Skip to main content
Loading…

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.  

Filter your results Hide all filters

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
Select which types of business to include


Select level of detail in results

Displaying 825 contributions

|

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

I go back to what the cabinet secretary said earlier in the debate to my colleague Stephen Kerr, which was that not all families take up their eligibility. That is a starting point. I do not think that that is a good problem to have and it is not a new problem.

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Low-income Families (Access to School Education)

Meeting date: 26 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

Will the member take another intervention?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 20 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

My main line of questioning goes back to Jim Thewliss’s point that there are 32 different models across the country. I am particularly concerned about schools in rural areas, where the same suite of options is often not available to headteachers or even to local authorities. Do you recognise that that is a challenge, given that there are not the same third-sector providers or opportunities on schools’ doorsteps and that smaller schools often have smaller PEF budgets and therefore less flexibility?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 20 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

Do the other witnesses recognise that? If a headteacher has a small PEF budget but there are only limited resources to tap into in the immediate community, does that prevent the policy from working as well as it might?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 20 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

Following on from Graeme Dey’s line of questioning, I think that the obvious thing to say is that there is a gap because schools are not always properly funded. I would not want to defend attainment funding being spent on other things, but schools that I see locally do not always have a choice. Keeping staff on is a priority for headteachers. Do you agree with that, Mr Dempster?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 20 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

I will ask one last question. Do you think that using low-income households as the criteria for distributing funding—the Scottish Government uses that approach in other policies now—would be a potential replacement? That certainly appears to pick up more poverty in rural areas. I see that Andrea Bradley is nodding.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 20 April 2022

Oliver Mundell

Thank you. That is all very helpful. I want to ask about the small group of schools—it has become smaller again—that do not receive any PEF money at all. When I look at the list, I am not convinced that no young people at those schools would be in poverty. I wonder whether the policy can be fully effective when some headteachers and some schools—many of which are small, rural schools—receive no PEF money at all. I guess that Greg Dempster or Jim Thewliss would be best placed to respond.

Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Keeping the Promise Implementation Plan

Meeting date: 30 March 2022

Oliver Mundell

I am pleased to close the debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives and to join my colleagues in reaffirming our support for the Promise.

The debate has been worth while and has broadly struck the right note. There has been recognition across the chamber of the collective shared ambition to deliver on the Promise—it is a genuine cross-party commitment—and that the Government is responsible for delivering and setting the required targets. Therefore, it is right that Opposition MSPs push the Government to do more and that they question the rate of progress.

Although a new plan and consultation are welcome, they do not, in and of themselves, mean anything. An implementation plan is nothing without implementation. Of course, we must acknowledge that there has been a global health pandemic, but that cannot be used as an excuse for failure to deliver for the young people for whom we have a collective responsibility. A promise should not be made lightly. It is not about offering to do something when it suits or when things are going well; it is about doing the right thing and following the right priorities even when things are really difficult.

It is arguable that the need to deliver for care-experienced young people was even greater during the height of the pandemic. There can be no doubt that many of the challenges that young people faced were felt even more acutely among that group. As we have heard time and again in the debate, young people in care face far greater barriers and challenges than their peers do. There is no reason to believe that the situation was any different during the pandemic, when many of the services and support mechanisms that they rely on were reduced or put under great strain. Indeed, many care-experienced young people will look at what has happened over the past two years and feel, regardless of the pandemic, that they have been let down and that the support and the promised changes never really materialised.

Both Willie Rennie and Meghan Gallacher quoted Fiona McFarlane, the head of oversight at The Promise Scotland, who warned that

“For so many care-experienced children, young people and care-experienced adults, their lives won’t have improved over the last two years and things will have been really, really hard and may even have got worse.”

She also said that

“That’s heartbreaking and shameful, and it shouldn’t be the case.”

As a Parliament and as a country, we cannot afford to be complacent, and as has been said, we cannot be part of keeping a secret. There are very serious concerns, and more recommendations and warm words can go only so far. None of us can shy away from the fact that many people who depend on us have been badly let down. Therefore, while recognising the work that has been done and the plan that has come forward, we, including the Scottish ministers, must be honest and transparent when it comes to admitting that, so far, we have fallen short.

As my colleague Meghan Gallacher said, if the Scottish Government is asking Parliament to look past the delays in implementation, it should be willing to acknowledge the concerns that have been expressed by stakeholders and campaigners. As Scottish Labour clearly sets out in its amendment, the Government should be willing to put in place meaningful targets. As Michael Marra said in his closing speech, it is not clear from the implementation plan that there are concrete, definite and meaningful targets. That is just not good enough, particularly given the delays that we have seen.

A Government that is keen to build trust and consensus in such an important area should have no problem with voting for the amendments. I suspect, however, that in the case of our amendment, that might prove to be a challenge. If that is the case, it will be disappointing, but I plead with the Government to recognise that not all has gone as well as it could have done—certainly, it has not gone as was promised.

As I conclude, and regardless of the outcome at decision time, I note that I hope that today’s debate and publication of the plan mark the start of a renewed focus on making good on the Promise. Let this be the last year that we stand here and say that progress has been limited; let it be the last year that we tell young people that they matter, then fail to back up those words with action; let it be the last time that we pass the buck.

Ultimately, responsibility lies with the Scottish Government, but politics aside, it is an area that is just too important for us to have seen such limited progress. Where there is a will to deliver the changes, there is a way; the Scottish Conservatives stand ready to do what we can to support delivery of the Promise. It is an area in which we are desperately keen to see the Scottish Government succeed. That can be done only by listening to the concerns of stakeholders and partners and, most important of all, those of care-experienced young people. By working with them in a spirit of partnership, we can get things sorted out quickly. Behind the statistics that we have heard are real people whose life chances desperately depend on our getting this right. We cannot afford, in a small country, to see so much talent being wasted, or to see so many people being excluded from playing a full part in our society.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education Reform

Meeting date: 23 March 2022

Oliver Mundell

That gets to the nub of the issue. We have brought in the OECD to work to a very restricted remit, and the Scottish Government brought you in, but neither you nor the OECD have really felt able to challenge the culture at the heart of the Scottish Government. The lack of ministerial oversight has allowed the issues that you identified to continue for five years, when Opposition parties across the Parliament have been calling for an independent inspectorate and raising concerns about leadership at the SQA. We have seen continued reboots of curriculum for excellence, but nothing seems to have changed. What makes you confident that this time is going to be any different?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education Reform

Meeting date: 23 March 2022

Oliver Mundell

Okay. I will leave it there.