Chamber and committees

The plan to deliver the Promise keeps referencing the national care service, but, three weeks ago in the Parliament, the minister could not rule out ditching the care service, and I do not think that there will be a functioning NCS bill before the end of this parliamentary session. What is your view on that, with regard to all the promises around the workforce?

I think that that is a great step forward. Last new year, I visited a family friend in a care home in Aberdeen. Lots of international people were working in that care home—that is the nature of care homes—and I think that such work was being done up there, too.

That is an issue that we need to think about. Obviously, it is not the first priority for the NHS, but such work on communication can make a huge difference.

The Scottish Languages Bill gives us an opportunity to take forward that work to make sure that people across Scotland have the confidence to speak in their native tongue and that we are able to preserve and celebrate Scots, which, in this Parliament, is something that we do only on the opening of the Parliament. We do not do it as much as we should.

I welcome the partnership working between the Open University and Education Scotland to produce the first professional learning course for teachers on the Scots language, and I look forward to many amendments being made to the Scottish Languages Bill to ensure not only that we preserve the language but that it is taken up by everyone in Scotland.

I thank Emma Harper for securing the debate and for her passion in campaigning on the Scots language—it is good to see someone in Parliament taking that forward.

Yesterday, for the first time, a Gaelic poet was appointed as Scotland’s makar. It was interesting to see his interview last night on the BBC and other channels, in which he said that he writes in Gaelic and in English and sometimes in Scots. He said:

“We are a multi-lingual nation so it’s important to find ways to speak to each other.”

Listening to his interview last night reminded me of the time when I first became acutely aware of our cultural tapestry of languages, which was when I left the village of Bankfoot or Auchtergaven in Perthshire to go to the granite city to attend Robert Gordon University.

My first memory is of arriving in the Woolmanhill student flats, where I met my flatmates, who had all headed south from the Broch to study. When I walked into the student accommodation, the first thing that they said to me was, “Fit like, loon? Far are you fae?” I had no idea what they were asking me at first, but we soon developed great friendships, and I loved learning the Doric at university. My flatmates spoke in the Doric, but only out of university. In university, they very much put on their Queen’s English—it would be King’s English now. I often thought that they lost part of their culture and identity in doing that.

I will briefly touch on one really important point in the motion, which is about Scots language in health and social care settings. When we were first elected to Parliament, Emma Harper and I were members of the Health and Sport Committee. Because we need to value it, I championed the work that is done in our NHS to ensure that people—especially people with dementia, whom Emma Harper mentioned—can be communicated with. We know that health literacy and the patient experience are important. Older people who live in care homes or who visit GPs often complain that they do not know what they are being told. We need to take that into account, and our health services need to look to do that.

Since 2010, what assessment has the Government made of the councils that are delivering that provision? There clearly has not been a negative impact in any negotiations in the five councils where teachers are directly involved in delivering such provision.

My point was just in relation to you saying that there was no other example of such a model.

Yes.

Does the minister think that pupils and teachers experience a better educational experience by having access to outdoor education in the five councils that have such services? Obviously, the bulk of the young people and children accessing outdoor education that we are aware of are in those areas.

I have a couple of questions on staffing. Specifically, what is the Government’s view on the effect on teachers’ contracts of placing a duty on local authorities to provide residential outdoor education? You referred to the letter that the committee sent to the five councils that are already delivering the policy in their own facilities.

Okay—thank you for that.

Finally, has the Government explored the potential feasibility of local authorities having central teams to support the universal provision of outdoor education? Would the Government propose or support staffing around that if the bill is passed?

It is agreed service delivery through integration joint boards.

Regarding the 45 sports governing bodies, BBC Scotland undertook an inquiry into how many youth football coaches were working with children before they had received a PVG check. Is the Scottish Government confident that that has been rectified since 2017, and that no one will have been working with young people without having gone through a check?