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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 14 July 2025
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Displaying 825 contributions

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Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 11 May 2022

Oliver Mundell

Would you accept that that is not consistent across the country? That is an example of something that is working well in one of the collaborative areas, but it is not necessarily replicated across the country. Earlier, someone mentioned the fact that the various collaboratives set out the opportunities and their slant on equity in different ways, and there is certainly a feeling in the local authority area that my constituency is in that the interests of smaller rural schools is not always reflected in how the priorities are set out. You can imagine the frustration of the teacher in a school whose pupils are experiencing rural poverty when the circumstances of smaller schools are not reflected in the decisions that are taken.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 11 May 2022

Oliver Mundell

I come back to the generic point that people feel not that those resources are bad but that they are not school specific and that they are not of the same quality as those that other people enjoy through face-to-face and other opportunities.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 11 May 2022

Oliver Mundell

I want to ask about two specific examples, the first of which concerns regional improvement collaboratives. I hear that, even in quite large areas, many small rural schools feel that they are pushed out of decision making when it comes to setting priorities and the agenda of the collaborative. Staff in those schools find it hard to participate because no one is available to cover their absence while they are taking part, and they feel that their interests are not heard. It is not that they think that the priorities are wrong; it is just that the priorities inevitably tend to gravitate towards what larger schools in urban centres are saying. They would say that they have more commonality with similar schools in other areas but, because of how the collaboratives are set up, there is not always the chance for the national issues that affect small and rural schools across Scotland, who form a community of interest, to be aired in the regional collaboratives. Do you recognise that?

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

We heard in the debate about the significant waste that we have seen from the Government and the money that has been spent on constitutional obsessions. How can the cabinet secretary say that cutting support for some of our poorest communities is the right thing to do? We heard from our back benchers that some of the Scottish Government’s initiatives are a foretaste of what we would get in an independent Scotland. Is that one of them?

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

I am not denying that there are challenges there, but once again—

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

Back in 2015, Nicola Sturgeon said:

“Let me be clear—I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to? It really matters.”

I agreed with that then, and I agree with it now. The problem for the Scottish National Party Government and, in turn, for Scotland’s young people, is that that rhetoric and the reality have never been further apart. With every passing day, those words become more and more hollow.

I have lost track of how many debates such as this I have sat through and participated in over the past six years. SNP minister after minister stands up and sets out all the wonderful things that they are just about to get around to doing. That is depressing, and it borders on being insulting, given that the SNP Government has had 15 years in power to get on and do things. All we hear is that it is too hard or too complicated or—best of all—that all the problems will go away if only we dish out a few laptops and promise people a bike.

The truth is that many of the problems that we are talking about have been created on the SNP’s watch. Although it might be politically convenient to scream “Tories!” every time the going gets tough, it is SNP cuts to local government budgets that have squeezed education and left our schools so short of resources that they sometimes struggle even to function. Only this past week, we heard at the Education, Children and Young People Committee that many schools are using attainment funding just to keep the show on the road.

Having been lucky enough to be educated before the SNP came to power, I know that schools used to have enough resources not to have to charge young people for the basics. That did not need to be written into guidance or law. They were able to do the right thing because they had budget flexibility. Instead, what we have today is an endless stream of policies and announcements at national level, and lots of alleged new funding. However, core school budgets are being squeezed to the point at which stationery and other basic equipment are being topped up by teachers and charitable sources.

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

I would be very surprised if the cabinet secretary is speaking to schools, pupils, parents or local authorities, who all see that resources are under more pressure than ever. I do not know how any Government could claim that education is its top priority when schools are struggling to provide the basic materials for people to participate fully in lessons.

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

The problem is not being created by universality. Many young people in rural communities have gone for years without meals that they are entitled to, so the Scottish Government should stop using that as the model for allocating funding. It is welcome that we have started to look at low-income families, but that approach does not apply to pupil equity funding. The Government could have made that change, but it decided not to do so.

All that is before we get on to the challenge of even getting to school in a rural community. Council budgets have been squeezed hard. The Government points us in the direction of local authority discretion, but what discretion does a local authority have to provide transport in a rural area, outside the statutory mileage limits, if it has no money with which to do so?

All that speaks to a lack of priority and an unwillingness to be up-front about the scale of the challenge. It is worth noting that time was found for today’s debate only in the weeks ahead of the local government elections. If the issues that I have set out today are not enough to convince members of the lack of priority that the SNP gives to education, the amount of parliamentary time that is spared to discuss the matter certainly should convince them.

