Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2017
Iain Gray said that it is “right and reasonable” to hold the Government to account. That is, of course, correct. The Government is here to be held to account, and I accept that accountability. However, all parties in Parliament need to be consistent.
Iain Gray’s criticism of my amendment was that it is “ridiculously partial”. My amendment acknowledges that despite the progress—I will come back to progress—that has been made,
“there remains significant challenges in closing the attainment gap and raising standards for all; further acknowledges the wider challenges that exist within Scottish education, including budget pressures, the wider impacts of poverty on educational opportunity, teacher recruitment, teacher workload and the role of key agencies, such as the SQA and Education Scotland”.
That is a fair assessment of Scottish education. Iain Gray’s motion says absolutely nothing good whatsoever about Scottish education. It is a disgraceful motion for him to have lodged, and I utterly refute its characterisation of Scottish education. Mr Gray referred to schools in his constituency. I refuse to believe that if he went into Knox academy, Dunbar grammar school, North Berwick high school, Ross high school or Preston Lodge high school, he would find their character to be as pathetically miserable as the characterisation in his motion.