Chamber and committees

I welcome the minister to her new role and look forward to meeting with her in due course. If any expansion is going to be considered, the Government needs to look at the current funding model, to ensure that there is parity between the PVI sector and council-run nurseries. Will the minister today commit to doing that?

The Scottish Government announced in 2023 that it would expand funded childcare from nine months onwards. What progress has been made since that promise?

I said right at the start that I believe in expanding childcare. Later in my contribution, I will speak about what I believe it should be expanded to, but I am more than happy to meet the cabinet secretary on that. I believe that childcare is fundamental not just for parents and families but for our wider economy.

To go back to the point that I was making, for some families, childcare costs now rival mortgage payments. Parents across the country have to cough up more than £1,000 a month to pay for childcare. When families sit down at the kitchen table to work out whether it is financially worth while for one parent to return to work, the answer is far too often that it is not. For mothers in particular, the choices can feel impossible. Some reduce their hours because childcare costs do not match working patterns. Others leave the labour market altogether because the cost of childcare wipes out much of their income.

This is not just a family issue; it is an economic issue. When skilled workers are pushed out of employment, Scotland loses talent, productivity and economic growth. If we are serious about growing our economy, childcare must be viewed as economic infrastructure that is every bit as important as transport or housing.

Affordability is only part of the problem. Flexibility matters, too. Parents have repeatedly told me and my colleagues who have previously held the education brief that funded hours might exist on paper, but they are often delivered in ways that simply do not reflect the realities of working life. Shift workers, national health service staff, hospitality workers and parents with irregular hours cannot always make rigid nursery patterns work.

I want to talk about some of the other issues that are currently faced not just by parents but by the sector. If the Government is serious about expansion, it must confront the reality that is facing the private, voluntary and independent sector, which delivers a substantial proportion of childcare across Scotland. Too often, the PVI sector feels like an afterthought, despite being critical to delivery on the ground. Providers are struggling with rising costs, staffing shortages and Government guidance that does not reflect the economic position. There are also serious concerns about the unfair distribution of funding between local authority settings and the PVI sector, which Willie Rennie has already mentioned.

That is not sustainable. We cannot continue as we are and then put an expansion on top of the current model. If the Government wants the mixed-market childcare model to survive, the funding must absolutely follow the child fairly and sustainably because, without the PVI sector—

When I entered the Parliament in 2021, one of the first issues that came across my desk was that the PVI sector did not feel part of the overall 1,140-hour package. That is why people were leaving the sector. Childminders did not want to remain part of the sector. That it is one of the issues that needs to be addressed urgently.

I know that I am running out of time, Presiding Officer, but I am moving towards my conclusion.

Before ministers make new promises, they must answer basic questions: who will deliver the expansion, where will it happen and how will it be paid for? Those are my concerns today, and I believe that we will probably address those issues later in the debate this afternoon. I welcome the approach so far from the cabinet secretary and I will take up the offer to meet her in due course.

I move amendment S7M-00128.4, to leave out from “acknowledges” to end and insert:

“notes with concern that many families still face limited availability and choice of early learning facilities and high childcare costs, which is a barrier particularly for mothers seeking to return to work; understands that the funded childcare current model has resulted in wage inequalities, a severe decline in childminders and unfair distribution of funding between local authority-run nurseries and the private, voluntary and independent sector; believes that, should the Scottish Government wish to extend childcare policy, it should fix the current funding model and address staff shortages within the sector, and calls on the Scottish Government to publish a clear and properly-funded timetable for expanding childcare support from nine-months-old, with reassurances of working with the sector, detailing any learnings from the pilot scheme they said they would introduce in 2023.”

15:09

It appears that John Swinney’s Government has been on the Mounjaro, because it is slimmed down in size, but it somehow carries all the same political baggage. To judge by some of yesterday’s appointments, the First Minister clearly knows how to recycle. We now have a Government in which the Cabinet looks exhausted already, and it has not even delivered its first programme for government. No matter how busy some of our cabinet secretaries might get—Màiri McAllan included—I am sure that they will always make time for calls from world leaders who are looking for advice on how not to run a country.

The Government talks a big game. It has somehow promised more spending, more subsidies, more childcare expansion, supermarket price controls, more quangos and more intervention—all while still claiming that it can deliver net zero on time and on budget. It acts like it has a magic money tree in the back garden at Bute house only for the new Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government to discover that the roots have rotted away.

During the election campaign, the Scottish National Party treated the Scottish public to a never-ending parade of gimmicks and giveaways—free this, cap this, ban this and subsidise that. Every problem in Scotland was apparently to be solved by another taxpayer-funded announcement and another glossy press release. However, reality has now arrived. Hidden under all those grand promises is a financial black hole that is estimated to be around £5 billion. The uncomfortable truth for SNP members is that they cannot endlessly announce Scandinavian levels of spending while delivering a Scottish level of economic growth. At some point, someone has to do the sums.

That task now appears to have fallen to Ivan McKee, although I am not entirely sure that “Cabinet Secretary for Public Sector Reform” is the correct title. Throughout the election campaign, the Scottish Conservatives consistently pointed out that the SNP’s sums just do not add up. Now, we have a minister for cuts—perhaps more appropriately, and as he might become known over time, Ivan the Terrible—who will instil fear across Government departments as he bursts through the door, swinging an axe and looking for cuts in every nook and cranny that he can possibly find. The nationalists have promised more spending without saying where that money is coming from, which means that tax rises or spending cuts—or, indeed, a combination of both—are on the way.

I welcome Stephen Flynn to the chamber. Can I just check with him whether he managed to get through the security gates okay this morning? It seems like the doors at Bute house can be tricky to open, but it is good to get some practice in, isn’t it? Perhaps the First Minister was trying to keep him out for as long as possible, because—let us be honest—everyone knows why Stephen Flynn is truly here. He is certainly not visiting Holyrood for its architecture.

On a sincere note, I wish all cabinet secretaries and ministers the best in their new positions. Despite all the jokes that we will probably hear over the next few minutes, there are serious responsibilities at a serious time for Scotland.

That brings me to the amendment in my name on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. Members from across the parties will remember the debates in the previous session regarding the impact of gulls on communities throughout Scotland. Nobody pursued that issue more persistently than Douglas Ross, who stood up for his constituents and repeatedly pressed the Government on what action it intended to take regarding the growing gull population. Nobody expected the extraordinary behaviour that Jamie Hepburn displayed during those exchanges.

We all accept that Parliament is a place for robust debate, but business managers have a particular responsibility to maintain working relationships across the chamber. Their job is to lower the temperature, not to raise it, and to build consensus, not to fuel confrontation. During the altercation involving Douglas Ross and Jamie Hepburn, we saw behaviour that was entirely unbecoming of someone entrusted with that responsibility. If someone demonstrates that they cannot control their temper during tense parliamentary exchanges, they should not be handed the responsibility of negotiating sensitive parliamentary business again a few months later.

The First Minister should know that it is wrong to reappoint Jamie Hepburn as business manager, because it sends completely the wrong message about standards, accountability and behaviour in the Government. Therefore, I urge all members to vote against that appointment at decision time.

I move amendment S7M-00109.1, to leave out “Jamie Hepburn,”.

I, Meghan Gallacher, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.