Meeting of the Parliament 25 September 2025
Oh—this morning.
The work that the school is undertaking with young people in that part of the capital—especially those with attendance challenges—is exemplary, and I was really impressed with the school’s focus both on delivering positive outcomes and on making sure that we work to realise our young people’s potential.
That is why Scottish Conservatives want a radical new approach, with the development of a hybrid education—we want to give young people the opportunity to access college and take up an apprenticeship earlier in their learning careers. That has been missed from this bill, and I hope that we can pursue it at stage 2.
When Scottish ministers introduced the bill, we on the Conservative benches were open to the reasons and rationale behind it. It is worth reflecting on why the Scottish Government decided to legislate in this area. The independent review of the skills delivery landscape by James Withers in 2023 highlighted the need to focus on a new vision to meet the challenges of future needs. Principally, we need flexibility to be delivered across the post-school learning system in order to achieve genuine agility and to ensure that learners at all stages of life are accommodated.
Members from across the chamber will be hearing about or seeing the opportunities that apprenticeship schemes are delivering every week—they are critical to the skills that our economy needs now and in the future. I believe that they must be protected and nurtured, and not only so that we can grow and deliver more opportunities. We must ensure that we continue to fund those that are being delivered now.
Often, the key to success in the delivery of apprenticeships has been our fantastic college sector. Indeed, in his report, James Withers advocated
“a colleges and universities first approach”,
and I agree that there are opportunities to do more with the college sector in order to deliver them.
However, the sector itself has raised some concerns. For example, for every pound that leaves the Scottish Government, only 40 to 50 per cent is received by the colleges that undertake to provide the training for apprenticeship contracts in certain key sectors of the Scottish economy. As the committee heard, there is, in between the Scottish Government and the college, a managing agent that takes significant amounts of that funding.
I welcome the opportunity to streamline, and bring more money into, the college sector, and to deliver apprenticeships, even within the existing overall education and skills budget.