Chamber and committees

We need to build confidence that the supply network is going to grow. One ScotWind project recently warned of significant unanticipated changes in the Scottish and UK offshore wind industries and of challenges regarding the availability and capacity of Scottish, UK and European supply chains. What early results can the minister secure in developing that supply chain so that we can build confidence and maximise the potential for Scotland?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it consulted Elon Musk as part of its R100 programme. (S6O-02641)

I am afraid that what the Government has done so far on the PVI sector is not enough. The First Minister knows that there is an exodus of experienced staff from the private, voluntary and independent sector. He cannot do just the £12-an-hour living wage. He needs to increase the fee rates, or we will have a sector that is just not sustainable. He promised to do that in the leadership contest. Is he going to deliver?

The industrial dispute at the City of Glasgow College is symptomatic of the wider deep-rooted problems that we have in the college sector. As the minister prepares for the budget process for next year, where do colleges fit within his priorities? Will he review the Government’s policy of no compulsory redundancies and bring that policy to the college sector?

That confirms that the Scottish National Party Government is dependent on the controversial American billionaire and his low earth orbit satellites to deliver its manifesto promise on R100.

The truth is that the R100 programme is still going, when it was supposed to have been completed two years ago. The Government itself admits that thousands of people will not benefit from R100 until 2028. Is the minister not even just a little bit embarrassed that he is now using Elon Musk as his latest excuse for failing to deliver the SNP R100 programme on time?

We will support the Labour motion, but I give credit to the minister following the Withers review. He has engaged in a positive fashion, and the omens are good for a good policy in the future.

However, the Government’s recent record on skills has not been positive. To be frank, the previous minister did not seem to be too interested in the whole area. We have been waiting for more than five years for skills landscape reform, but the then minister acted only after he was criticised by Audit Scotland for a lack of leadership. Although we have the Withers review, we do not have the Government’s formal official response, so it could be even longer from the initial start point when the landscape review was supposed to be undertaken before we get any change.

The world is changing fast. We are going through a new green industrial revolution. While we wait a long time for the reforms to come, the world is moving on, and I fear the consequences of that.

It would be wrong not to mention colleges today, especially following this week’s report from the Fraser of Allander Institute, which said that college graduates will boost the economy by £52 billion over their working lives. Shona Struthers was right when she said this week that that report

“quantifies the huge return on investment”

from Scottish colleges. However, the crucial bit is that she was puzzled that there

“isn’t a decisive move to invest more, and gain more”.

She said that

“in fact, investment is falling sharply”.

In other words, the college sector delivers billions and could deliver more, but the Government is cutting millions. The symptoms of that are strikes, the threat of compulsory redundancies and the loss of opportunity for potential students. We need to invest in the college sector if we are to get the proper return that has been promised.

There is much to commend in the Withers review. It brings clarity for employers, training providers and students about roles and responsibilities, and it gives intelligent control over how the money is spent.

For students, there is a new careers service, which the minister thinks is a central piece of the Withers review, to be led by the newly reformed Skills Development Scotland. The aim would be to cover not only those who choose a non-university career trajectory but those who go into higher education, so that everybody gets the best advice.

For employers, there is better, clear advice from a single source through Scottish Enterprise, which is long overdue. There would also be more systematic involvement of employers in skills planning.

For everyone, there is a single source of funding that brings together education and skills under national and regional planning to set out immediate and future skills needs. There would be parity of esteem to use the Scottish credit and qualifications framework much more effectively.

There are questions about the role of the employers group—the Scottish apprenticeship advisory board—which I will meet tomorrow. However, the devil will be in the detail of subsequent decisions on policy and funding.

Simplification can sometimes mean a lack of sophistication, with some losing out. For example, although it does not quite state this, the Withers review implies that the flexible workforce development fund should end and be brought under the main central funding arrangements. As Murdo Fraser highlighted, some employers might lose out as a result of that simplification and lack of sophistication. We therefore need to ensure that the new system takes account of all those needs.

Bringing together funding for higher education, further education and skills will mean little if there is not a transfer of funds between those different functions. However, that transfer will be fought fiercely by those who are defending already-shrinking budgets. We must address the simplification on that front, too.

Those matters are difficult, but we must have such discussions—with much more time—if the reformed skills landscape is to be fit for the future.

I am sure that the cabinet secretary will have been following the public inquiry into the M9 crash that resulted in the loss of Lamara Bell and John Yuill. She will also have noted the comment from the Scottish Police Federation’s David Kennedy that any further cuts could result in a similar tragedy. I do not get the sense from the cabinet secretary’s responses today that she understands the severity of the claims that are being made. Does she get it, and will she stop cuts in the future?

