the number of exams that were sat and a 20 per cent drop in those that were passed.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. I will come to Mr Stevenson in a second.
I say to the cabinet secretary that Dr Scott was a teacher for pretty well all his working life. He was the headteacher of four different schools, he is an education research fellow and he knows the difference between the number of pupils and the number of candidates. We have been very careful to say that this shows 102,000 fewer candidates—that means individuals sitting in individual exams. We know that some of that is explained by the fact that candidates are doing fewer exams. However, as I think Mary Scanlon said, many parents were told that their young people could still do eight subjects, and many were told that they had to do only five subjects. That has been left to individual schools.
There is a problem in the reduction in the number of enrolments and in the reduction in attainment. I say to Kevin Stewart and to Stewart Stevenson—the statisticians in our company who would like to examine the statistics—that the statistics are summarised from the SQA post-review statistics that were published in December. If they have not got around to counting them up and normalising them, I am sorry, but Jim Scott has, and we are not entitled to ignore them.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. I am sorry.
The cabinet secretary has answered those statistics by giving outcomes relating to pupils who have not sat the new national exams. In my view, she would be well advised to try to sort out the problems instead of trying to fix the figures.
The cabinet secretary has to understand that there are two problems. First, the education system that she is privileged to lead has traditionally been highly regarded for being both broad and high quality. The statistics show that it is narrowing and declining. That is a problem to which she must turn her mind.
Secondly, on attainment, I acknowledge that the cabinet secretary has acted and has introduced the attainment fund. We welcomed that investment—I continue to welcome it—but I reserve the right to scrutinise how that investment is being made.
The cabinet secretary talked about the attainment advisers—the core of the attainment challenge. We have had exchanges about them before in which it became clear that she did not know how many attainment advisers there were going to be. She thought that there were going to be 12, the First Minister thought that there were going to be 32, and now we think that there is going to be one for every local authority. Again Mary Scanlon is right. I have the advert here: we do not know whether we will have them for two years or 12 years, whether they will be part time or full time or how many there will be, but the worst thing about it is that they will all be secondments. We are going to take the best teachers out of schools and put them in local authority offices.
That is not the way to address the attainment gap. The truth is that the way to address the attainment gap is to have more teachers, more teaching assistants so that teachers can teach, and more literacy and numeracy specialists working with families and with the youngest children.
That is why we have suggested additional action of exactly that kind, over and above the Government’s programme. Yes, that was based on the introduction of a 50p tax rate, which will not happen quickly now—
You need to wind up, Mr Gray.
—but perhaps we could agree that, given the opportunity, we would tax the better off and use that to start to close the attainment gap that we have debated all afternoon.
The truth is this: how much we care about this issue will be demonstrated by how much we are willing to invest. That is why the education record of a Scottish Government that cut education spending, when even the Tories in England were increasing it, falls short and lets down our young people and Scotland itself.
Previous
Portfolio Question TimeNext
Business Motions