Chamber and committees

The priority is to ensure that every pupil has access to high-quality teaching by having the right numbers of teachers in the right places across Scotland. Census data shows that, as a result of our continued investment, the number of teachers in our schools has increased for the first time in three years. Further, our 2026-27 budget provides local authorities with an additional £186.5 million to protect teacher numbers.

We are undertaking a detailed national evidence-led teacher workforce planning exercise as we seek to understand and project the requirements for newly qualified teachers. We also have bursary schemes for hard-to-fill subjects. It is worth noting that we recently delivered a campaign to recruit more teachers into areas where there are shortages, including in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.

Although we are committed to working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and others on long-term workforce planning, local authorities are ultimately the employer.

I will answer the question in two parts. The Government has worked hard to create and foster conditions to make teaching the attractive and exciting career proposition that we all know it can be. We have done that not least by ensuring that our teachers are the best paid across the United Kingdom but by ensuring the continuance of the best pupil teacher ratio across the UK—good classroom settings in which to teach.

Secondly, we are adopting the new policy of the three-year job guarantee for newly qualified teachers, directly in response to having heard concerns—exactly like those that Mr Harley has put on the record—from newly qualified teachers who are looking for a degree of permanence. We will be developing that policy, and I will be pleased to update the Parliament with more detail in due course.

I thank Jack Middleton for securing the debate. I was very pleased, recently, to meet him along with the Minister for Business and Fair Work. He and others are absolutely right to reflect both the cross-party consensus on the issue and the support across civic society. I add the Scottish Government’s voice to that support by being absolutely clear that STV’s choice to reduce news coverage in the north-east and Ofcom’s decision to approve that are completely unacceptable for not just the audiences who are directly affected but the people across Scotland who are experiencing the erosion of their right to access relevant, reliable and trustworthy news, which—as has, rightly, been reflected on tonight—is absolutely fundamental to local democracy and accountability.

Scotland’s areas and regions are distinctive. We are made up of different communities with different interests, different needs and, as both Laura Mitchell and Helen McDade have reflected, different emerging news stories. The issues that are important to people in Glasgow will not always be the same as those that are important to the people of Aberdeen, and we all have a right to be informed about our local area, our local interests and our local people. It resonated with me when Jackie Dunbar said that that local voice is what fosters trust—and trust in our news and public service broadcasting is under threat like never before.

It is simply not good enough that STV can just decide that it no longer wishes to fulfil its public service broadcasting obligations. There is huge opposition to that from audiences. Liam Kerr was right to say that only 4 per cent of audiences have demonstrated support for the plans. It is also not good enough that the regulator, Ofcom, can approve those plans with apparently no regard for the interests of the audiences that it is supposed to protect. That is exactly why broadcasting has to be devolved to Scotland. It is clear, not just from that decision but from decisions across the piece, that our priorities will not be best served by public service broadcasting that is organised on a UK level—or, crucially, by a regulator with a UK-wide remit.

The Government and I believe that the people of Scotland—both audiences and the creative professionals, whose interests we have been right to reflect on here tonight—have a right to a broadcasting ecosystem that reflects and represents us not only in news but in entertainment, sport and the cultural programmes that we watch. We deserve services that meet a proper public service broadcasting obligation, not only in letter or spirit but also in fact.

If broadcasting were devolved, the Scottish Government could ensure that television and radio truly met the needs of the people who live and work here, including by ensuring that Gaelic broadcasting was properly supported. Members of this Parliament would be able to hold us directly to account on that. We will continue to press for the devolution of broadcasting; however, until that happens, we will use every avenue to advocate for our creative workforce and our audiences across Scotland. I assure members that we will not stand by and accept any more steps backward in reporting and coverage, whether of Scottish, UK or global news.

We have rightly focused our comments on STV, but last week the BBC announced deep cuts across its services, which so far represent a disproportionate impact on Scotland. I understand that the BBC and other public service broadcasters are facing significant financial challenges, but it is incumbent on them to provide comprehensive coverage for all nations of the UK. Of course, the BBC is funded by the licence payer, and those considerations should be paramount for it. Any further reduction of Scotland-specific content across the BBC’s output, as in STV’s, puts audiences and our broadcasting workforce at risk and is unacceptable.

