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As Iain Gray explained, the focus becomes hitting some pre-defined metric regardless of its suitability to the pupil that the teacher knows, and knows best.
Scottish Government research has established that two thirds of families with pre-school children have experienced difficulties in finding the money to pay nursery fees.
With some estimates suggesting that 65 per cent of pre-school children will work in careers and jobs that do not yet exist, their future is truly one of opportunity.
I thank Mr Stevenson for his intervention. He has somewhat pre-empted what I was going to speak about a little later, but I will respond to him directly now.
The amendment in the name of Dean Lockhart is pre-empted. The next question is, that amendment S5M-04919.3, in the name of Jackie Baillie, which seeks to amend motion S5M-04919, in the name of Willie Rennie, as amended, be agreed to.
The recent survey that the Federation of Small Businesses carried out revealed that, in the final quarter of 2016, small business confidence in the UK bounced back to the pre-Brexit referendum level. That is very much to be welcomed.
Our GDP per head is 2.1 per cent above its pre-recession peak, although that is not good enough and we would like it to be higher, but the figure for the UK is only 1.2 per cent.