Chamber and committees

In response to a topical question last week or the week before, the cabinet secretary told me that PEF should not be used to plug existing gaps. We heard from Mr Watson about trying to future proof and mainline some of that preventative spend. Does she recognise that those SFC projections for council budgets will inevitably lead to issues such as PEF being used to plug gaps?

I absolutely recognise a lot of that, but the Scottish Fiscal Commission suggests that council funding is going to drop for many of the services to which the cabinet secretary refers. I have heard her say before that schools are required to do a lot of the scaffolding. If you are going to cut health and social care partnership budgets, social work and other support that sits around that, you will not be able to fill the gap in schools. There seems to be a lack of focus on the reductions to local authority budgets, which will inevitably have an impact.

That is not what we hear from local authorities.

To ask the Scottish Government what cross-Government action it is taking to support island connectivity in the West Scotland region. (S6O-05388)

The minister knows well the frustrations and anger of local communities on Cumbrae and Arran and in the mainland ports because of ferry routes to Largs, Ardrossan and Troon being delayed. There is a fiasco in our ferries—I think that we all know that.

What will the minister do to rebuild the faith of those communities? It will require the physical upgrading of infrastructure, which he has referred to, which has been for too long neglected. That is what will demonstrate a long-term commitment to connecting our islands.

On the Cumbrae slipway, can the Government say what is being done to make sure that it progresses on time and on budget, with minimal disruption?

Regarding Arran, I note the First Minister’s comments that the acquisition of the harbour is at an advanced stage, but will the Government commit to ensure that any acquisition will come with an infrastructure investment plan to upgrade the harbour and reconnect Arran and Ardrossan?

Thank you, Presiding Officer. At this stage in the evening, and given the many contributions that we have heard already, I might not go beyond that generous four minutes.

It is important to pull together some of the threads that we have heard, as well as our reasoning on this side of the chamber for not supporting the bill this evening. Daniel Johnson outlined quite clearly several significant concerns that we still have around the bill and, crucially, about what it will not do for the wider skills landscape in Scotland.

I echo what colleagues have said about the minister’s efforts. I appreciate that, like me, he has come into the bill process as it has advanced. That is not always easy, but he has tried to engage. I acknowledge that, in a lot of what he has said, he recognises the challenges that will exist for a future Government.

That is the core of many of our concerns this evening. The minister spoke about technological change and facing that future challenge. The reality is that a lot of that challenge is present here and now. The jobs and industries of the future are moving at pace, not just in Scotland but internationally. We see that particularly in relation to the growth of artificial intelligence, digital tech, the defence sector and medicines. That is why we feel that, in this bill, we have missed an opportunity to make the demonstrable change that we need in training and upskilling young people, in particular, for the jobs that are already here, when other countries are perhaps moving ahead.

This evening, speakers in the debate, such as Willie Rennie, Ross Greer, Daniel Johnson and Miles Briggs, have set out a lot of the context around how we got here and all the work that has been going on ever since the Audit Scotland report, which Willie Rennie referenced, and the Withers review, with the stark challenges that it outlined. I do not think that the bill is addressing many of the wider issues that were at the heart of that.

Douglas Ross’s contribution was interesting. He posed the question about what the public think and how much they will judge this work in the election that we are about to enter into. Yes, if we knock on someone’s door, they will probably not be enthused by a technical bill such as this one, but their actual concerns would lie with the level of apprenticeship starts and the opportunities that exist for people in their communities.

I made this point in the debate on amendments. We know that learning providers requested 34,000 starts in 2024-25, compared with an actual 25,000 starts. This bill will not add a single apprenticeship—that is the reality of where we are.

I am shocked that anyone in north-east Fife would not greet Willie Rennie at the door with an embrace of joy.

He makes a fair point about our decisions having an impact. We have heard from the trade unions at SDS and from those who work in those agencies about the concern and disruption that such decisions can cause. We need to take cognisance of that, and that has very much been put on the record this evening.

