Chamber and committees

I join colleagues from around the chamber in thanking my friend and colleague Daniel Johnson for his work on the issue and the bill. It is no small feat to bring together a member’s bill. Given his success with the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 in the previous session of the Parliament, he knows that more than most. I also pay tribute to his staff, who have carried out the work with great aplomb and good humour in the Labour corridor even when they have been busy preparing to get to this day.

As Scottish Labour’s education spokesperson, I am pleased to confirm that Scottish Labour will support the general principles of the bill at decision time—much, I am sure, to the relief of my colleague Daniel Johnson, who sits beside me on the front bench.

We have heard already about the tireless work of campaigners that has brought us to today. I declare an interest: looking at the public gallery is, for me, to look at a group of old friends because, as colleagues who are in the chamber know, for seven years prior to coming to the Parliament, I worked for Enable Scotland. I am still a member of Enable Scotland. That is where I first got to know Beth, Peter and Calum and to work with some extraordinary people on these issues.

As we have heard already, Beth is a ferocious campaigner. She is tenacious but she has compassion and her family brings her much joy in her life. That is her motivation in the campaign. Not only does Beth campaign and not only has she worked on the issues to bring us to this point but she educates. That is important. Everything that I know about the issues and about the alternative interventions that can be provided I probably know through her work. I associate Kate Sanger with that as well. She has worked closely with Beth and others in this space. That is the reason why we are here and why Daniel Johnson introduced the bill.

In some ways, becoming shadow education spokesperson just in time to lead on the bill for Labour was probably meant to be, given my association with the early parts of the campaign.

Today, we build on work by organisations such as Enable Scotland and the National Autistic Society, and by people who have supported the campaigners to drive forward these issues and ensure that they do not disappear off the agenda and, with the coming elections and changes in Parliament, are not forgotten about somehow.

The bill is built on the substantial work that has been undertaken, such as the children’s commissioner’s “No Safe Place: Restraint and Seclusion in Scotland’s Schools” report and Enable Scotland’s “In safe hands?” work. There is a myriad of data and reporting that share people’s experiences of some of the dreadful things that have happened to our children in school settings and other settings across Scotland.

In concert with colleagues, I recognise that we have an opportunity today to make a legislative change that will be a turning point. It can be a moment when we say that this sort of seclusion and restraint is no longer acceptable, and that the recording and the duty of candour that will exist will be put on a legislative footing, which is important.

Like colleagues, I recognise the concerns that have been raised, not least by the EIS and others. Daniel Johnson will very clearly outline his response to that. He is very willing to engage and has engaged throughout the process, and stages 2 and 3 will allow us to do more of that.

I recognise at the outset of the debate that there is a genuine will across the Parliament to ensure that we get this right by putting it on a statutory footing that no young person will have to experience the situation that Calum and other young people have experienced. We must make a statement from this Parliament that says that children will be protected and equally safe under the law.

15:06

I will begin by picking up on what we have heard this afternoon, starting with the Education, Children and Young People Committee’s work, which has been very important. We have heard it referred to throughout the contributions, including those from members of that committee. I was not a member of the committee when it took evidence on the bill. However, it is clear to me—particularly now that I have been inducted into the committee’s lengthy meetings on Wednesday mornings—that the committee spent a lot of time looking forensically at the detail of the evidence that was presented, and that is reflected in the report. We also heard about that work from Willie Rennie, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the committee’s convener.

That was about ensuring that there was strong scrutiny of the bill—Daniel Johnson was put under that scrutiny so that he would explain how he felt the bill would progress—and that the voices of campaigners were heard, as we have heard already, as well as those of teachers and other school professionals who have concerns. I know that Daniel Johnson will turn to those points in his closing speech, but we also have an opportunity, as the bill progresses, to address some of those points more fully.

In reflecting on some of the process that sits around the bill, what Daniel Johnson said about the non-Government bills unit was correct. That unit is the unsung hero of Parliament in ensuring that bills are well drafted and well considered and that they can be brought to Parliament for scrutiny and for us to discuss the issues, decide on the general principles—as we will this afternoon—and then move forward into the subsequent stages.

In opening, I reflected that I worked for Enable Scotland for seven years. In my time there, we produced a number of important pieces of work and reports on seclusion and restraint in schools and the abuses that have happened, which we have heard reference to this afternoon. However, Enable tried to look more widely at the school experience of children and young people who have a learning disability, autism and neurodivergence. We tried to reflect on their experience and, crucially, how we could make it better for them and for their parents.