I do not think that anything I said would contradict the fact that excellent output exists across Scotland. I responded to the debate on Screen Scotland. In fact, when we talked about the freezing effect on opportunities and job creation that STV’s decision is likely to have in the north-east, I reflected on the fact that we celebrated the opposite last week in relation to Screen Scotland’s work and the opportunities that it creates for training across the board. Unfortunately, tonight’s debate reflects the opposite trend.

I want to say a word about Ofcom. Its first priority must always be to protect audiences and ensure that they have access to the information that they need and the cultural representation that they deserve. I will meet Ofcom, the BBC and other relevant partners to ensure that they closely understand Scotland’s requirements.

I reflect again that the value of public service broadcasting has never been more important. As many members have reflected, as misinformation and disinformation become pervasive in our society, public service broadcasters must step up and be the trusted voice of impartiality on which we can rely.

I hope that Mr Middleton, along with everyone in the chamber, is clear that the Scottish Government joins him in absolutely condemning STV’s plans and Ofcom’s decision to approve them. The First Minister has made that point in written exchanges with those organisations, and I reiterate it.

I have sincerely welcomed the passion across the chamber in putting the case for local news and the creation of culturally relevant content close to home. I assure members that I will reflect their views vigorously when I meet Ofcom in the coming weeks.

Meeting closed at 19:24.

I thank Ms Moodie for raising the issue of relationships, sexual health and parenthood education, which is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. The RSHP education focuses on equipping children and young people with the knowledge, skills and values to make informed and positive choices about forming relationships. One vitally important part of that is consent, which Ms Moodie is absolutely right to mention. As education secretary, I will continue to work with school leaders and local authorities across Scotland to ensure that it is being fulsomely taught.

Eradicating violence against women and girls fundamentally requires men to change their behaviour. However, our education system can play an important part in that. Our equally safe delivery plan sets out a number of actions that we are taking in education, including supporting the equally safe at school programme, which is a whole-school approach developed by Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance; publishing schools guidance with the gender-based violence in schools working group; and funding the digital discourse initiative.

Beyond equally safe, I believe that actions such as the Government’s confirmation that we will introduce legislation to end the use of mobile phones in the learning environment can make a difference by separating young people from what is often misogynistic content online.

I say to Adam Harley, and to Nathan and his family, that Nathan ought not to be missing out on those important learning opportunities and childcare.

In my original answer, I referred to the early-adopter communities that we have been working with. That work is entirely about testing how childcare and early learning can be rolled out for children with specific needs, whether that relates to neurodiversity or a range of other needs that children might present with. We are doing that work now and taking the learning from it. I will work with Mr Harley and others as we embed it in the expansion of childcare that the Government is undertaking.

Mr Rennie should take confidence from the rollout of the 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare that the Government has already overseen successful delivery of.

In his point about the propensity for additional support needs in our classrooms, Mr Rennie mentioned the statistic of four in 10. It is important to remember that a variety of needs are covered in those statistics, from lifelong medical conditions to transient but difficult things that a child might go through in their life, through to, for example, having English language needs. There is a broad range of children’s needs in that.

This morning, I had a fantastic visit to St Sophia’s primary school in Galston. One thing that I explored with the teachers there was the question of managing the variety of needs in the classroom and in early learning settings. I assure Mr Rennie that that issue will be at the forefront of my mind as we take forward this work.

There are two parts to my answer. We are already funding some of that specialist provision throughout Scotland. I mentioned the Yard in Dundee in my initial answer. I also mention Support, Help and Integration in Perthshire, which is a fantastic service that provides play and support for children with varying needs. I have visited Hailesland early years centre, where I saw a beautiful sensory room to which children could go to have their needs met.

The second part of my answer is that provision has to improve. That is exactly why the work that we are funding now will inform the expansion of childcare in the coming years.

Personally, I am a massive advocate for children and young people—and, indeed, all of us—spending time in the outdoors and in nature. It is very renewing for us all.

I have said a bit about our early-adopter communities. I would also point to the £4.5 million access to childcare fund that we have been providing since 2020. That supports families on low incomes with the cost of childcare specifically, and that allows us to better understand how to expand childcare. The projects that are funded through the fund are about flexible delivery, specialist services for children and whole-family support, but within that there is also a focus on increasing access to outdoor provision for families who are most likely to be living in poverty.

I give Katie Hagmann an assurance that, as education secretary, I will be a proponent of outdoor education.