Meeting of the Parliament 20 January 2026
I reiterate my thanks to the Minister for Higher and Further Education for the way that he has approached the bill, which has been very useful. There has been clear engagement, and I can see some differences between the bill that we have in front of us and the one that he first examined. Likewise, I do not think that the bill is without merit. There is strong sense in bringing funding streams together so that money can be used more flexibly.
However, we cannot support the bill as it is. The advantage of a stage 3 debate happening immediately after the stage 3 amendment process is that none of the arguments will be entirely new, and the fundamental point that I have been making this afternoon and this evening is that structural reform that is embarked on without clarity about what is sought or to be achieved and without strategy has risks, at least, and can be damaging, at worst.
To put it the other way round, I note that the minister said in his opening remarks that he hopes that the reforms will bring about the changes in the skills system that we all want to see, but we do not know what those are. We do not know what success looks like, and we do not know what the skills and apprenticeship systems will look like or feel like or what difference will be made as a result of the reforms. We will not know whether the bill has succeeded because we do not have that clarity from the Government. How do we know that the structures in the bill are right? How do we know that the form of organisation will enable delivery?
Let us be clear that we need change. Trade bodies and individual businesses have set out that a number of changes should be made, and we need urgent change, but that is the last thing that this Government is doing. It is 10 years since the enterprise and skills review that started much of this work off, it is three since the Withers review, and it is going to take another three years for the bill to be fully implemented. It is all taking far too long. The Government would do well to listen to the voices of those who have clear views about how flexibility, upskilling and reskilling can be implemented now. Those are the urgent priorities that are in front of us.
We need clarity about skills funding, which is static, despite money being received through the skills levy. The bill will do nothing to increase transparency for the employers or sectors that are looking for information on how those funds are being delivered. We have had cuts to the few measures, such as the workforce development fund, that have provided the flexibility beyond the apprenticeship system that is so valued by business. Furthermore, we have seen a gutting of the colleges’ ability to undertake anything that looks like flexibility. There have been cutbacks to the provision in the credit system, which is far too inflexible and does not enable colleges to deliver the flexibility that is needed.
However, it is not just that the Government has been slow and unclear. One of my fundamental issues is that this Government has an extremely poor track record of delivering structural reform, particularly in the absence of any clear strategy. To see that, we only need to look at the college sector. Many of our problems have arisen because of the poorly executed reform of our colleges, which has again been due to a lack of clarity. There is an insistence on full-time courses rather than part-time courses, yet, when we look at the economic needs that we have in front of us, we can see that flexible part-time courses are the training and skills provision that many employers are crying out for.
The bill does not even touch on many of the elements that Withers set out. There was a really important discussion about regional structures, which was the subject of a central recommendation from Withers, but there is nothing in the bill on how we can deliver regional approaches, despite the fact that they clearly deliver flexibility. Nor is there any sense of how we can have microcredentials or skills passports, which are also features of the flexible system that we want.
Above all else, the biggest fear is that we have a lack of clear industry voices in the system. It is hard to reach any conclusion other than that industry voices will be diluted by the measures that we see in the bill. With just two seats on the Scottish Funding Council—in a body that has a remit far broader than simply to deal with skills—it is difficult to see how industry will be able to shape, lead and take forward the skills agenda.
I am out of time. The bill is a missed opportunity. That is not to say that it will not have benefits, but, because of that missed opportunity and because of the lack of clarity, the Scottish Labour Party cannot support the bill tonight.
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