The SNP Government does little more than pretend that it cares. Yes—there are lots of worthwhile initiatives, but we must remember that they amount to absolutely nothing if they are not delivered. Until ministers deliver on their promises, they should stop coming to the chamber to pat themselves on the back. They are responsible, and Scotland’s young people are being failed. Behind all the bluff and bluster, what do they have to show for 15 years in power?

I move amendment S6M-04138.2, to leave out from “recognises the” to end and insert:

“notes the actions being talked about again by the Scottish Government to support children and young people in low-income families to access school education; further notes that the SNP administration has had 15 years in office to make a difference, but has failed to meaningfully improve the life chances of Scotland's young people; expresses concern at the sharp decline in Scotland’s once world-leading education system and the widening of the attainment gap under this First Minister, and the significant cuts to council budgets, which have left schools short of resources, and believes that it is disappointing that Scottish ministers only make education and young people a priority at election time.”

15:01  

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

Yes—and we certainly do not hear that from politicians or Scottish Government ministers.

We must also remember that the Government was all too happy to oversee a culture of exorbitant charges for music tuition. Under its watch, that became commonplace. Now, shamefully, ministers come to the chamber and seek our thanks for intervening. However, having been a member in the previous session of Parliament and having listened many times to the Deputy First Minister, who was at that time also Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, telling us what could not be done, I find this all very depressing. Frankly, the idea that, somehow, those were local choices that councils just came up with is just not believable. The truth is that that is another symptom of the squeeze on education budgets.

Again, that routine speaks to the true motivations of the SNP. Young people suffer, but that is okay, as long as the SNP can put in its manifesto something nice, promising to solve a problem that it created on its own watch.

I will move on to free school meals and breakfasts. Given the cross-party support for that in Parliament, has anyone ever seen a Government move so slowly? Where is the urgency? We should reflect for a second on the fact that we now live in a Scotland in which charities tell us that, under the eligibility thresholds, fewer young people are entitled to free school meals than was the case 20 years ago. Something has gone badly wrong.

On reducing the cost of school uniforms, there have been lots of words, but where has been the drive to change practice? Why are so many schools still encouraging branded items?

It is not good enough to identify the problem after 15 years; the Government should have shown some willingness to do something about it. If our education agencies were not so weak and dysfunctional, and our inspectorate more rigorous, the messages might have got out there. If essential education teams in local authorities had had capacity to do anything beyond firefighting, they might have been able to work with schools on the issues. I could go on and on—but members can see the pattern.

For this SNP Government, it is more important that things sound good in the chamber than that they are deliverable for the people who need our education system most. Yes—some things might have got better, but overall, the past 15 years has been, at best, a period of stagnation that has, ultimately, become decline.

Under the SNP Government, education has lost its sense of purpose. A toxic combination of botched attempts at radical reform and empty soundbites has taken precedence over development of a system that delivers for young people. Vague notions of wellbeing are now more important than doing well. Under curriculum for excellence, there is a methodology that serves those who would do well under any system, instead of there being a truly progressive knowledge-based mindset that is ambitious for every young person.

Education should help to break down barriers and create opportunities. It should not be about lowering expectations but, too often, that is what the SNP Government’s approach looks like. That does not hurt the people who are well supported and resourced at home—they get a head start—but it impacts most those who come to school to learn. Cutting teacher numbers and limiting school resources is a deliberate choice.

Again, how any SNP minister can stand up in the chamber and claim, with a straight face, that teacher numbers are at their highest level since they started to cut them is beyond me. At least there has been some recognition and admission that cutting school staff numbers to the bone was the wrong thing to do. That was painfully exposed during the pandemic and, again, all the evidence suggests that our most vulnerable young people paid the price. Rather than using self-congratulatory rhetoric, the minister might start by apologising.

Let us take another issue—funding to support those in poverty in rural communities, such as my Dumfriesshire constituency. I could not say how many times I have raised the issue in Parliament, yet we continue to hear that the Government is always looking for better ways of doing things. The idea that there are no young people in poverty in small rural schools in this country that have received no pupil equity funding is, frankly, absurd.

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

—that is the SNP Government’s typical approach of talking about anything else other than answering questions about the things for which it is responsible. [Interruption.] If the cabinet secretary wants to intervene and tell me whether it is acceptable that there are, in our country, young people in poverty in some schools that, under the Government’s funding formula, do not receive any additional funding, I would be happy to take another intervention. Frankly, telling us time and again—