As I said, I am conscious that the bill will not make the change that we want to see right now and that some of that change is being pushed down the road. We know that the reform should be rooted in the Withers review. We agreed with the central conclusion of the Withers review on the need for structural and operational reform, which we have heard so much about throughout today’s process, as well as with the creation of the single funding body, but the bill falls short with regard to skills reform. It risks becoming that cosmetic, big-bang reorganisation that Willie Rennie spoke about, by rearranging structures without addressing underlying failures that are letting people down and holding the economy back.

Fundamentally, as we have heard from across the chamber, the bill will pass this evening, but perhaps without the necessary degree of enthusiasm or vision moving forward. As I said in my contributions on amendments, the belief on this side of the chamber is that we will see change and move things forward in this area only by having a change of Government, and that will come through in the debates that we have as part of the election, which the people of Scotland are ready for.

Like Jeremy Balfour, I come late to the party in some ways. I thank him for his amendments and the intent behind them. It is important to recognise the vital element of providing support to people with additional needs. There is always a desire to do more in that regard, which was recognised widely by stakeholders, including those in the college sector, who pointed to the fact that many of our institutions are focused on ensuring that they can widen access and support young people, in particular, who have an additional support need to be engaged in courses that are really important to them. We recognise and know the funding challenges that exist, and it is important that Jeremy Balfour has brought that to the fore through his amendments.

Scottish Labour is broadly supportive of the intent behind the amendments, which were also discussed as probing amendments at stage 2. However, I have concerns about how the amendments are drafted and about the principle of putting in primary legislation something that would tie the hands of future Parliaments and Governments and, indeed, the council that will be established by the bill.

There is a broader concern about the requirement in amendment 1 to maintain funding levels. Obviously, I recognise that that is an important ambition, which, again, would command general support, but I would be keen to understand how Jeremy Balfour envisages primary legislation doing that without tying the hands of future Governments in their budgets. There might be situations in which, for a variety of reasons, colleges had to move funding around or to look at where there might be reduced demand in any given year. Would agreeing to amendment 1 mean, for example, that money would sit unspent because an institution could not spend it in a different budget line? That might be detrimental to what we are all seeking to find agreement on this afternoon.

We all agree that there is a need to provide enhanced support for those with additional support needs. I applaud Jeremy Balfour’s tenacity in pursuing the issue, but I have the general concern that legislating in the way that he proposes might not be the correct way to go about it. We must continue to work together to hold the Government of the day to account for its actions, but I think that we need to build the policy consensus rather than trying to legislate for something in primary legislation.

I will leave my comments there. I am sure that we will hear more from the minister and Mr Balfour.

That takes us back to my earlier points about things that go in the bill. I genuinely think that there are matters of policy and there are matters of legislation and, very often in this Parliament, we conflate some of those matters by thinking that we can legislate our way into ensuring that policy is done well—and, crucially, funded well.

I think that we are in concert today about whether ever-upward expansion should be something that we absolutely aspire to. I just do not know whether putting it in the bill will deliver that in its totality and in reality. I worry that it could create hostages to fortune, in a way, or that additional layers of bureaucracy might come in as a result of, for example, amendment 86’s call for labour market assessment. I would expect that to be part of any national funding strategy, which we have already debated this afternoon. Mr Kerr is shaking his head—perhaps he does not have the same faith that I do in relation to this. “Not at all,” he is saying. However, I think that that would be the expectation of whoever is sitting in the Government seats after the election. That should be a priority when looking very clearly at the funding strategy.

That brings me to my broad view of the themes in the amendments. There is clearly much more to do to get to where we want to be on apprenticeships and apprenticeship starts. I do not think that, at this stage of the parliamentary session, the bill will effect the change that we need. Members will not be surprised to hear me say that it is a change of Government that would make a difference. There are a variety of pieces of legislation at this stage of the parliamentary session that will not create the change that is required, which I am sure that we will hear more about as we proceed to the debate on the bill.

Will the minister take an intervention?