Chamber and committees

In the time that I have served on the Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee, there has been a recurring theme that teachers, parents and carers, trade unions, educationalists and, indeed, most MSPs who serve on the committee will recognise, which is that, after the pandemic, our young people continue to face major challenges.

In many cases, the decisions that were taken during the lockdown had and continue to have negative impacts on our young people and the wider school environment, and the bill presents a positive opportunity to try to reset how we value young people across Scotland and to deliver a better offering for them, and for Parliament to send a message that we want to see real investment in the development of our young people now and in the future.

As has been said, no one doubts that outdoor education is one of the most rewarding experiences that a young person can have during their school career. I pay tribute to those who have joined us in the public gallery today for the dedication that they bring—they have dedicated their careers, in fact—to outdoor education and to our young people.

In many cases, as I have seen for myself, outdoor education is truly game changing. It delivers benefits in school and learning long after pupils and teachers have returned to the classroom, and through the joy that young people experience from it. Residential trips help to build confidence, self-reliance, resilience and leadership skills, and they teach the values of friendship, teamwork and a lifelong connection to our great outdoors, which is fantastic.

In an age when there is growing concern about young people’s physical and mental wellbeing, the benefits of residential outdoor education cannot be overstated or underestimated. It is worth reflecting that Scotland was one of the first countries in the world to formalise outdoor education. The last significant piece of legislation around outdoor education was the Education Act 1944, known as the Butler act. In the 1960s and 1970s, outdoor education, often formalised as physical outdoor activities and based on residential experiences, was extensively developed in many parts of Scotland.

In more recent times, however, the value of outdoor education has, sadly, not been given the weight that it deserves. We have not focused on the outcomes that we need it to achieve for our young people, and many of our authorities are disinvesting in their outdoor education offerings and facilities. We know that, today, many children are disconnected from their learning environment and from our wonderful natural environment. I believe that Liz Smith’s Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill will allow for a reset to enable us, once again, to recognise nationally the importance of residential outdoor education.

As I stated in the stage 1 debate, as an Edinburgh MSP, I know how incredibly lucky young people, and their parents and carers, are to be able to still access the residential outdoor education offering that they really enjoy and value. When I speak to young people in the capital, many of them see it as a rite of passage, as City of Edinburgh Council has always valued outdoor education.

Finally, I put on record a tribute to my friend and colleague, Liz Smith, for the power of work that she and her parliamentary office and team, along with the Parliament’s non-Government bills unit, have put into the bill, and for her lifelong advocacy—as a teacher and as a member of this Parliament—of the benefits of outdoor education for our young people. As we have heard today, Liz Smith is widely respected by members across the chamber and beyond.

However, the bill itself is about what is best for our young people in the post-Covid era, when so many indicators tell us that young people are facing more challenges than ever before. I sincerely hope that, in future years, all young people in Scotland will be able to take part in the life-changing experiences that residential outdoor education delivers. As Martin Whitfield said, that will be a remarkable legacy for Liz Smith, and she should rightly be incredibly proud of the work that she has done on the bill. However, it will also be for us as a country, and for Parliament, to send out the message to our young people, to parents and carers and to teachers across Scotland that we value them and want to invest in them. I support the motion in Liz Smith’s name.

I absolutely agree. Some really good frameworks have been developed, especially for care-experienced young people in our colleges and universities. I do not see why the same principles of care and support provision cannot be extended—some colleges are doing that, and we need that approach to be rolled out. I hope that, in the next parliamentary session, the education committee will take into account the findings in the report.

We will also need to return to the recommendations on teacher-led learning of BSL. In my time as an MSP, I have made a number of visits to schools where children were learning BSL. That has often been because a teacher has had the ability to provide such a lesson, which the kids love, or because there was a deaf child in the classroom and they wanted the child to be included in all lessons. We sometimes overcomplicate frameworks—teachers might already be delivering, and we need to be mindful of that.

Martin Whitfield touched on momentum, and Carol Mochan mentioned the postcode lottery around implementation. It is important that we consider that.

We have limited time, so I want to touch on mental health, because that has been my greatest concern during the time that I have served as an MSP. As we have touched on, there are huge challenges with the delivery of BSL in our health service. We have to be honest about that. I have had many pieces of casework in which individuals trying to access general practitioner services have not been provided with a BSL interpreter.

The ability to deliver BSL interpretation does not seem to have improved in some health board areas. I know from the committee report that there was general consensus among witnesses that interpreter provision had improved for planned appointments in most health boards, but the situation remained unsatisfactory in most accident and emergency departments. We must do more, and we must consider how that can be delivered. We need to embrace technology more, which was touched on in the report, but health boards often do their own thing in that regard. The national approach to the delivery of some of these outcomes needs to be revisited.

