Meeting of the Parliament 16 December 2025 [Draft]
I hate to be the wet blanket at the party; however, I will start by thanking Liz Smith very much for introducing the bill. I agree with virtually everything that has been said this afternoon and at committee about the value of residential outdoor education.
I was keen to speak in this afternoon’s debate as I have been involved in the bill throughout, as a member of both the Education, Children and Young People Committee and the Finance and Public Administration Committee, and I have met virtually no one who disagrees with the principle of the bill, that all young people should have the opportunity of a week’s residential outdoor education during their school career. I, too, am in full agreement with that. Many committee witnesses testified to that principle, and I also meet people outside—friends, teachers, parents and former pupils—who are very supportive of the idea.
However, for me, problems arose around the finances as those were originally planned for when the bill was introduced. There was a question as to whether the financial memorandum accurately estimated the likely costs, which Liz Smith put at up to £36 million and the Government put at up to £40 million.
The question then was whether that would include upgrading outdoor centres, whether teachers would need to be paid for carrying out a new statutory responsibility and whether better-off families, who currently can—and do—pay for their children’s courses should suddenly make a big saving because the state would fund everyone. I was therefore glad that, at stage 2, Liz Smith and the Government agreed on amendments to allow parents to be charged if they could afford to pay all or part of the costs. That has been further refined at stage 3 by the requirement that the Government give guidance on that point. So far, so good.
I am considerably less happy about the supplementary financial memorandum, which, I think, we received on Friday 4 April. It does not include any estimate of additional capital expenditure or other costs, which were considered to be too low in the original financial memorandum. No additional cost estimate is included for capital improvements to outdoor centres; nor is there any provision for the changing of teachers’ terms and conditions, extra staff cover in schools and similar costs, which the Educational Institute of Scotland and others have raised with us. All that is really dealt with in the supplementary financial memorandum is the effect of amendments at stage 2—which, effectively, is a question of how costs will be shared out, not what they will actually be.