Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary talks about increased teacher numbers, but does she realise that three quarters of newly qualified teachers are struggling to find permanent employment and are stuck on supply lists?

I remind members that my wife is a primary school teacher.

I will start with the words of the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon:

“My aim—to put it bluntly—is to close the attainment gap completely. It will not be done overnight—I accept that. But it must be done.”

That was said in 2015. Willie Rennie was quite right to point to the fact that the former First Minister made a promise to the poorest children in Scotland—a promise that she has singularly failed to keep. It is very dispiriting and disappointing that she is not in the chamber to defend her record, even though she is on the estate. Presiding Officer, you could have a coffee with her in the garden lobby and ask her why she is not here. Perhaps she is working on the last chunky chapter of her book. I hope that she finds time in it to explain and apologise for her record of failure.

The reality is that the SNP has given up on closing the poverty-related attainment gap. That theme was eloquently taken up by Miles Briggs. The reality is that the gap between school leavers from the most deprived areas of our country and those from the least deprived areas has worsened or barely changed over the past decade since Nicola Sturgeon made those remarks.

Paul McLennan said that he did not want to trade statistics and then gave a slew of statistics, so let me reply to him. The SNP’s pledge to close the gap within 10 years lies in tatters. At the current rate, it will take 133 years to close the primary school numeracy gap and 57 years to close the primary school literacy gap. I could go on. At that pace, we will all be long dead before we achieve the lofty goal that Nicola Sturgeon set us and herself all those years ago.

Teacher recruitment is in crisis. Record numbers of early career teachers are quitting. Scot Lib Dem figures show that more than 400 recently trained teachers left the profession last year alone, and newly qualified teachers cannot get stable jobs. Only 23 per cent of newly qualified teachers report being able to secure a full-time teaching job in their profession of choice, down from 56.5 per cent. Since 2018, thousands of teachers have left the register within five years of starting, and supply lists are swelling.

Moving on to violence in our schools, as a former youth worker who will never do down young people, I recognise that violence is a product of the environment in which young people have been brought up and the impact of the pandemic. However, we cannot ignore it. Some 40,000-plus violent incidents were reported in 2023-24. In Glasgow alone, 2,500 violent incidents were reported in one year.

The cabinet secretary sought to kill Willie Rennie with kindness in her opening remarks, but there was a cognitive dissonance in those remarks. I am sure that the 400 newly qualified teachers I spoke of who left the profession last year will be reconsidering their life choices and reaching to phone the education authority now that they have learned about the Government’s working group to look at the problem. Stop the press—it is all going to be fine.

That cognitive dissonance was also taken up by Karen Adam. I was disappointed in her. She usually speaks incredibly well but leant into the lazy SNP tactic of suggesting that, by having the temerity to raise the topic in Opposition time, we are somehow doing down teachers or pupils. Ms Adam would do well to remember that teachers are growing tired of the Scottish Government and its back benchers using them as human shields in that way. Those teaching unions and pupils would be over the moon to have just one afternoon of Government time devoted to the problems in the education system that the SNP has presided over.

I was so glad to be present to hear Liz Smith’s last contribution on the education topic. She has brought so much light and expertise to the chamber since her entry to the Scottish Parliament in 2007. In every one of those debates, she has lifted the standard of public debate and the ambitions of the Scottish Parliament. I fundamentally agree with the excellent tribute that was paid to her by Martin Whitfield. Her voice will be such a loss to the chamber when she steps down in May. [Applause.]

When the Liberal Democrats last left government in 2007, Scottish education was among the best in the world. Only a handful of countries ranked above us in maths, but now, under the SNP, Scottish education is just average. Our maths scores in the international rankings are the lowest that they have ever been—that is not doing down teachers; it is a statement of fact. It is the same for reading and science—now, under the SNP, we have the worst ever scores. That theme was picked up well by Roz McCall.

Remember what John Swinney and the SNP said that they would do? Paul O’Kane ably reflected on that: a free laptop for every pupil, free school lunches up to primary 7, teachers spending fewer hours in front of class and more time preparing, smaller class sizes, closing the poverty-related attainment gap, and 3,500 more teachers. None of that has been delivered—not one bit of it.

The impact, after 19 years of the SNP, is that Scottish education is just not what it used to be. People feel let down. Every week, without exception, I meet families—as I am sure you do, Presiding Officer—who are worried that their child’s additional support needs are not being met or that their teenager is frequently absent from school, toiling under that long shadow of lockdown, or they are worried about the violence in their schools, which is captured on phones and spreads across social media like wildfire. Children, parents and teachers all deserve better than that. Education is the best investment that we can make in our children’s potential and in our country’s future.

