Chamber and committees

Okay. I will leave it there.

I hear what you are saying and I respect your answer, but we have had problems for years. In the previous parliamentary session, our predecessor committee raised concerns about the independence of the inspectorate, we have had repeated concerns about the SQA, and lots of the problems that you identify are well known among the teaching profession. Therefore, it is about how we have confidence that the Government is actually going to take those things forward and build that trust, when it has spent years trying to say that everything is okay, that those are not real problems and that everything could be sorted if only people asked less difficult questions. Do you have confidence that—[Inaudible.]

The point that I am trying to tease out is that there is also a cultural issue among Scottish Government ministers, who have exercised very poor oversight over those bodies. It is wrong just to try to shift all of the buck on to the SQA, as dreadful as its performance has been. Surely, if the education system was working well, the Scottish Government ministers should have identified sooner that something was going wrong. Are there not accountability and cultural issues there?

One that is unnecessary and unlawful, as we have heard.

I say politely that the obligation on us as parliamentarians is not to put legislation on the statute book that is potentially unlawful, that enables ministerial overreach and that takes up a huge amount of parliamentary time and resource. Instead of preparing for future emergencies when we do not know what they might be, we could solve many issues in education today. Why should I, as a parliamentarian, put more power into the hands of ministers when they have been so incompetent not only during the pandemic but over the past 10 years? Is the job not better done by Parliament? We proved that we could do that at the height of the pandemic.

I will leave it there. Sadly, the Scottish Government is more interested in hoarding powers than in using them to help young people. We see that again with the bill.

[Inaudible.]—in private.

I think that most people in education and those who are watching at home will think that this is a total waste of time. I think that they will look at this and think that you are totally out of touch, cabinet secretary.

Most people who are involved in education—whether they are a parent or a teacher or they work in the sector day to day—realise that the problems during the pandemic had nothing to do with what was on the statute book; rather, they were all caused by ministerial incompetence, or by bad decisions that had been made prior to the pandemic. What makes you think that the bill would solve those problems? What would it do to address what we are seeing now, which is a third year of failure, with the Scottish Qualifications Authority again screwing over young people? What would it have done to prevent ministers from cutting 3,500 teachers and leaving schools in a really difficult position? What will it do to ensure that young people get the devices that they have been promised so that they can work remotely? I think that the answer is nothing. Is that right?

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I rise to highlight to Parliament, education stakeholders and the wider public my concerns about the way in which today’s business has unfolded at short notice and without adequate explanation. Are we now really accepting that this Scottish National Party Government is so incompetent that it cannot even organise the publication of its own so-called “landmark education report”?

The issue might seem to be small fry, but it speaks to the lack of ministerial oversight and to the incompetence that defines this SNP Government’s time in charge of our education system. Why should parents, teachers and young people trust it to turn things around and restore standards when it cannot even get the basics right? This follows the shambles at the Scottish Qualifications Authority in recent days, which has seen pupils being screwed over for the third year in a row.

I note, with gratitude, the selection of an urgent question this afternoon, but many people outside the chamber will wonder why time for an extra half-hour statement opens up when it suits the Scottish Government. I accept that the timing of today’s statement is unlikely to change, but it is important to put on the record that this chaotic approach does nothing to build consensus and trust in Scottish education. Instead of a tired Government putting the same tired arguments, we need a new approach to ask the difficult questions. We are not going to get that in a half-hour slot at the end of the day, inserted at short notice.

We are seeing again an SNP Government that claims that education is its top priority, while at the same time it is selling our young people short. Where is the leadership? Where is the so-called priority?

I would be grateful if the Minister for Parliamentary Business could explain why we find ourselves in this absurd position and why there has been such urgency in bringing the matter forward for debate, when today’s business has long been scheduled.

On 6 October last year, I asked the cabinet secretary to personally step in to sort out the SQA, and I was told that it had her “full confidence”. In reality, the SQA has presided over the most shameless shambles yet, with pupils and teachers being taken for fools. The support that is being offered is a joke and insults the intelligence of our young people.

Given that the cabinet secretary has refused to act on repeated warnings, does she now take full responsibility for damaging the life chances of our young people? If she cannot do the right thing and say sorry, will she at least guarantee that this is the last year in which the SQA is allowed anywhere near such decisions?