Meeting of the Parliament 04 December 2025
I am grateful for the chance to take part in today’s debate. I am not a member of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, but I am grateful to the committee for the work that it has undertaken in this area. It is an important area to look at and scrutinise.
The report is comprehensive. It is a good piece of work. Ensuring that we widen access to higher education is of the utmost importance. It speaks to creating a fairer society and ensuring that we have a more inclusive economy. Pam Duncan-Glancy used the word “potential” and, if we are to ensure that every person in our society has the opportunity to reach their full potential, ensuring that we have greater equity of access to higher education is an essential part of the equation.
I was able to experience and enjoy higher education when I was younger. I was not quite as adventurous as Miles Briggs, who grew up in Perthshire, if I remember correctly, and decided to make the journey up the road to Robert Gordon University. I grew up in Glasgow and went to the University of Glasgow, as many other members in this Parliament did. I had the time of my life there, and it laid a great foundation for the life that I have lived.
Ensuring that more people from a greater range of backgrounds are able to have that life-changing experience is important to me. Free education is not the only part of the equation, but it is part of it. By no stretch of the imagination could I say that I came from a deprived background, but, if tuition fees had been in place at the time that I was studying, it would at least have given me pause for thought as to whether it was a course that I wanted to take. From interacting with people in the area that I represent, I know that that would have the same effect on many young people now.
Having benefited from free education, I am proud, as a member of this Parliament, to have supported its reintroduction for Scottish higher education. Widening access is an important area of activity and it was important over a long period when I was the minister with responsibility for higher and further education, so I was pleased to see the progress that has been made.
I was involved in the appointment of John McKendrick as the commissioner for fair access. He took over from Peter Scott, who did a fantastic job in setting up and taking forward the widening access activity. I know that John McKendrick is continuing that activity, and I thank both of them for the work that they have done.