Here is the optimism that the cabinet secretary was looking for in this debate. Here is the Scottish Liberal Democrat plan for how we would do things differently. We will invest in pupil support assistants and specialist support, such as speech and language therapists. We will create a young carers lead in every school to help young carers balance education and caring for a loved one. We will use youth work as a means of reaching young people who are not successfully engaged in formal education. We will legislate to make classrooms mobile phone free, so that children can learn and teachers can teach. We need that legislation in order to make the cultural change required. It is just not fair to leave it up to headteachers and ministerial guidance.

We will also open up a new route for qualified primary school teachers who are stuck in precarious work to quickly gain the right to teach in our secondary schools—some of which are crying out for teachers. If someone needs to be able to teach an additional subject, we will help them, too. That will improve the teacher’s job prospects and will ensure that pupils have the teachers and the subject choice that they fundamentally deserve.

It is a scandal that three out of four newly qualified teachers are forced on to demoralising temporary zero-hours contracts. They are ready to shape young minds, and they have grafted for their qualifications. Why is the SNP Government forcing them to move abroad to find work or to spend years in jobs where they cannot pay their bills and rack up thousands of pounds of debt? It did not use to be like that.

We will end that scandal—and it is a scandal. It is part of our plan to fix the mess that the SNP has made of this country’s education.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. This is often the excuse that her Government leans into when it is rightly challenged about problems that have occurred because of the centralisation that it has undertaken, whether that is with Police Scotland or the centralisation around other emergency services. It is a very convenient excuse, but we will always stand up for devolving power closer to the people whom it serves.

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

Addressing our conference on the 25th anniversary of devolution, the dear departed Jim Wallace said:

“The Constitutional Convention, whose final report is peppered with references to the European Charter of Local Self Government, concluded that in any future review of local government, ‘the aim of the Parliament should be, firstly, to safeguard and where possible increase the area of discretion available at the level of the local authority.’

The story of the Scottish Parliament under SNP administrations, however, has been one of increasing centralisation. Local taxation again is dictated by central government. Police and fire services have been centralised in a way which hasn’t exactly covered the idea in glory. Local courts have been closed. Local government funding has been squeezed further than overall Holyrood expenditure, thus limiting the scope for local initiative. As someone who believes in decentralised decision-making, this is very troubling.”

That is why I am pleased to confirm that the Scottish Liberal Democrats will support the bill at the final vote on its reconsideration. I was proud to be a signatory to Andy Wightman’s bill in the previous session of Parliament. At its heart, the legislation is grounded in a straightforward principle that was encapsulated in the words of Jim Wallace that we just heard: namely, that decisions that affect communities should be taken as close to those communities as possible.

For too long, power in Scotland has become increasingly centralised. Local government has too often been treated less as a democratic partner and more as a delivery arm for the will of this national Government. That imbalance has not served our communities well. The bill seeks to strengthen that relationship. Parliament originally passed the legislation with strong cross-party support, of which we have heard something this afternoon. Following the Supreme Court judgment, we have had to revisit certain provisions to ensure that the bill sits clearly within our competence.

The amendments that have been agreed to during reconsideration respond directly and proportionately to that judgment. Although the scope is narrower than first envisaged, the legislation that is now before us is legally robust and capable of moving forward without further delay. That matters, because another referral would only prolong uncertainty for our local government partners and for the communities that they serve.

Crucially, the bill still represents meaningful progress, as it embeds the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government into Scots law and strengthens the expectations of that partnership and of mutual respect and shared responsibility between national and local government. Good relationships cannot rely on good will alone. Clear statutory principles help to shape culture, clarify responsibilities and reinforce accountability.

Later in his words to our conference, Jim Wallace said:

“A new balance between the Scottish Parliament and local government and local communities needs to be struck. Parliament, in partnership with local government, should have the confidence and vision to ensure that the spirit of local government and local determination is revitalised. The extent to which Parliament can rise to the challenge of reforming local government finance and revitalising local democracy should be a measure of its success in the next quarter century, if not earlier.”

In the lines and pages of the bill that we will pass this afternoon, we are, in some way, reaching for the challenge that Jim Wallace described. That is why the Liberal Democrats will support the bill.

16:37

We have 32 local authorities, because we have reached a settled will that that is a fitting number to serve the communities of Scotland.

I point to the national care service. Nothing about the national care service would have made the delivery of care easier in places such as Strathpeffer or Aboyne. It would have asset stripped those communities of the ability to deliver social care in their areas.

I am grateful to Mark Ruskell for his kind words about Jim Wallace. Does he recognise that, as Donald Dewar said about devolution being a process, not an event, so too is the devolution of power to our communities away from the Parliament?

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

Will the cabinet secretary give way?