Chamber and committees

You referred to how complicated it can be for young people to make decisions, given the complex landscape and so on, so I was tempted to ask how much more complicated it would be for those aged 14 rather than 17, but I will leave that for another day. I am sure that you will be asked that question in due course.

I am not entirely sure what to expect as an answer to this question—actually, I do. It seems to me that, although, in all sorts of ways, the Government and public authorities were seized by the idea of acting with urgency during the pandemic, we have now dropped back into old ways of working. Is the Government aware of that and guarding against it? I think that the committee is unanimous in thinking that a degree of urgency would be really useful in this matter. I know that there are always competing priorities, but has the Government learned, from the pandemic, lessons about how to move quickly on some issues?

Minister, in relation to data collection, you said at the start that you want to do it and that you want to work out whether we can do it, how we can do it and how much it will cost, which seems to be a perfectly logical way to go about things. It strikes me that, in all the evidence that we have heard today and last week, nobody has talked about data collection issues. Everyone has been keen to rush past the issues that might exist, but it is worth mentioning that we are talking about people’s right to have their individual data protected.

That said, John Mason’s earlier point is very strong. There was a time, perhaps two years ago, when increasingly it was becoming recognised that GDPR had gone as far as to prevent UK public bodies from doing things that they wanted to do—in particular, in comparison with bodies in other European countries.

It is hard to judge from what you have said, because we do not have specific examples of the current hurdles, as you see them. It would be good to get an answer to John Mason’s question whether the Government has a view on how data protection and GDPR could be refined in order to make them more effective. Are you able to give any examples of issues that have turned up so far and have proved to be problematic?

So, the pressures are not particular to Scotland?

In trying to understand how you might have succeeded, you will want to know whether you have done so by design—that is, that the outcome was intended. I am the least experienced of the committee members in this area, so I could be completely wrong, but my general impression is that one reason that led to some of the success is the financial incentive for further and higher education institutions to look and compete for students. Therefore, rather than being by design, because universities and colleges really need to get in students in order to get funding, they make themselves much more open to students.

Is there anything that you can say about that?

For many years, I have advocated that, when somebody joins the armed forces, they should immediately put their name down for housing for when they leave the armed forces, as they are entitled to do. As the minister said, there should be an obligation on the armed forces to look after people, and it could be useful to have a wee discussion at the start of somebody’s armed forces career about what they might want to do in relation to further and higher education. Perhaps the UK Government could respond to that point.

Thank you for answering my question.

I understand the point about data that is already held, but my objection regarding how we share it remains. Let us be honest—private companies seem to be able to overcome such obstacles, sometimes scrupulously and sometimes not.

There seems to be a consensus that the target should be renewed and refined. If we still remain, after having done that, with a blanket target of 18 or 20 per cent, whatever its basis, is not there a risk that we could achieve or exceed the target but still have pockets—as we heard last week, the situation is very uneven across the country—where people who would really benefit from widened access do not, which the blanket target would obscure?

Implicit in that, is the idea simply that moving to the free school meals measure would not necessarily give you enough refinement?

I am conscious that, at the start of the evidence session, there were a lot of positive comments. For example, you said that the target is very ambitious and that we exceeded it early on but then there was a bit of slippage. However, there is substantial confidence that you are back on track, and the early indications are that things are looking good.

Inevitably, and not unreasonably, the committee has focused on some of the challenges and issues. It is important to learn from success, but we often just rush past that in Scotland. However, if you do not understand how you have been successful, you are missing valuable information. Has any work been done to identify how you have managed to succeed to the extent that you have so far?