Chamber and committees

This is a frustrating issue. Mr Greer’s point makes an awful lot of sense. The Government’s position is that it cannot take a position because it has not had time to consider the amendments. However, those amendments, both in substance and, more importantly, in principle—Mr Greer’s point on that is really important—have been discussed for some time, because the bill has been in the public domain for that period. It is also the Government’s position that it cannot come to a position because it has not consulted with the review group, but it has not asked the review group, and, more than that, the minister has not met with the review group.

Does the minister not accept that the Government has not done the required preparatory work before coming here this morning to discuss the amendments? Based on what the minister has just said, the Government has set up a process that it has not even attempted to meet. Can he understand the frustration of members in hearing that?

Forgive me for intervening again, but you said that it is the group’s lack of consideration that prevents you from taking a position, but you have not asked the group to consider the amendments. Is that correct?

I am grateful to Mr Simpson for letting me intervene. Does he share my understanding of the standing orders that the member in charge, which in the case of a Government bill is the minister, has the ability to delay stage 2 in order to take further evidence? Given that we are talking about substantive matters and that the minister says that there is a lack of evidence, does Mr Simpson agree that the Government should think about whether it needs to do that? The Government says that a lack of consideration prevents it from reaching a conclusion at this point but, ultimately, stage 2 is about trying to reach a conclusion. Does he share my understanding of the standing orders?

Thank you. I will leave it there, convener.

Following on from what was just said, I would just add that we are not looking at the skills system with a blank sheet of paper, because there is an active proposal from the Government. Jack Norquoy said earlier that we need the system to be responsive, and it seems to me that we need industry and employers to be engaged up front. However, we are removing SAAB, which was one point at which we had industry engagement, and we also had the SDS board, which had industry membership on it.

Does the panel understand where the voice of industry sits in the Government’s proposals in the bill? What should be the parliamentarians’ response to the bill, based on that issue of the industry voice? Paul Sheerin, I will come to you first.

One of the things that I have said directly to the minister and to James Withers is that we are putting structure ahead of function and outcome. Is that a fair assessment?

My second proposition probably brings us a bit more into this space. Having reflected on the evidence that we have taken, I wonder whether we need to almost flip some of the priorities on their head. Instead of, say, asking for more consideration to be given to the matter, we need to challenge every aspect of the education system to demonstrate what it is delivering on skills. It is not good enough for universities to turn around and say, “Your skills requirements are not our business.” We need to be challenging primary, secondary and all tertiary education and asking, “How are you contributing to skills outcomes?”

Just for clarity, are you arguing that we should be diverting money from other post-school education destinations—that is, university and colleges—towards the skills system?

Now that we are at the end of our evidence taking, I have, instead of questions, one or two propositions that I would like to put to the panel, just to reflect my thoughts. I will ask just one of you to volunteer a response because, otherwise, I will not have enough time to get through them.

My first proposition—and reflection—is that we treat apprenticeships and skills as a bit of a monolith, when they are not, and I think that there is one particular element on which that view is taken. The fact is that apprentices do not end up with just one qualification; an apprenticeship is actually a method of learning. Does the panel agree with the proposition that we need greater clarity on the qualifications that people actually end up with, instead of just treating the apprenticeship as the thing in itself? Is the Scottish vocational qualification that people end up with at degree level? What about the qualifications in between? Do we need to be a little bit more refined in our understanding of what qualifications apprenticeships deliver?

Paul Campbell, everyone has stepped back and you seem to be left standing.

Thank you. I would just like to pitch a slightly different question. Paul Campbell, you are here representing SAAB, which has essentially been scrapped. Has it been articulated to you what SAAB was not doing, or why it was not working, and therefore why it has been scrapped?