Meeting of the Parliament 04 March 2026 [Draft]
I will pick up on a theme that I started with, because it came up a number of times in the debate: reflecting not only on the previous five years of this Parliament but on the 10 years since the pledge on the attainment gap was made and on the 20 years of the SNP in power.
A number of members commented on that and on what has and has not happened during that period. Karen Adam spoke passionately about the importance of ASN provision and support and the work that still requires to be done. I am very familiar with that, as someone who worked in the learning disability sector for many years before being elected to Parliament. As she was talking about the innovations, the reviews and what is happening now, I reflected that those very issues were being discussed in 2016, when I was working in the sector and helping people, particularly parents, to advocate for their views. At the time, John Swinney was the education secretary, and he pledged to look at a number of recommendations that were made, including those in “#IncludED in the Main?!”, which was Enable’s piece of work on the issue. None of that was progressed in a particularly meaningful way.
We find ourselves in the position of revisiting much of that 10 years on and we are only just making a start on the issues that need to be dealt with. That leads me to Liz Smith’s speech. I pay tribute to Liz Smith, because she will be a loss to the Parliament. She reflected on her time in the Parliament over that 10‑year period and beyond and she considered the issues of apprenticeships and skills, what we are teaching young people and how we are preparing them for work. She said that, in many ways, we have not moved beyond the issues that she raised back in 2007. That tells us all we need to know about the progress that has, and has not, been made during this session of Parliament—these past five years—and, more acutely, over almost two decades of SNP government.