I remember a statistic that came from the report “#IncludED in the Main?!” At that point, the hundreds of parents and carers of young people with a disability whom we surveyed said that they found their experience of the school system stressful and a battle—those were the words that were used—and that they felt alone and cut off from decision making. That is probably what has been reflected most in this afternoon’s debate.

We are trying to set things right for children and young people who have experienced the inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint, but we are also trying to support parents and carers who face daily challenges and often find it hard to get to the truth of what is happening to their children and young people and to move beyond that to build a strong relationship with those who, as Daniel Johnson said, are in loco parentis.

I hope that, as a result of agreeing today that the bill should proceed and as a result of the work that we will do to progress the bill to stages 2 and 3 and put it on the statute book, when we return to Parliament in the next session, we can look back and reflect on the work that will be carried out in our local authorities, in the hope that we will have reduced the burden that parents have felt. We hope that there will be fewer parents who describe their school experiences as stressful or a battle or who feel alone or cut off.

15:38

It was this First Minister who, at the beginning of this parliamentary session, promised a focus on recovery from the pandemic in education. He made a pledge that there would be around 3,500 more permanent teachers in this parliamentary session, yet he will fail spectacularly on that pledge.

According to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, that should not be the responsibility of this Government. Rather, it is the fault of teachers themselves. She said that they are

“opting not to travel to jobs”,

and that they are

“much more expensive to employ”.

Does the First Minister agree with Jenny Gilruth’s analysis of the situation? Does he think that underemployed and unemployed teachers across the country should have to uproot their lives and their families because of his Government’s failure to competently put together a workforce plan?

It was this First Minister who, at the beginning of this parliamentary session, promised a focus on recovery from the pandemic in education. He made a pledge that there would be around 3,500 more permanent teachers in this parliamentary session, yet he will fail spectacularly on that pledge.

According to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, that should not be the responsibility of this Government. Rather, it is the fault of teachers themselves. She said that they are

“opting not to travel to jobs”,

and that they are

“much more expensive to employ”.

Does the First Minister agree with Jenny Gilruth’s analysis of the situation? Does he think that underemployed and unemployed teachers across the country should have to uproot their lives and their families because of his Government’s failure to competently put together a workforce plan?

It was this First Minister who, at the beginning of this parliamentary session, promised a focus on recovery from the pandemic in education. He made a pledge that there would be around 3,500 more permanent teachers in this parliamentary session, yet he will fail spectacularly on that pledge.

According to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, that should not be the responsibility of this Government. Rather, it is the fault of teachers themselves. She said that they are

“opting not to travel to jobs”,

and that they are

“much more expensive to employ”.

Does the First Minister agree with Jenny Gilruth’s analysis of the situation? Does he think that underemployed and unemployed teachers across the country should have to uproot their lives and their families because of his Government’s failure to competently put together a workforce plan?

If you are returned to government, are you going to preside over what the SFC has outlined? I accept what you say in relation to the one-year budget that we are discussing, but it is the future planning that I am interested in.

I am not sure that I would call the largest uplift to the settlement marginal and I do not think that some of the commentary around that does that. We could get into the debate around what the cabinet secretary would suggest is done in order to ensure—

I am quite sure that you do, and I am quite sure that we have heard it before.

I wonder whether I can turn to capital. We discuss that a lot and the cabinet secretary is always keen to point to the Government’s record on capital investment. However, the Scottish Fiscal Commission projects that there would be a decrease in capital spending, including financial transactions, of 3.9 per cent in cash terms, which is down 6 per cent in real terms. What is the cabinet secretary’s view of what that would mean for the education estate? I appreciate that she is going to tell me all that has happened in the estate, but that there is still work to do.

On that point, does the cabinet secretary accept that, as was reported on recently in The Herald, some of that work was done pre-2007 and that the baseline has moved?

The cabinet secretary is keen to point to the role that local government plays and the 32 different versions of provision, which she often alludes to. What is her view on the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities’ comments that the budget does not address the scale of pressures that councils face? The commentary around that is that councils are considering council tax increases. Does she recognise that the projected reductions in council budgets will have an impact on resourcing? We have had a debate in the chamber about classroom resources and what is available to teachers. Does the cabinet secretary share COSLA’s concerns?