Meeting of the Parliament 04 March 2026 [Draft]
I identified in my opening remarks that we are not saying that the situation is perfect. There are areas that need improvement. The cabinet secretary said that herself. However, it is not blanket failure—absolutely not.
I have lived experience of things that have not gone well, and it is important that we talk about those things. It is not always about money or process. I will focus my comments on additional support needs. Sometimes it can be about attitudes, sometimes it can be about barriers, and sometimes it can be about gatekeeping and misunderstanding getting in the way of a child getting the support that they need. If we are serious about improving ASN delivery, we need to be honest about that and not shy away from it.
I have also seen the flip side, in a personal capacity, with my children and grandchildren, and professionally, with my young constituents. I have seen them thrive when they have an attentive, understanding teacher with them, and I have seen the difference that good practice makes. There are fantastic examples of that across Scotland. This cannot become a debate in which we pull everything down and ignore people who are quietly getting on with it and getting it right every single day.
I remember being in a high-level meeting, when I was a local councillor. I will not risk identifying anyone, but I heard someone say that autism is caused by too much screen time. That told me a lot about why there were so many barriers for my family and for other families around that area. I have also sat in a meeting with one of my own children and heard the words, “You cannot blame your ADHD for that. That was just you.” If anyone wants to say that attitude is not a part of the issue, I tell them plainly, from lived experience, that it is.
No cabinet secretary can control every individual’s attitude in school, and ministers cannot legislate away that type of ignorance. Leadership and culture matter, and there needs to be a shift in understanding in many ways. As Dr Jason Lang put it so well, if a supermarket shelf is too high for half of your customers, you do not build a whole individualised support system around the bad design—you lower the shelf. That is a key point, and I agree that we need to reassess systems.
Issues are arising now, and this is a new and growing challenge. Post-Covid, education is in a very different setting, and we are just beginning to understand that impact. I know that the cabinet secretary has been listening and acting on that point, and it is important to have those constructive conversations. Schools need support, but we also cannot keep expecting schools and teaching staff alone to carry the pressures. We need to change wider systems.
Let us listen to the concerns and be honest about what still needs to improve. However, simply painting Scottish education as a story of failure completely misses the mark. We need a whole-community approach involving families, local services and the third sector. No school should be left carrying the pressures alone. If we are serious about improving outcomes, let us acknowledge the good, be honest about what needs to change and, importantly, be constructive. Let us also stop the silo working, because a lot of this rests not only in the education portfolio. As I have said, it is about a whole-society approach. Let us involve our young people in these discussions, because not including that lived experience risks missing the point.