Hansard

To begin, I would like to say a word or two on why the Scottish National party has chosen as the subject of our Opposition debate this morning the pay and conditions of teachers. I will talk about the reasons for the overwhelming rejection by the teaching profession of the offer made by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and the position that we find ourselves in as a result.

There are three reasons for holding this debate. First, and most important, this is without doubt the most serious issue in education at present. From the wording of its amendment, the Executive's tactic will be to deflect attention on to other issues in education. I urge them not to do that. This issue has the potential to derail every other educational initiative that the Executive has in the pipeline. Teachers today are closer to industrial action than they have been at any time in the past 10 years. I do not want to depress the Minister for Children and Education too much so early, but—as someone who was still at school during the previous teachers' strike—I know how devastating and disruptive industrial action will be for every child in every school in Scotland.

The second reason is that the SNP's decision to initiate this debate was the only way in which the Parliament would get the chance to vote on this issue and, in particular, on the course of action adopted by the minister.

Last week, when the minister announced the establishment of the committee of inquiry into teachers' pay and conditions, and detailed its terms of reference and its membership, he did so by way of ministerial statement, thus ensuring that there would be no debate and no vote. When I expressed regret about that, the minister replied:

"I am also surprised that she objects to the fact that I have brought a statement to this Parliament. I would have thought that that was part of the normal democratic process."—[Official Report, 22 September 1999; Vol 2, c 627.]

I would have thought that the "normal democratic process" demanded a full and open debate and the chance to vote on whether we thought that the minister was on the right track. That is what happened when a committee was established to look into student finance, under the

chairmanship of Andrew Cubie. On 17 June there was a debate followed by a vote on the establishment of the committee, and on 2 July there was another debate on the terms of reference and membership of the committee. Why has that not happened in the case of the committee looking into teachers' pay and conditions? Did the minister feel less than secure in his position and his arguments?

Today, we will have the debate. The people of Scotland want the Parliament to debate this issue. In the course of the morning, I think that we will see why the minister was so reluctant to have the debate in the first place.

The third reason for having the debate is the need to put the record straight on why we are in this situation and where the responsibility for it rightly rests. For the past few weeks, the education minister—in the best traditions of his predecessors, Tory and Labour—has been doing his utmost to convince the Scottish people that what we have on our hands is a straightforward pay dispute. He has implied that teachers rejected the COSLA offer because they are greedy and intransigent. He has refused point-blank, time and again, to recognise the glaring defects in COSLA's proposals, defects that would have damaged the quality of education in our classrooms. That is a disingenuous approach, and one that, frankly, stands no chance of resolving the dispute.

It is time for a bit of honesty from the minister and from the Executive. I hope that we will get that this morning. The hard fact of the matter is that the final offer from COSLA, presented to teachers on 20 August, was defective in a number of key areas. The minister should have accepted that, sent COSLA back to the negotiating table, and given it the wherewithal to compromise. If he was not prepared to do so before 98 per cent of the teaching profession rejected the offer, he should certainly have been prepared to do so immediately afterwards.

I would like to refer to a comment that the minister made in his statement last week.

"I must emphasise that this offer did not come from the Executive. We did not formulate the offer; we did not put it on the table. It was the product of discussions between the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the teaching unions. I am here neither to support it nor to reject it."— [Official Report, 22 September 1999; Vol 2, c 624.]

The only thing that he could have added was: "A big boy did it and ran away." If that statement was not a desperate attempt to pass the buck, I do not know what is. It does not wash: the minister cannot get off the hook that easily.