Meeting of the Parliament 26 March 2024
I thank the minister for his intervention. On his point about the increase in student support, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that there has been a 16 per cent reduction in student support over the past 10 years. On what Labour would do, I will come to that next in my speech.
My party and I are unwavering in our commitment to shattering the class, glass and stepped ceiling. We are dedicated to ensuring that our education and skills systems work in tandem and collaborate seamlessly to create opportunities for all, equipping our young people, regardless of their background, with the necessary tools to access the well-paid secure jobs of the future so that no one is held back by where they come from. We know that, in order to meet the ambition, we are in dire need of a sustainable tertiary education system.
Labour offers an approach to further and higher education that is different from what the current Government offers. We understand the value of the tertiary sector, and we refuse to stand idly by as our once world-leading education system faces managed decline. We need a Government that is focused on sustainable economic growth and ambition, not stagnation and settling. That is why, across the UK, Labour has laid out plans to bolster universities and has committed to investing 3 per cent of gross domestic product in research and development and establishing 10-year research deals to facilitate long-term planning.
We are building robust support frameworks to encourage successful spin-outs. Here in Scotland, we are determined to elevate standards in our schools and boost the number of students who progress to positive education, employment and training. We know how pivotal education that is based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay, is to ambition. Scottish Labour introduced free tuition, and it remains one of our proudest achievements from our time in government. We have reaffirmed that commitment time and again, and that position has not changed. We support the delivery of free tuition for Scottish students who attend Scottish universities.
In contrast, the current implementation by the Scottish Government is not working. An underfunded system lets down students, staff and institutions.