Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary said that she was very pleased a number of times, but the teaching unions have reacted with utter fury and have said that the proposals are deeply disappointing. They have accused the Government of imposing a diktat. The SNCT, which she referred to, has expressed dismay and the unions are still threatening to strike by the end of January. Why does the cabinet secretary think that her positive announcement has gone down like a cup of cold sick?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported concerns and frustration of the Educational Institute of Scotland about its four-day working week proposal for teachers. (S6T-02771)

My language is nothing compared with that used by teachers when they told me about the reaction to the cabinet secretary’s proposals.

In answer to my parliamentary question, the cabinet secretary said:

“I am pleased that earlier this year the SNCT subgroup on Reducing Class Contact Time agreed with the Scottish Government proposal to develop a workplan to deliver a route map towards reducing class contact time, at pace.”—[Written Answers, 24 November 2025; S6W-41769.]

Is not the truth that, five years on, nothing is being done “at pace” by the Government and that it is moving towards the next election having failed to deliver that important policy and promise for teachers?

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has announced a brand-new plan to deliver the Scottish National Party’s promise on reducing teacher contact time. Can the First Minister tell us what is new about that plan? I assume that there was engagement and consultation with the councils and unions, so I assume that the strikes at the end of January are now off. When, therefore, will the plan be implemented?

Skills are provided not just by colleges or through apprenticeships but by universities. The significance of artificial intelligence has not really been referenced in the debate. We must have a broader view of what the skills base is, especially as we move towards having greater demands for AI-related skills. I hope that the member agrees with that point.

I am keen to return to miserableness. Could the cabinet secretary accept or address the point that I raised about the reduction in plumbing apprenticeships in Dundee as a result of low confidence in that sector? Does she think that we need to have a system that responds to the varying needs of different parts of the economy? There seems to be no flex for that.

We should win football matches more often, because I have never seen the chamber so united. People are even agreeing with Douglas Ross—that is how extreme it is.

Alex Cole-Hamilton wants to have a party, so I, too, want to agree with Douglas Ross about the licensing arrangements and having big parties with huge screens in different parts of the country so that people who cannot get across the Atlantic can enjoy the games back here. Will the cabinet secretary seriously consider that?

Teachers and staff do some really good things in schools. They achieve an awful lot and transform young people’s lives, and we should recognise that. However, I sometimes think that the Government is a hindrance rather than a help in that regard. We have massive challenges in our schools with behaviour, additional support needs and absence, which are all interconnected.

Moreover, many teachers leave the profession because they have just had enough—they are fed up with the regular attacks and the challenges of coping with the fact that 40 or 50 per cent of their classes, sometimes more, have additional support needs without the appropriate support to help them.

There is, of course, the long-vaunted closing of the poverty-related attainment gap, which has basically not changed since Nicola Sturgeon promised to close it about 10 years ago. In addition, international performance data triggered a serious debate about the performance of Scottish education.

The Government has lost its way. It spends most of its time repairing the damage that it caused in the first place, rejects the reviews that it commissioned and is failing to deliver on its own promises. Let us consider teacher contact time. It was a big promise, which the Government was supposed to have delivered by now. Although the last SNP manifesto promised that it would be 90 minutes a day, we know that it is 90 minutes a week. Teachers are furious, so much so that they are talking about going on strike at the start of next year. We should have delivered that promise by now, but the SNP has failed to do so and is typically blaming somebody else for that failure.

Then there is the poverty-related attainment gap. Although the cabinet secretary has not mentioned it, within a few months we are supposed to have closed the gap. The reality is that, although we are supposed to have made that progress, the gap has flatlined over the past few years, particularly in secondary school. It is worth reminding people—I know that it is boring—that the then First Minister said that we would judge her on education. However, she is nowhere to be seen now and the cabinet secretary does not even talk about that promise any more.

