Hansard

Although members around the chamber might disagree about the means by which to achieve this, we as parliamentarians are all motivated by our strong desire to ensure that our beloved Scotland can be the best country that it possibly can be and a land of opportunity for all who live here. It should shame us all as politicians that in 21st century Scotland far too many people still have little opportunity to achieve their potential—we share that characteristic with other parts of these isles. Often those individuals are dismissed as failures when, in truth, it is previous generations of politicians who have failed them.

For far too many young people and their parents, life is a struggle and there is little real hope on the horizon to spark and fuel their ambition. Sadly, our young people can have their life outcomes determined at birth by where they live rather than by their own inherent talents and potential. As Save the Children has stated, breaking the link between growing up in poverty and poor educational outcomes is vital to achieving the goal of raising attainment and ambition for all our young people.

If we as a Parliament are serious about doing that, I invite everyone in the chamber to welcome and support the Scottish Government’s initiatives in relation to the Scottish futures fund. In particular, I welcome two elements of the fund. First, the youth talent fund will encourage the very best of talent in all parts of the country. It represents an investment in young people of £50 million, which will help to widen opportunities in the arts and creative apprenticeship programmes for the young, where job opportunities in their area do not match their generation’s enormous talent and ability. Secondly, the sure start fund, which will also receive £50 million, has at its heart a determination to transform the life chances of thousands of newborn Scots. The SFF therefore includes commitments to provide financial support for young people right through from birth to adulthood.

The Scottish Government has signalled a decisive shift towards preventative spending measures, which are about investing now to save money and reduce negative social outcomes later. Those measures will be of particular benefit to Scotland’s young people. In giving evidence to the Finance Committee yesterday, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Centre for Public Policy for Regions supported that shift and praised the Government for that brave decision. That is a view shared by the Labour MP for Nottingham North, Graham Allen MP, who stated in his evidence to the Finance Committee:

“As for where the balance lies, I do not wish to flatter the committee, but Scotland has achieved a much better balance than England.”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 28 September 2011; c 105.]

I believe that Parliament should echo those sentiments and I welcome the Scottish Government’s wider investments in and commitments to young people. Some have been mentioned already: the spending review will fund a record number of 125,000 modern apprenticeships over the next five years; Angela Constance has mentioned the activity agreements; and the Government’s “Putting Learners at the Centre” paper, published in September, reaffirms the Scottish National Party’s commitment to young people. We have a long-standing commitment to do everything we can to lessen the risk and harm of unemployment for young people.

I know all colleagues across the chamber will also recognise the importance of Scotland’s colleges in delivering the training and skills to help our young people fulfil their ambition. Clearly, in these difficult times, the Scottish Government has been forced to make some difficult decisions, which I acknowledge will be a challenge for the sector. However, the college sector has always been a can-do sector and I hope that by enhancing existing interregional collaboration the colleges will rise to that challenge.

In light of Ken Macintosh’s animated intervention earlier on college sector funding, I want to expand on a point I made in the Finance Committee yesterday, when we heard from representatives of the CPPR and the RSE. It is true that over the period from 2011-12 to 2014-15, there will be a 13.6 per cent decrease in college sector funding in cash terms in Scotland—that is, a reduction from £545 million to £471 million—but the comparable decrease in funding for the United Kingdom Government’s spending in England’s college sector is from £4.3 billion to £3.2 billion, or a fall of 25 per cent in cash terms, even before allowing for the impact of inflation. In other words, the fall in spending on the college sector in England is almost double that in Scotland, despite an implied 25 per cent Barnett consequential.