Meeting of the Parliament 20 January 2026
We agreed to a number of amendments at stage 2 to ensure that the voice of business and industry is even more significant under the bill. Later in today’s proceedings, I will urge Parliament to support amendments to give industry and business further voice in the process. On the sub-committee, that can of course be determined by the SFC, and we will come to Willie Rennie’s amendment on that in due course.
If Miles Briggs is content, I turn to Stephen Kerr’s amendment 11, which revisits one of his stage 2 amendments. With respect to Mr Kerr, I must say that, as I set out to the committee then, in the Government’s view, the amendment is ambiguous on what constitutes
“measurable improvements in skills, productivity and learner achievement.”
The appropriate mechanism for setting expectations on funding outcomes is already available through the terms and conditions of funding that ministers can impose on the SFC. That is already possible under powers in the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005. Through amendment 10 in group 1, which we have just discussed, the new national funding strategy will require the Scottish ministers to set out the outcomes that the Government is seeking to deliver through funding tertiary education and skills training. I know that Mr Kerr supports that amendment, and I hope that he welcomes it.
For the reasons that I have set out, I ask Miles Briggs not to press amendment 75 and Stephen Kerr not to move amendment 11. If they do, I encourage colleagues to vote against the amendments.