Meeting of the Parliament 27 April 2017
John Swinney and I and this Government have never shied away from the fact that Scotland—like many countries right now—has an issue with teacher recruitment. That is one of the reasons why we have increased the intake to teacher training to train more teachers to work in our schools and close the attainment gap.
The fact is that this SNP Government is investing in local services. Whatever Kezia Dugdale tries to say, there is £400 million extra available in this financial year for council services. The question for Labour is this: if it does not think that there is enough money for council services, why are eight Labour-led councils going into this election promising to freeze the council tax? Maybe Kezia Dugdale will give us a straight answer to that straight question.