Meeting of the Parliament 16 December 2025 [Draft]
Throughout all my 16 years as a secondary schoolteacher and my subsequent two decades as a parliamentarian, I have been firmly of the view that outdoor education is one of the most valuable and rewarding learning experiences that any young person can have. Residential outdoor education, which can enable young people to experience an environment that is very far removed from their usual everyday situations, is often life changing. That is why the bill is so important.
Adventurous new experiences in the outdoors allow young people to develop lifelong connections to the natural environment. They build self-esteem, reliance, confidence and, most importantly, resilience. They also help them to learn leadership skills, the importance of valuing friendship and what it means to be part of a team. Those skills not only enrich our lives as individuals; they also benefit society and are the ones that employers want to see in new recruits to the workforce. This is, therefore, a very good day for those who passionately believe that residential outdoor education, and learning in the outdoors more generally, is a positive, formative experience.
We know, too, that the current set-up has not been delivering well enough when it comes to residential opportunities. The scrutiny of my bill over the past three years has shone a light on that.
Despite moves to improve matters when the Scottish Government’s vision for outdoor learning was produced in 2010, the pledge made in the 2021 Scottish National Party manifesto, and some schools and local authorities doing a first-class job, significant gaps remain. There is considerable inequality of provision, particularly for pupils with additional support needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. There is a wide variation in resource provision across our different local authorities. There is also inequality of provision between the state school sector and the independent school sector, in which residential outdoor education is embedded in the extra curriculum. Those inequalities are unfair.
During consideration of the financial memorandum, I referred to the bill as “an investment” and an example of “preventative spend” in action. Evidence collected by the Outward Bound Trust across eight countries, including the United Kingdom, found that, for every £1 that is invested in outward bound programmes, there is a return of between £5 and £15 in societal value. For me, that is a very powerful finding and one that shows that the bill represents a healthy long-term investment in our young people and society in general.
However, the investment is not just purely financial. The bill’s provisions will help to address some of the stubborn and deep-seated problems that our schools face, from attainment to attendance, and from behaviour to wellbeing. It is a vital part of the jigsaw, particularly in the post-Covid era, when we have to work even harder to build resilience in our young people.
The bill that I hope we will pass this evening no longer places a duty on the Scottish Government to fund the full provision of such education. I hope that that change will provide the flexibility that is needed to ensure that there is a mixed funding model, which draws on financial support from a range of sources across the public, private and voluntary sectors, and including parental support. What is important is that those who cannot afford to pay are not required to do so, and that the parents of pupils with additional support needs are not charged extra because of those needs.