The Scottish Conservatives welcome the progress that has been made in Scotland since the passing of the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015, but we are concerned about the number of issues—especially in relation to education and health—that are making it difficult for deaf people to engage in and be active members of our society and to access services so that they can realise their potential.

I hope that the Scottish Government will take on board the committee’s recommendations. I also hope that all the Parliament’s committees will learn from the report. We are all members of different committees, and I hope that some of the learning from the inquiry will be applied in the work that the Parliament is doing now and will do in the future.

To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of, and support it is providing to, childhood dementia awareness. (S6F-04519)

I welcome this debate. For me, it is a debate about post-legislative scrutiny, which we have not seen much of in the Parliament. Therefore, I welcome the fact that the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee took the time to do such scrutiny of the 2015 act. I thank the members of the committee and their clerks for putting together the report. I also thank everyone who provided evidence to the committee—many charities and organisations, sometimes small organisations, that work in our communities. I also pay tribute to Mark Griffin for his long-standing campaigning on BSL and to the convener, Karen Adam, for her and the committee’s work.

As Pam Gosal mentioned in her opening speech, according to the latest Scottish census, there are just over 117,000 BSL users in Scotland. That is about 2 per cent of our population, so delivering on the 2015 act matters.

In 2015, the Scottish Parliament passed the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill, which has helped to deliver many improvements. We must acknowledge that; it is fair that we do. The committee has found that the act has increased awareness of BSL as a language, with respondents to the committee’s call for views agreeing that the act has increased the visibility and recognition of BSL and that it has helped to raise public awareness. However, for me, as with everything in politics and everything that we do in the Parliament, it is about outcomes. We must challenge ourselves, and the committee report certainly does that.

The committee found that responses were not completely positive. Several responses suggested that there was a lack of enforceability with the act, as has been mentioned in the debate, and some responses mentioned a postcode lottery, which we so often talk about, when it comes to delivering on the act in local government and in our health boards. The committee received mixed responses on the second national plan—I hope that ministers have taken that into account—in relation to not only measurable goals and timelines but clear accountability mechanisms, which need to be improved. One respondent said that there had been

“little in the way of measurable progress across the piece”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 3 June 2025; c 10.]

in relation to the plan.

As a member of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, I want to concentrate my comments on education. It is not surprising that education aspects received the most feedback during the committee’s consultation. Issues that were raised include early years provision, mainstreaming, support around transitions, qualifications and the fluency of teachers in BSL. The committee recommended that the Scottish Government consider what action could be taken to increase the number of deaf BSL users being qualified to perform teaching roles, which is really important.

What has struck me is the work of other members during this parliamentary session—for example, Pam Duncan-Glancy’s bill on transitions and the key principles behind it. Although the bill has not been taken forward in this session, a lot of the key issues that it covers need to be picked up in the next session on the back of the committee’s recommendations.

I want to ask for another action. It has been welcome that the former Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport has also been in the chamber for this debate, but a lot of the points that have been raised around access to health services point towards a lack of help to navigate our health services. Given that the Government has made good progress on the cancer strategy and the single point of contact service to help cancer patients to navigate health services, is the Government looking at designing something similar for those deaf patients who continually tell us that they are not able to access interpreter services within our health services?

At lunch time, I will host a round-table discussion in Parliament alongside Alzheimer Scotland to discuss the findings of the report, which was published yesterday. Most people will not be aware of the rare genetic conditions that affect almost 400 children in Scotland and cause symptoms of dementia. The report has provided important evidence on prevalence, gaps in support and the impact that that has on families across our country.

Despite the courage and resilience of families who live with childhood dementia, too many families feel isolated and have to fight for the support that they need, as childhood dementia does not fit into many of the current pathways. Will the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care agree to meet me and campaigners, and will the Government consider the key recommendations in the report on childhood dementia being placed in the national dementia strategy, and those on developing national standards and better research in Scotland?

I welcome Paul O’Kane to his position as Labour Party spokesperson on education.

The third-last sentence of the cabinet secretary’s statement claims that promises are being kept. Amazingly, the cabinet secretary managed to state that to the Parliament today while keeping a straight face. The facts speak for the reality, which is that teacher numbers remain at a historic low in our country. When the SNP first took power in 2007, there were just over 55,000 teachers in Scotland. That total has been lower in every subsequent year. In the run-up to the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, SNP ministers pledged to employ an additional 3,500 teachers and classroom assistants, which is another pledge that has not been kept. Voters will know when they go to the polls in May that SNP promises on teacher numbers have been broken and that they cannot trust the SNP on education.

