Chamber and committees

We do not often get a chance to debate education in this chamber, despite it, apparently, being a top priority for the Government five years ago, so I will broaden my remarks beyond the exams, although I will cover them, too. I want to cover the major issues, because we are at a crossroads for Scottish education. I feel sorry for Shirley-Anne Somerville because she has been landed with a job that her four predecessors flunked over the past 15 years.

The performance on education is on the slide in international terms. In the most recent programme for international student assessment study, Scotland received its worst-ever scores in maths and science. Scotland is worse than Hungary, Slovakia and, on some measures, Poland and Turkey. Heaven forfend—it is even worse than England.

While the SNP’s performance has been falling in international terms, the poverty-related attainment gap has grown. That is not quite true—it has narrowed marginally, but at the current rate of progress it will take decades to close. Closing it is the objective that has been set by the First Minister. Just narrowing it, at this rate, will let down thousands of pupils for decades.

The SNP’s response to the decline in international terms was to scrap the survey of literacy and numeracy and replace it with the already discredited, national census-based Scottish national standardised assessment testing system, which includes—this is unbelievable, but it is still in place—testing of five-year-olds. The SNP did not like the international comparisons, so it also withdrew from the trends in international mathematics and science study and the progress in international reading literacy study. Even Russia and Iran take part in those studies. Who would have thought that Scotland would be more secretive than Iran and Russia?

This is a short debate, but let me make some positive proposals at this important crossroads for Scottish education. The education secretary should improve the role of knowledge in the curriculum, especially in the broad general education. We should give teachers more support with materials that are created by expert teachers and bring back principal teachers.

We must reverse the dramatic decline in education support plans for pupils with additional support needs. We need to put teachers back in charge of the bodies that replace the SQA and Education Scotland, so we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to reverse the growth in temporary teacher numbers by making more teachers permanent, by making the funding for them permanent.

We need to rejoin TIMSS and PIRLS, scrap the SNSAs and reintroduce a beefed-up SSLN, so that we can measure both locally and internationally without a system that teaches to the test.

We must also give pupils greater confidence and clarity that this year exams are on. As we heard at the Education, Children and Young People Committee this morning, the dithering—and it is dithering—about whether we should have scenario 2 in place should end. We should have it in place right now, so pupils can have greater certainty.

No—I am sorry; I do not have enough time.

All those proposals are constructive and positive. However, the truth is that the SNP has been belligerent for years on education. It was far too slow to expand early education, especially for two-year-olds, and it failed to accept that the pupil premium was necessary, just because those were ideas that originated in England. It would just not listen, for years on end, until the growing poverty-related attainment gap forced it to act. It put the worst of Scottish nationalism ahead of Scottish education, and it is pupils who are paying the price.

My fear is that the new education secretary does not have the political backing to address the deep-rooted problems in Scottish education. It appears that she has been sent by the First Minister—

Liberal Democrats support the introduction of control areas for problematic short-term let hotspots, but, like the member, we think that the licensing scheme is disproportionate and that a registration scheme would be a far more sensible way to proceed. Does the member recognise that the concern comes not just from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative benches, but from the wise Mr Fergus Ewing, who has expressed concern recently in committee? Does he think that the minister should pay attention to that concern and make changes?

The problem is that the Government has been declaring that as an urgent priority for years. There were reports in 2018, and the original right to their own home was declared back in 2000 but, 21 years later, 250 people with learning disabilities are stuck in hospital and the guidance that was required last year has still not been published. I hope that the minister understands that there is a lot of frustration out there. Some authorities think that multibed units are appropriate, but that is just a new form of institutionalised living. Will the minister rule out multibed units?

[Inaudible.]—response is to a recent report by Enable Scotland that highlights that over 250 people with learning disabilities are living in NHS Scotland—[Inaudible.]—with one woman being there for 60 years. (S6T-00438)

To be frank, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has made a right mess of this. She issued two conflicting statements within two days, which included making a major announcement on Twitter, which is hardly the forum for such announcements. There was such confusion that the SQA had to step in to clarify things. Does the First Minister think that that is the right way to treat pupils who are preparing for exams right now?

The fishing fleet at Pittenweem and other harbours in Fife feel that they are being squeezed out by the increasing number of offshore wind farms in the Forth. Can the cabinet secretary guarantee that further applications for such wind farms will consider the cumulative impact on an important industry?

I am a bit of a Euro fanatic, but even I accept that the workforce shortages are not just because of Brexit. The Conservative Government would do well to listen to the more balanced approach taken by Liz Smith today—Brexit has certainly made the situation worse. However, the SNP should not hide behind Brexit or the pandemic, because the deep-rooted problems have been mounting for years.

First, I will focus on immigration policy, which is preventing industries from recovering from the pandemic. [Inaudible.]—plain and simple. It has deprived British businesses of the workforce that they need to rebuild the economy: the lorry drivers to supply our shops and supermarkets, and the workers for our care homes, farms and the hospitality sector.

Let us take my favourite subject: the berry fields of Fife. The new growing techniques demand more workers for longer periods. The sector has tried to recruit locally, but there are just not enough people locally for them to recruit. It needs a bigger seasonal workers scheme that works. It is not just the farms: the seasonal workers scheme needs to be extended to cover companies such as Kettle Produce, which supplies supermarkets across the country.

The hit on the fruit and vegetable sector in Fife alone stretches to millions of pounds, and that is just for this year. The rotting berries and the veg left in the fields this year is something that is unlikely to be repeated next year because the farmers will not invest in the crop unless they have guarantees that they will have the workforce, and they have not been given those guarantees. The pleas for a bigger seasonal workers scheme have been ignored by the UK Government. To limit the scheme to 30,000 visas—half of what is required—is bad enough, but for that to be tapered down from next year is utterly reckless.

The Conservative Government should be honest with businesses that it is prepared to accept casualties and business failures, that Scotland will produce and process less of its food, and that it no longer cares about food security, but the sleekit way that it is going about things shows that the Conservatives are obsessed with immigration policy rather than standing up for the economy and businesses.

On a wider basis, we need to get rid of the arbitrary salary threshold of £25,000, which does not recognise unskilled workers as key workers who should be valued. We need the youth mobility scheme to be extended to EU citizens, as well as a 12-month visa for the food and drink supply chain, and we must allow employers to recruit the workers that they need in order to get us out of this crisis.

It is positive that care workers are to be added to the Home Office’s shortage occupations list, but that is too late and too timid. The Conservative Government needs to think again and, with immediate effect, offer a three-year visa for carers.

However, the Scottish Government also bears some responsibility for our current predicament in social care. The problems have been brewing for years, since well before Brexit, and that is, in large part, because the SNP Government will not fund social care sufficiently so that we can give decent wages to carers. The social care sector is on its knees. People are waiting in hospital and at home without the care packages that they need. The reason for that is pure and simple: the SNP has been taking carers for granted for far too long.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has found that Scotland’s economy is

“lagging behind the rest of the UK”

because of

“declining labour market participation, weak investment in productivity and insufficient flexibility in skills development”.

Those long-running issues were evident long before the pandemic and long before—[Inaudible.]—Brexit. It is right that we need

“an industrial strategy that addresses regional inequalities, low pay and poor conditions, and the skills gaps”.

That is why we are going to support—[Inaudible.]—because it takes out any reference to Brexit.

Immigration is a challenge that we must—

I am just finishing.

[Inaudible.] All of that is about the longer-term health of our economy.