The education secretary has scrapped the regional collaboratives that the now First Minister introduced. However, you will notice that she continues to refer repeatedly to the fact that local authorities—32 of them—run the Scottish education system, with a hint that she wants to centralise education. If that is what she wants, she should come out and say it rather than just hint at it. If that is her policy, let us have that discussion. I do not think that Scotland wants to get into another debate about structures, just as we have done in the debate about skills. We should focus on the challenges that we face rather than have diversionary debates about structures.

On additional support needs, the cabinet secretary celebrates recruiting more ASN teachers, but it was this Government that cut the number of teachers in the first place, so it is not something that we should celebrate.

Finally, there was the Hayward review. That was commissioned by the Government and spent months—years—debating the issue and gathering the support of many people across the education world. However, as soon as the education secretary got a hold of it, she in effect rejected it.

The Government has no real vision. I do not really understand what it is trying to achieve. I would love it to focus, for instance, on parity of esteem between vocational and academic education, which would make a transformational difference to many young people who get lost at school because school does not fit their needs. I would love a proper programme of consequences and boundaries to empower teachers to manage their classrooms. I would love best practice on dealing with additional support needs to be shared across the country, so that young people with those needs get chances just like everyone else.

However, the Government is just lost. It does not seem to know what it wants to do with education. I just wish that that would change.

Whatever the Government’s interpretation of the figures, I think that the cabinet secretary has to accept that many people feel that they are paying higher taxes and that Scotland has a reputation as a high-tax country, with no discernible improvement in public services. Will the cabinet secretary reflect that in future decisions about taxation?

The good news is that there is huge demand for apprenticeships. It is fantastic that so many people are willing to learn and that we have excellent people who are prepared to impart their knowledge in our colleges and workplaces. There are also employers who are desperate to take new people—particularly young people—into their workforces.

The bad news is that, as we know, the system is disjointed. It has been criticised repeatedly by Audit Scotland and in the Withers report. My disappointment is that all the knowledge that James Withers shared is now being narrowed down into a structural discussion about whether SDS should have some of its powers removed and transferred to the Scottish Funding Council. We are not debating any of the other issues that we should be debating. I deeply regret that, because employers are divided and there is concern in the sector that we are not addressing those fundamental problems.

When I visited the excellent Dundee and Angus College yesterday, I heard stories from young people there about their lives being transformed. People who had not spoken for years had been lifted out of that state and are now on the verge of employment. Some really good people are being trained, and the opportunity for work is therefore increased. That shows the diversity in the sector.

I then went downstairs to see the plumbers, who told me that, because of the minimum wage, employer national insurance contributions and the state of wider business confidence, employer demand for apprenticeships in that sector has fallen. There is therefore potential for youth unemployment—particularly in Dundee, in this case—as a result of failed employer demand. However, the college is unable to take on those young people to do higher national certificates or other qualifications, because its funding has been cut. The system is unable to flex based on the confidence in the sector.

I think that the minister, with his bill, is trying to get a whole-system approach, but the reality is that the whole system is the economy. It is not just about apprenticeships and universities and colleges—it is about everything. For example, yesterday’s announcement of the delay to the heat in buildings bill will further knock confidence in the companies that are looking to employ plumbers. That has an impact on confidence so that we cannot transform the heating systems in buildings. What we need in our skills set-up is for the funds to follow the learner, but they also need to follow employers’ needs now and in the future. That is a complex set of conditions, but instead of having discussions about that, we are back to a discussion about structures.

The thing that concerns me most is that we are not getting to grips with our 16 to 64-year-old working-age population. The economic inactivity in that group is one of the highest in the United Kingdom. It bounces between one in four and one in five. We need those people to work in order to pay the taxes to fund our public services. However, the economy—that whole system—is broken. That is what I believe. It is not just about the narrow apprenticeship system; the fact is that we are not focusing on the whole economy, the skills within it and economic inactivity. My plea is for us to have a wider debate about all those things so that we can get the economy moving, rather than having narrow debates about structures.