I welcome the work that the cabinet secretary outlined about ASN. That work is important, and it has come about because the Scottish Conservatives brought forward a vote to Parliament to deliver it. However, we need action, not only words.

The biggest failure in the statement is the broken promise on eradicating the attainment gap. More than a decade on from Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship pledge, there remains a chasm between the most and least deprived kids in our country when it comes to basic literacy and numeracy. Too many pupils are being failed, and we are falling short of the expectation that we should be delivering a basic education for them.

If SNP ministers can take credit for anything today, it is their ability to spin a record of failure. Will the cabinet secretary be honest with the teaching profession across our country and admit that the SNP pledge on teacher numbers will now not be met?

I absolutely agree with Stephen Kerr. We need a new vision for how such advice is delivered and we need different organisations to provide the opportunity for extracurricular work outside school so that we can give our young people the ambition to get what is out there.

With my colleague Sharon Dowey, I recently visited the Ayr campus of the University of the West of Scotland. The university is doing a lot of work on the blending of school and university learning. I was hugely impressed by the portfolio of work-based learning and graduate apprenticeship models that it has developed. Those routes offer an alternative pathway into degree-level study for individuals who are employed or wish to go straight into work. Most young people tell us that they want work-based learning. We need to ensure that the systems that we put in place and that we publicly fund match that positive outlook.

When the Parliament was first reconvened, we used to speak more about the aspiration for lifelong learning—the ability for Scots to access the continuous development of skills and knowledge throughout their life. For many people, that is just not the case and the Parliament does not really talk about lifelong learning any longer.

However, I acknowledge the Open University’s briefing, which stated that it has 16,470 students across Scotland, 71 per cent of whom are in employment. That demonstrates the alignment that we need between the provision of education and workforce development. We need to work alongside employers to ensure that we achieve that.

Absolutely. It is a fact that we have lost more than 100,000 places on such courses in our college sector. That has had huge impacts on every part of our society, and we should acknowledge that.

I would also like to highlight the work of Robert Gordon University, information on which was provided to the committee. I declare an interest in that I am a graduate of RGU. I loved my time studying in Aberdeen and one of the reasons why I chose to study at Robert Gordon was the fact that it had such a great reputation for graduate employment. The university has put graduate employability at the heart of its approach to education, working closely with industry in the north-east—including the fishing industry—to ensure that, through its courses, students gain the knowledge and experience that will allow them to access those career pathways. It provides a wide range of not only compulsory but optional placements to implant people into work. That is a model that I have always advocated for and, last year, it resulted in RGU’s graduate employability rate standing at 96.5 per cent. The university was ranked second in the United Kingdom on graduate employment. We need to look not only to the pathways in education but to the pathways into employment and the opportunities that exist in so many key sectors.

The convener touched on the evidence that was provided. It is worth putting on the record that the targets that were set for Robert Gordon University were unable to be met. That was down to the fact that the targets relate to places for students from SIMD 20 areas. The fact that 7.2 per cent of full-time degree entrants at the university in 2023-24 were from SIMD 20 areas is incredibly welcome, but there are not enough SIMD 20 postcodes in the north-east for the university to meet the target. Ministers and the wider Parliament have to acknowledge that—we might hear more on that point from members for the north-east.

The progress that is being made to support care-experienced young people is important and the committee will return to that in the new year when the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill goes through Parliament. Some of the private sessions that the committee has held in relation to the bill were the most important ones—for me, anyway—because we heard young people’s evidence about their concerns that, although there has been a lot of success in getting them into further and higher education, whether they are being sustained in it has not been measured or tracked. I hope that it will be recognised that we should not take just getting a young person into an educational institution as success; we need to get them to the end of their time in that institution. That has not been tracked and we need to be honest about it. I hope that ministers will take on board the committee’s recommendations and findings on that.

I am concerned that our college sector has become the Cinderella of our education system. In recent years, we have seen significant cuts to the sector. Colleges Scotland’s submission called for a greater focus to be placed on the funding of part-time provision because it would bring benefits for adult returners and those who seek to develop their skills while in employment. The Scottish Conservatives have a vision to reform and increase the number of apprenticeships and to support our college sector. However, the budget in January will be a key test for ministers and it is important that we see whether there is a commitment to our college sector.

Widening access to higher education must be about real opportunity. Many of our talented young people are still being held back by background, postcode and circumstance. In order to change that, Scotland needs our colleges and universities to be properly supported and to deliver fair access, with clear pathways for students not only into further study but into work. Together, they can help achieve the potential of our young people in the years to come.

I come back to Willie Rennie’s point, on which I hope we will hear from the minister later. I do not think that the Government has built IT systems that are capable of putting in place a unique learner number. The lack of investment in IT in our schools is at the heart of the issue.