Chamber and committees

Does the member welcome the fact that, on the most recent data, a record number of young people—95.7 per cent—are leaving Scottish education to go to positive destinations? Does that not in any way register on Mr Kerr’s view of the world as being a good thing?

This is a welcome debate on the future of Scottish education and I compliment the cabinet secretary on the inclusive way in which she is trying to generate greater agreement, especially in Parliament, about how our education system should develop. Securing that greater agreement matters because the future of our country literally depends on it.

In working to establish that agreement, there has to be a willingness on all sides and among all partners to recognise the reality of Scottish education and to be prepared to consider evidence that supports the appropriate direction of travel. In that respect, the cabinet secretary might have to revise, refocus or even remove some of the precious interventions of some of her predecessors. I know that she will have the resolve to do so; her predecessors will just have to come to terms with that.

Equally, other parties might have to be prepared to recognise more than they are prepared to admit of the strengths that truly exist in Scottish education. I am constantly struck by the often negative characterisation of Scottish education that is expressed by Opposition parties in the chamber, compared with what Opposition members say about the performance and achievements of individual schools in their communities and constituencies when it comes to issuing press releases and getting media opportunities.

That is very nice, but it does not feel like what Liz Smith used to say to me fairly regularly during the five years for which I was Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

The national discussion has been well steered—not surprisingly, in my view—by Professor Alma Harris and Professor Carol Campbell. They have listened with care to a wide range of voices across our education system and have identified key values that should guide its development—values that are ambitious, inclusive and supportive. Those are good, strong and clear values that can provide the necessary focus in our education system. The key is what steps we take to turn those values into reality.

I would like to raise three key elements that, for me, are critical in that endeavour. The first of those elements is the importance of ensuring that every child or young person is ready and supported to learn. Poverty is by far the key inhibitor to ensuring that every child has a chance to learn and to grow. The work of the Scottish attainment challenge, the introduction of the national minimum school clothing grant and the impact of the Scottish child payment, which are just three Scottish Government measures, are key contributors to the process of ensuring that every child or young person is ready and supported to learn. The sincerity of others on the question of removing poverty would be demonstrated by their taking an approach to measures to tackle poverty that is different from the approach that the current United Kingdom Government is taking with its measures on welfare reform.

The second element is teacher agency and autonomy, to which the Conservatives’ amendment refers. Our children and young people will be able to learn only if they are guided by motivated professionals who have been able to develop and renew their professional capacity. I encourage the cabinet secretary to intensify the focus on that element of the agenda. That will involve Parliament supporting the cabinet secretary on the need for local authorities to create a more confident climate, in which professionals are able to deploy their strengths and their judgments in their practice. I met far too many teachers, and many headteachers, who felt constrained in developing their practice by the overbearing presence of their local authority employer. If Parliament is to value the importance of teacher agency, it must be prepared to help the Government to bring that about.

Stephen Kerr is not in the chamber at the moment but, in his speech, he set out a range of propositions, many of which I agree would be helpful in strengthening the professional capacity of teachers. However, they will all cost money—and lots of it. The Conservatives are against increasing tax—they want us to cut tax—and they have not supported investment in the education system. They need to turn their rhetoric into reality.

The third theme, which is encapsulated in the not-selected Lib Dem amendment, is the importance of parity of esteem for vocational qualifications. That is absolutely vital, crucial or seismic—members can call it what they want. It is what has driven so many of the improved outcomes that have been achieved by young people in recent years. Mr Rennie cited the Scottish credit and qualifications framework. The development of new qualifications and awards in recognition of the potential in every young person is central to ensuring that our education system lives up to the values of the national discussion of being ambitious, inclusive and supportive.

Without wishing to sound like an old man, one of the biggest differences that I see in our education system today compared with when I was in school in the 1970s and 1980s is the focus on ensuring that every young person goes on to achieve a good and positive outcome. I received a fantastic state education in that period and went on to achieve a good outcome, but that was not the case for most of my peers. One of the strengths of Scottish education is in ensuring that every young person gets a positive outcome. That should be central to the national discussion.

For the sake of completeness, I need to advise the Parliament that Mr Lumsden is wholly incorrect. The allocation of funding for swimming pools was made in the United Kingdom budget of October 2022, so it formed part of the block grant that I distributed in December 2022. What Mr Lumsden has just put to the minister is therefore wholly wrong.

I think that Willie Rennie has alighted on a very serious issue about the length of contracts that are given to newly qualified teachers. Does he acknowledge that not all such issues—in fact, none of them—are in the control of the Government, and that all of them are in the control of local authorities, which have been given the line-of-sight resources that should enable them to give full-time contracts? What does Mr Rennie propose be done in those circumstances?

Oh! I seem to have touched a raw nerve with that comment. I will give way to Pam Duncan-Glancy first and then Liz Smith.

