Hansard

This is a significant moment, not only because it is the annual Liberal Democrat debate in this chamber, which I know that everyone has been desperate to hear—[Laughter.]—but because it marks 10 years since Nicola Sturgeon said, “Judge me on education.” It is a deadline that she herself set.

I suspect that this will be the last time in this session that Parliament will have an opportunity to debate education in a substantial way. Perhaps it will be the last opportunity for Nicola Sturgeon to come before us so that she can be judged on education. However, where is the former First Minister today? She is nowhere to be seen—certainly, she is not in the chamber. It seems that she was not prepared to be judged by this Parliament or by the voters of this country.

Let us remember how all this began. It was at Wester Hailes education centre in 2015, where Nicola Sturgeon gave what was described as an inspirational contribution. In that inspirational contribution, she said:

“If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to do? … I want to be judged on it.”

On the back of that contribution, the Scottish National Party went on to win the largest number of seats in the Parliament at the next election, and Nicola Sturgeon continued as First Minister. The subsequent programme for government read:

“We intend to make significant progress within the lifetime of this Parliament”—

that is, 2016 to 2021—

“and substantially eliminate the gap over the course of the next decade. That is a yardstick by which the people of Scotland can measure our success.”

I repeat those words:

“substantially eliminate the gap over … the next decade.”

I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills will have lots of statistics and that she will reel out her own selected ones. She has a right to do that and she will be able to identify areas where the gap has narrowed. I am not going to do that. If we traded statistics, none of them would show “elimination”, substantial elimination or even substantial closing of the gap—certainly not over the 10-year deadline that was set. So I am not going to trade statistics today.

The promise was very clear. It changed over time, but the programme for government was clear that SNP would “substantially eliminate” the attainment gap. There is no doubt that, by whatever measure we pick, that commitment has not been met. Sometimes, the gap marginally goes down; sometimes it marginally goes up; and sometimes it stays static. However, one thing is clear: there has not been a substantial reduction.

The impact is clear. If we tot up the number of children who have gone through the education system and to whom that promise was made—disadvantaged children from disadvantaged backgrounds—it amounts to 170,000 children in Scotland whose life chances have been limited because of the failure to keep that promise.

The commitment has not been met in 10 years and, at the current rate of progress, it will not be met in 20, 30 or even 100 years. At the current rate of progress, it will be the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those who are children at the moment who will have the opportunity to have the poverty-related attainment gap reduced in the way that was promised by Nicola Sturgeon 10 years ago.

The cabinet secretary will say that we are running down staff, but that is far from the case. I am backing staff. I believe that they are talented people who lift up the chances of children in this country. If only they had a Government that was prepared to back them up.

The international reports are what stimulated the debate, as is alluded to in Paul O’Kane’s amendment, which we will support. Those reports highlighted the fact that Scottish education, which used to be the best in the world, had become just average. The ultimate goal should have been to drive up overall performance, as well as to close the attainment gap, which we all wanted to achieve, but even overall performance is static—no improvement has been made on that, either.

I know to my bitter cost that, if we do not stick to our word, the electorate will cast a judgment. We have learned from that bitter experience. We apologised for when we made mistakes in the past, but the Scottish Government dodges, slithers and deflects. It is always someone else’s fault—someone else is always to blame. We will hear exactly the same story again today. However, when Nicola Sturgeon made her promise 10 years ago, she knew that the world is a volatile place and that, in making a promise to the poorest children in the country, it is necessary to have the mechanisms in place to deliver that policy, but the Government failed to do that.

Let us look at the individual measures that have not been delivered. They include the promised 90-minute reduction in contact time for teachers, who are on the verge of industrial action. The digital devices that were promised have not been delivered. The 3,500 extra teachers that were promised have not been delivered. The issue of bad behaviour and violence in schools has not been addressed.

Let us look at two measures that were introduced by the Government. The regional collaboratives that were introduced by the previous education secretary were scrapped by the current education secretary because they were not working.

The Government also introduced national testing. At the time, everybody warned that it would not necessarily be the answer to the problem. As I have said repeatedly, we do not fatten a pig by measuring it. It is necessary to put in place the measures that will drive up performance. Constant measuring does not drive up performance. All that has been created is a myriad of bureaucratic procedures and reporting mechanisms that have been bolted on to the system, which has made things even more challenging for teachers and classroom assistants.

There will be a debate in the run-up to the election—which I hope will be a positive one—about behaviour, additional support needs, parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications, and the need to improve knowledge in the curriculum and tackle workload. I hope that we will have a positive debate on all those issues, as we have had at various hustings with various educational audiences.

However, today’s debate is about judging, because we were asked to judge Nicola Sturgeon on her record on education. Everyone in the Parliament, regardless of which party they are in, must recognise that Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government have failed to deliver on the promise to substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap. Every member should vote for our motion today, because that is exactly what has happened.