Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2026
I thank Emma Roddick for bringing the debate to Parliament. I join colleagues in their praise of the programme and hope that we can see it trialled in Lanarkshire at some point, because I think that it is a really good initiative.
Not to harp back to old-fashioned ideals for the sake of it, but it used to be that giving less-than-well-behaved teenagers their first taste of responsibility would often be the making of them. I think that most of us know someone who that applies to. The trouble is that our public services pathways do not do that. Anything short of a path that goes from high school to university and on to a graduate job is seen as sub-par. That is just wrong. Growing2gether really turns that pyramid on its head. It points a finger at every young person and asks, “What are you going to offer the world? What happens if you are forced to think about the wellbeing of someone who is not you?”
As I mentioned in the chamber last week, we have a problem in our economy, with one in six young people aged between 20 and 24 being out of education, employment or training, so I am pleased to join Emma Roddick in congratulating the Growing2gether programme, and I think that the Scottish Government absolutely should consider how it can do more to expand it in the future.
More than that, the Scottish Government should consider how the entire ethos of the programme can be applied to the education-to-employment pathway. The first question should not be what support someone needs, but what someone can offer their community, economy, family or society. If someone is looking after a toddler, that is tremendous.
We must expand the criteria for what is deemed to be a successful education-to-employment journey. Most importantly, we must fearlessly and unashamedly trust young people with the opportunity to contribute to society. That is what I take away from this debate.