Meeting of the Parliament 08 May 2024
The First Minister has been clear that the Government that he leads will be committed to attempting to engage constructively with other parties in the chamber and finding areas of agreement where that is possible.
That sets a clear expectation of the approach to be adopted not only by ministers, but by Opposition parties. In a Parliament where no party has a majority, there is a duty on us all to work, if not together, in a considered and reasonable way, treating issues on merit. In this new environment, Government cannot impose its will on Parliament. Equally, the other parties need to decide whether they will oppose simply for the sake of it, set out wish lists with no identified path to delivering or look to engage constructively.
In responding to the Conservative motion, I seek to rise to the challenge that the First Minister has set those of us on the SNP side of the chamber. The motion talks about inadequate funding of colleges and calls for us to at least look at how we could improve matters.
Let me acknowledge that the budgetary settlement for colleges is not what I would want it to be—although, in the interests of balance, it is worth noting that, over the past 10 years, we have increased the college resource budget by more than £121 million in cash terms.
I do not want to get into a to-ing and fro-ing here, however. There are lots of things that I could throw back at Liam Kerr, but we have rehearsed those arguments before.