Meeting of the Parliament 25 September 2025
I welcome the minister’s intervention. Forgive me, but I should have started by welcoming him to his place and congratulating him again on his new role.
Of course we would agree that making the system much easier, more flexible and more responsive is crucial. However, as many people who gave evidence to the committee have told us, we do not need lengthy legislation that restructures organisations and comes with a costly price tag of tens of millions of pounds in order to do that. That money could be better spent on the front line, and on delivering opportunity for all, now.
More than half of Scottish businesses report skills shortages. Only one in six employers in Scotland take on apprentices and many say that the apprenticeships do not feel relevant in their sector or that they are not available for their industry. Apprenticeship completion rates are not what they need to be, disabled people are not accessing them equally and the gender imbalance persists.
Meanwhile, the pipeline into degree-level work and integrated learning is far too small; there were just over 1,000 graduate apprenticeships in Scotland in 2021-22, compared with more than 43,000 degree-level apprenticeships elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Scotland can and must do better. It is clear that the status quo is not working. Those in the sector are telling us plainly that the system is strained and that change is needed.
The bill before us does not meet the moment. It moves responsibilities between public bodies without a convincing plan to expand capacity. There is no plan for school or employer pathways to be improved. It delivers no additional training places and it will not help to deal with today’s pressures in classrooms, workshops and labs.
If we get this wrong, projects slow, costs rise and opportunity narrows. If we get it right, we can unlock growth, wages and living standards across Scotland. That is the choice that is in front of us today. I will set out where Scottish Labour stands on it.
We support the ambition to make the system more responsive. We share the goal of a coherent, demand-led approach that puts learners and employers first. However, we cannot support a lengthy, costly rejig of quangos over delivery of opportunity now. The Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill is an organisational restructure that is pulling resource to the centre at a time when we should be using every pound and every ounce of focus for delivery on the ground in the regions of Scotland.