Meeting of the Parliament 20 January 2026 [Draft]
To some extent, Daniel Johnson makes a fair point, but I do not think that that is all on the SFC. A lot of that ultimately comes down to decisions made by Governments and Parliaments over a number of not just years but decades. The bill has also served as a way for us to strengthen the governance structures of the SFC.
There is one other area that I want to touch on before closing. I said at stage 1 that the Greens support the bill in part because we agree with the core premise, but also because of the opportunity to use the bill to address other issues. I think that we have been successful in some of those regards.
Many of our debates on the groupings of amendments at stage 2 were dominated by questions of fair work and standards for apprentices and for the staff of the education institutions. We have talked about the fact that nine of the previous 10 years saw industrial action in our college sector and the fact that many graduate teaching assistants in our universities are, in effect, working for less than the minimum wage because of how poor their salary is and how many hours they are, in practice, expected to work above what they are contracted to work. I think that we all want to address those issues, but we wrestled over the extent to which we can put funding conditions in legislation without straying into areas that are clearly reserved, such as employment law. It was not just about whether we can act; it was about whether we can act in and via legislation.
My starting point was the fact that, in 2021, we applied conditions to Scottish Government grants and contracts in relation to payment of at least the real living wage. The Government quite fairly put it back to me that that was not set out in legislation but was achieved through a change of policy. I am glad that, on that point, as the minister said, we came to an agreement, which was announced last week, to expand that approach in further and higher education.
Two fair work criteria are currently conditions of funding: the real living wage and appropriate worker voice—that is, trade union recognition. Now, the other five criteria will also be requirements. Those criteria are investing in workforce development, no inappropriate use of zero-hours contracts—I would suggest that all zero-hours contracts are inappropriate, but there you are—action to tackle the gender pay gap and create a more diverse and inclusive workforce, offering flexible and family-friendly working practices for all workers from day 1 of employment, and opposing the use of fire-and-rehire practices. The fact that those criteria will now be conditions of funding is a significant improvement.
I credit Unite, the GMB, Unison and especially the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers Association—EIS-FELA—which has campaigned on the fair work issue for a very long time. I want to credit in particular the EIS-FELA members at Forth Valley College, who, as a result of what happened at their institution, led the national campaign against fire and rehire in the college sector and won a really important victory that, in many ways, paved the way for this.
I do think, as Maggie Chapman said, that the bill was something of a missed opportunity for us to address wider issues of the governance of individual institutions, both colleges and universities. We are more than a decade on from the 2015 act and there is a need for us to look again at governance in the sector.
However, as I said a moment ago, we can legislate to address structural issues, and both Audit Scotland and the Withers report clearly laid out structural issues in the system. By aligning the system better, we will address some of those issues. Through this bill, once we pass it, we will have legislated to somewhat address the issues around strategy and direction, but, again, it is not appropriate to do all of that through legislation.
Much as the Greens are comfortable about voting for the bill today, the challenge—not for this Government, but for the Government that will be in place after May—is to set out a very clear strategic direction for our colleges and universities in particular. What are we trying to achieve? It is about not just our economic needs, but our social and environmental needs, because it is only with that clear direction that colleges, in particular, can thrive and succeed, as they have given us ample evidence of doing.