Thankfully, we have avoided deaths in North East Fife, but I have witnessed the distress that has been caused by flooding in recent weeks in places such as Freuchie Mill.

I have been working with farmers for some time now on the climate extremes in relation to drought and flooding, and I note the schemes that the minister set out in her statement. I urge her to explore whether those schemes are flexible enough to cover flooding and drought on, for example, reservoirs, which can help for the future.

The minister was right when he talked about the need to celebrate and recognise the contribution that members and ex-members of the military make to society. I have met some very talented people who have made great contributions to society and the places and people that they work for now. The minister also knows that it is important for the Parliament to focus on the many areas where we need to do better. I have met many people who have seen horrific things in the field of combat, such as murders, deaths and traumatic events involving people of all ages, as I am sure the minister has. That lives with them forever. We should focus on what we can do better to help those people who may be struggling to fit back into society, while also recognising, as the minister says, that there are many talented people who do great things for their employers as well as for society.

I am sorry that I am not in the chamber, but I tested positive for Covid this morning. I know that the minister will miss me, but I thought that it would be best to speak from home.

The Government was keen to have consensus on its motion, but I hope that the minister will forgive me for trying to lodge an amendment that was not accepted. We wanted to press the point about pupil equity funding for young people and children of armed forces personnel and veterans. I will return to that later, but I think that it is important to try to press the Government so that we can make more progress with helping young people in that area.

First, I want to cover a couple of things that other members have already touched on. However, it is important to emphasise what needs to be improved. I will touch on the veterans commissioner’s report. The minister was right to recognise the criticism, and it is to his credit that he did so. The commissioner pointed to some successes as well as particular areas on which progress has been slow, including health and employment, as well as mental health and homelessness prevention, which require further progress. The progress on the delivery of the veterans mental health and wellbeing action plan was described as slow, which is not good enough. If our words are to mean anything, we need to move so much faster. The commissioner said that recent updates have been more encouraging, but the Government must maintain that if it is going to deliver a mental health and wellbeing pathway for veterans that is timely and effective.

The commissioner was also critical of progress on the veterans homelessness prevention pathway. We are more than a year on from the proposals being published, but she said that little has been achieved to date, and again, progress is slow, with no clear milestones or timelines.

That is really important, for a simple reason. Scottish Veterans Residences has said that about 800 households that include veterans make homelessness applications every year. It has also highlighted that homelessness can occur many years after discharge because of delayed transition, which can be the result of a reluctance to seek help or the deferred impact of previous trauma.

As much as we publicly value the service of those who are in the armed forces, we should also recognise the burden that falls on their families and in particular their children. The armed forces covenant says that members of the armed forces community

“should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public ... services.”

We should have the same commitment in relation to their children’s education. Many young people whose parents are in the services are forced to chop and change schools as they move for their parents’ work. That can disrupt their studies and their friendships.

For many young people, the worry of having a parent away in a dangerous place for a long time means that they need extra support. One measure that I was especially supportive of my Liberal Democrat colleagues introducing when they were in government was the service pupil premium in England, which provides £335 of funding per child from the beginning of school until the age of 16. That funding goes direct to schools to provide support as teachers think best to give young people the extra help that they need with their mental health and their schoolwork.

It is clear that such funding has made a real difference for many young people. In some schools, it has been used to employ dedicated members of staff to support and mentor service children. Pupils at one secondary school have said that having an interested adult mentor who understands the demands that are placed on service families has helped them to feel less isolated, especially when one of their parents is on deployment, and it has helped them to build strong friendship groups to support them with their attendance during difficult times. The funding allows primary schools to provide outside learning support to work with pupils on building their social skills and self-esteem and developing positive attitudes to learning, which raises academic achievement.

Despite the success of that policy in England, I have not yet persuaded the Scottish Government to support it, more than a decade after its introduction. The numbers are significant, as 2,500 children of service personnel who live in Scotland are missing out on support. I hope that the minister will reconsider the Government’s position, especially given his new role in education, as well as his role in relation to the armed forces community.

We want to do right by veterans, the armed forces community and their children. The progress that the commissioner has identified deserves to be acknowledged, as does her criticism, but we should always ask what more we can do. The service pupil premium is something positive that the Government could do.

An old SNP press officer was fond of saying that Lib Dem press releases were a boomerang, designed to attack opponents but walloping the critic right back on the nose. Today’s motion is by its very definition a boomerang motion.

Many of the arguments about the criticism of the Conservative Government and its treatment of the Scottish Parliament have already been rehearsed today, and I agree with many of them.

I am in favour of a federal solution for the United Kingdom; I want proportional representation; I want a written constitution; and I also want the abolition of the House of Lords. However, it is really depressing that we cannot get two mature Governments just to work together to sort out these problems.