Would Meghan Gallacher like to tell Parliament how much more money the Conservatives would have given to local authorities in the budget propositions that they put to the finance minister for the current year’s budget?

Does Sue Webber honestly believe that the statement that she just put on the record is in any shape or form compatible with Liz Smith’s intervention on me a few moments ago?

With great pleasure, I thank my friend and colleague Keith Brown for bringing this important debate to the Parliament. It is timely, given the events of the weekend and the undermining of this Parliament’s legislative competence by the Secretary of State for Scotland’s actions over the deposit return scheme.

I find myself as the only member of this Parliament who legislated for its establishment, having been a member of the House of Commons from 1997 to 2001. I had the privilege of listening to every debate on the floor of the house during the passage of the Scotland Act 1998. I listened to the long, long, long contributions that Mr Cameron’s relative Michael Ancram made to that debate.

I also listened to contributions from the late Secretary of State for Scotland and our first First Minister, Donald Dewar, and to Henry McLeish, who did all the heavy lifting on the implementation of the act. I cannot let Sarah Boyack’s speech pass without saying that they would be horrified by what has now become the Labour Party’s opinion in Scotland.

I listened not only to their and Michael Ancram’s contributions but those of distinguished Liberals in the House of Commons, such as Jim Wallace, Ray Michie and Michael Moore, all of whom conveyed the importance of the concept of self-government being at the heart of the project for Scottish devolution. That attitude ran through their speeches. Even though I sat there as a Scottish nationalist, I could hear in all the contributions from those Labour and Liberal members—Mr Ancram did not take the same view—a commitment to the concept of self-government within Scotland. That is being shredded in front of our eyes.

The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the Subsidy Control Act 2022, to mention only two acts, are devastatingly damaging pieces of legislation. They do not try to confront the concept of the Scotland Act 1998 by the front door; they do it by the back door. They use the excuse of Brexit to undermine this Parliament’s legislative competence and we are now living with the consequences.

To everybody in Scotland I say that we had better wake up to what is happening to the Parliament for which we all voted in the 1997 referendum. I campaigned enthusiastically for a yes-yes vote in 1997 and that concept is being shredded in front of our eyes by a malicious United Kingdom Government. My colleagues in other parties know how seriously I take these questions. I say to them that we have to act collectively to try to resist it.

When I sat with Maggie Chapman on the Smith commission in the aftermath of the 2014 referendum, we pleaded for the cementing of the Sewel convention so that we could go further than the concept that was put on the record by Lord Sewel that the UK Parliament would not normally legislate on devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. We got some token words in the Scotland Act 2016 that Westminster would not normally legislate over the head of the Scottish Parliament. However, I ask members to look at what has happened since: it has happened as frequently as any statutory instrument process that goes through this building. It is now commonplace for the United Kingdom Government to ignore this Parliament’s views.

That was not the settlement that was crafted in 1998 and if we do not wake up to the threat that is coming our way as a consequence of all of this, we will witness the dismantling of the effective competence of the Parliament.

I will close on one of the points that Donald Cameron made, although I apologise for mentioning him in my final minute because I should allow him the opportunity to intervene if he wishes, but he can do it some other time. Mr Cameron accused us of not making full use of the powers that are available to us. However, we did so on the deposit return scheme: the Parliament made use of the full powers that are available to us and our powers and our competence were shredded by a malicious United Kingdom Government. All parties in this Parliament need to resist that.

I understand that there is uncertainty about that—of course there is—but there is also a lot of other uncertainty. I have been rehearsing this point with my friend Mr Rennie during the course of the debate. Before Brexit, we had seven years of certainty about agricultural support and investment. At the moment, we have annual commitments only up to 2025. Mr Carson cannot tell me what stance the UK Government will take on the application of the UK Internal Market Act 2020. [Interruption.] I say to Mr Carson that I am addressing his points.

Mr Carson cannot tell me what the UK Government will do with the UK Internal Market Act 2020 in the design of the agricultural support regime, nor can he tell me what the UK Government will do with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. The cabinet secretary will have to wrestle with those uncertainties. I point out that both those pieces of legislation were resisted by this Parliament because we recognised them as being incursions into our powers to decide on an agricultural system that will suit Scotland.

I think that Mr Rennie summed that up. He should perhaps be drafted in to write the occasional sentence or two, because he came up with a really good point today that sums it all up for me. He said that farms need to survive, but we need to take the climate action and biodiversity action that are necessary. That is the $64 million question that we are wrestling with. The evidence that has been taken by the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee and the careful listening by the Scottish Government and its cabinet secretary will serve us well as we take the difficult steps to reconcile what might in some cases seem to be irreconcilable, in order that we achieve sustainable agriculture, which is what I want for my constituents in Perthshire North.