Hansard

I am pleased to contribute to the debate, and in doing so, I thank Pam Gosal for bringing the issue to the chamber, and I wish her well. Pam was one of the first MSPs I met when I was elected to this place; we were in the same little group on the first day. Her leadership of the cross-party group on India, of which I have been a deputy convener, has been very important in this Parliament, particularly to the wider Indian diaspora across our region and elsewhere.

Since coming into the education brief, I have been fairly consistent in saying that tackling the wider issues surrounding today’s debate, such as violence and disruption in our schools, must come first and foremost, because that will provide the foundation for everything else that goes on in the classroom and in the wider school environment.

Given that it is the last day of the parliamentary session and that we are about to enter an election period, colleagues will expect some politics from me. It is clear that the Government has failed to grip these issues during this session. Indeed, this weekend, a response to a freedom of information request from local authorities across Scotland showed that the number of reported incidents of pupil-on-teacher violence has more than doubled over this parliamentary session.

In my region, that means that in places such as Renfrewshire, things are spiralling somewhat out of control, with recorded incidents in primary schools increasing more than fivefold since 2022-23. Obviously, there are multifaceted reasons for that, and we need to understand those, but that is not an excuse for ignoring the very clear problems that surround the use of digital technology and what young people are being exposed to in online spaces. That is why my party was one of the first to call for a nationwide ban on mobile phones in the classroom. It is clearly part of a toolbox and a package of solutions to deal with those issues and give young people better opportunities and a better start to their school life.

Other actions need to sit alongside a ban, however; it would not, in isolation, be a silver bullet. That is why we have advocated for a national charter on behaviour and standards and national leadership on discipline in schools, to empower headteachers to set out consequences, look at the issue of community partners such as campus cops and restore the relationships that now do not exist in many local authorities. We have also advocated for improving workforce planning, so that support staff meet the needs of pupils, and for ensuring that schools have funding certainty, so that they can offer teachers and education staff permanent or long-term contracts, in order to address the scandal of qualified teachers being unable to work.

It is clear to me that a range of solutions are required in the next session of Parliament to make an impact on the problems that exist in relation to violence and behaviour. It is clear that any ban on phones will have to involve young people. They will have to help to co-design it and they will have to be at the heart of how we implement it—we should not forget that in the debate.

There are already myriad discussions about how we might do that. I know that the cabinet secretary will say that she feels that she does not have the power. Some advocate for a new piece of legislation, but I would advocate for looking at the legislation that we already have. There needs to be a wider discussion about powers that have not been used, such as those in the Education (Scotland) Act 2016, and the duties that we place on chief education officers in local authorities to implement and enforce certain things.

Given the day, I pay tribute to Audrey Nicoll, who has made her final speech of the parliamentary session. Her work with me and others across committees on drug deaths and drug harms was very important. I hope that we will all continue to focus on that in the next session of Parliament. She can be assured that her contribution in that space is very valued.

I also pay tribute to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is perhaps the last time that you will chair a debate in the chamber that I am involved in, and I wish you all the very best for what comes next.

I reflected, when speaking to you yesterday, on the fact that your dear mother was the first person to sit in that chair. It has always stuck with me that it must be so important to you that, over our five years in Parliament, you have been able to do the same thing. I am sure that many of us who watched the first day of proceedings in 1999 never thought that we would sit in the chamber and help to form the next part of the story of the Scottish Parliament.

I appreciate that I am now saying nice things to indulge you, Deputy Presiding Officer, so that I get a wee bit more time, but I am about to conclude. I leave the chamber with two important points. The politics over the next wee while will be fierce and intense, so I will quote two Johns—neither of them are who members might think, before we go there. They are two of my political heroes. One is John Hume, who said that when people are

“divided … the only solution is agreement.”

We need to find those solutions in the next session of Parliament, in particular in education.

The second is John Smith, who said:

“The opportunity to serve … is all we ask”.

That is all that we—those of us who are standing again—are asking, and I wish everyone well.