Meeting of the Parliament 30 October 2024
The whole problem with the £145 million is that there is, frankly, no specific agreement about how that money will be spent. I have asked that question a hundred times. I have asked to see the documentation that goes with the agreement on the £145 million, but it has never been produced, because it does not exist.
I will use my time to address the impending crisis in the Falkirk Council area. The council is proposing to cut the school week due to SNP funding cuts, which would mean less time in the classroom for children to learn. It is axiomatic that the more time that children spend learning in the classroom, the better it is. Falkirk Council’s proposals would remove the equivalent of a full year’s teaching from children and young people, and I am completely opposed to those proposals, as are many parents and pupils across Falkirk who have been contacting me and pressing the issue. It is an urgent issue for them and it is causing great anxiety. Falkirk Council needs to drop that ridiculous plan.
If we sit here long enough and listen to Government ministers going through their register of excuses, we find a theme. It goes like this: “That has nothing to do with us. These matters are in the hands of local authorities. There would be outrage if we did anything.” That is a typical response from members on the Government front bench. On this issue, that response is especially disingenuous because the reason why councils such as Falkirk are thinking of taking the drastic step of cutting the school week is that they have not been properly funded by the SNP Government for more than a decade. We are now in the 18th year of an SNP Government, so the SNP can no longer pass the buck for the mess that it has created. It must take responsibility.
Given what we have put the children and young people of Scotland through over the past few years, the last thing that we should be doing is reducing the school week. We should not be cutting back on their education; we should be investing in their education. We should not be cutting teacher numbers or sticking newly qualified teachers on disposable temporary contracts; we should be reducing classroom sizes and widening subject choice. We should be empowering school leaders, but, given the cabinet secretary’s poor track record, I fear that nothing will change. Willie Rennie is right—the cabinet secretary is living in a parallel universe, not in the real world.
Barely a few weeks ago, we passed motions that called on the Government to reverse its position on a couple of issues, including one related to education. The SNP ministers have just ignored the passing of those motions. That is why, when I saw the amendment in the cabinet secretary’s name, I burst out laughing. The amendment refers to a vote of this Parliament, but those ministers could not care less about the votes of this Parliament. Such is the contempt that the SNP has for this Parliament, and such is the general apathy towards the proceedings of this Parliament, that they calculate that they can get away with it. So, here we are again, debating Scottish education thanks to a Scottish Conservative motion.
There is a reason why the Scottish Conservatives are passionate about education and why we feel so strongly that the burden of Government spending cuts should never fall on classrooms. We believe in creating greater equality of opportunity right across our country, and education and skills training are the golden ticket to accessing a lifetime of opportunity. If it really needs to be explained to members of the SNP Government how awful the consequences of cutting the school week would be for children and young people, their prospects and their families, the ministers frankly do not deserve to sit where they sit a day longer. They are failing Scotland, they are failing our children and young people and their futures, and they are failing the future of Scotland. The cabinet secretary should desist from the sort of grandstanding and posturing that we have heard from her in the debate. It is writ large in her amendment.