 iawn roi gwirio i g Nghwyneiddiadau i ddymoniadol i suturiaeth i dweud yr agnoddau yn cwyrdd duol. Mae gennym o ddweud, wrth i ddweud i gwaith y Prif Weinidog. 1. Cezedugdio Tot y Prif Weinidog, sydd wedi gweithio rhoi leave rydych chi. Prif Weinidog, dwi'n dweud i gweithio i felly yn gweithio i Gwyrddiaeth soddol. On Tuesday, something very unusual happened in this Parliament. The SNP lost a vote. Every year, over 20,000 children in Scotland have to deal with a parent going to prison. We do not know exactly how many because we do not bother to count them. Mary Fee, supported by Barnardo's, the NSPCC and Families Outside, amended the criminal justice bill to put that right. Those charities know that if we can find those children, we can support them and we can help them achieve their potential, not any predetermined destiny. That amendment passed at committee stage against the will of the First Minister's MSPs. Of course, she can use the full force of her majority to remove that amendment, that progress, at stage 3. So can I ask her will she respect the committee and promise not to do that? I can certainly assure Parliament that we will give full consideration to the amendment that was passed and we will consider whether or not that amendment best meets our objectives to help the children of those sent to prison. I hope that Kezia Dugdale would recognise the sincerity and the determination of the Government firstly to make sure that we are not sending people to prison who do not need to be in prison. I hope that she will recognise the change of direction instituted by Michael Matheson around the plans for a woman's prison because we recognise that having women in prison in particular affects children and all of us want to make sure that we are identifying and ensuring support for children of mothers or fathers who have to serve prison sentences. We will give full consideration to the amendment as the Parliament, I hope, expects us to do to that amendment and to other amendments that have been discussed in the course of the criminal justice bill. Kezia Dugdale, the First Minister and I both talk a lot about closing the attainment gap. Those children, affected by parental imprisonment, are about as much on the wrong side of that gap as you possibly can be. They are three times more likely than average to have severe mental health problems. Without help and support, the statistics tell us that more than 50 per cent of them will end up in jail themselves. Her children's minister, Aileen Campbell, knows what a difference this would make. She proposed those amendments herself from the backbenches in the last Parliament. I may be wrong, but I do not think that the plight of those children has ever been raised at First Minister's questions before, so on that basis I am going to give the First Minister another chance to do the right thing. Will she instruct her MSPs to support Mary Fees amendment to the criminal justice bill? I am going to continue to do what I think is the right thing to do. Having had a vote this week in Parliament two days ago on a particular amendment, it is for the Government to reflect on its own position in light of that vote. The Government would not be doing the right thing if we did not seriously reflect on that position in light of the vote in committee. I am going to paraphrase here rather than directly quote, because I do not have it in front of me, but this was one of the issues that Ailish Angelini looked at when she did the considerable and respected work in this area. I think came to the conclusion that the social work assessment process that was already in place was right and was adequate, and it is on that basis that the Government has taken the position that it is taking. A committee has reached a different position. In the normal course of things, before we get to the next stage of the passage of this legislation, we will consider our position, and either we will come to Parliament and accept the amendment that has been passed at stage 2, or we will come to Parliament and we will give careful reasons why we consider that it would not be the right thing for that amendment to stand. That is the responsible and rational way for any Government to proceed in the wake of such a vote. I am very happy to discuss it with Kezia Dugdale and any other member of the Parliament who is interested in this, so that, collectively, we can come to the right decision as a Parliament in how we best support children and young people whose parents serve prison sentences. That is, Presiding Officer, the right way to go about it. Kezia Dugdale, Presiding Officer, it is very clear that the right thing to do would be to support those amendments. The First Minister got an answer from her justice secretary about social work assessments. Let me tell her about social work assessments. There is no mandatory requirement to fill them in, and, in fact, over the last year, the number of those assessment forms being filled in has fallen. The reality of the situation is that those assessments are about the parents, not about the kids. This is about giving those kids a chance. If the First Minister will not do anything for children who are affected by parents in prison— Order. Can I ask her about the lives of children blighted by homelessness? We debated the housing crisis yesterday, but homelessness is the extreme end of that, and the children of homeless families are the most vulnerable. Can the First Minister tell the chamber how many children in Scotland are sleeping in temporary accommodation, whether that is going up or down? This Government, supported by people across the Parliament, has done a great deal to tackle temporary accommodation for those who are homeless. We are also on track to meet our target in terms of building new homes in order that we can continue to provide the homes that those who are either homeless or people who require different or bigger accommodation need. It was Iain Gray sitting next to Kezia Dugdale, who once said that Labour passed world-leading housing legislation but just did not bother to do anything about building the houses to support that world-leading legislation. This Government is making sure that we have the right legislation in place, but we are making the right investment to build the houses that are needed to support that legislation, and that is what we will continue to do. On the matter of children whose parents serve prison sentences, this is a very important issue. I am very happy to seek to build consensus, but Kezia Dugdale said to me that it was absolutely clear what was the right thing to do. I am not sure I am yet in a position to say with clarity what the right thing to do on this is, because we have work that has been done, that the Government has based its position on, a parliamentary committee has taken a different position, and it is incumbent on me as First Minister, it is incumbent on the Justice Secretary to consider all of that carefully before we come to a conclusion, because it is so important that we give the right support to children in these circumstances. I will continue to give the matter the attention it deserves, and we will continue to treat the matter as seriously as we should do. I give a commitment to Kezia Dugdale and people across the chamber that we will consult with them, we are happy to discuss it further with them and try to proceed in a way that commands support across the parliamentary chamber. She has had eight years to know what the right thing to do for these children. I asked her very specifically about children in temporary accommodation, so let me give her the answer. The answer is 4,555 children live in temporary accommodation without a home of their own. That is up by 402 children in the last year alone. After eight years in Government, the First Minister is presiding over a rise in the number of children sleeping in temporary housing. She is resisting helping children affected by a parent in prison, and we have not even started on the 16,000 rejections for child mental health services. Those children are waiting for us to help them. We cannot wait any longer to act. If she is serious about closing the gap—really serious—surely the First Minister will commit today to producing an action plan for Scotland's most vulnerable children. Everything that my Government does will be intended to help the most vulnerable in our society and particularly the most vulnerable children. This is something that we should seek to agree on, not to divide on. Let me run through some of the issues that Kezia Dugdale had raised. We are investing heavily in child and adolescent mental health services. We are seeing an increase in the number of staff working in child and adolescent mental health services in order that we can target waiting times that have been too long and reduce those waiting times to the target time. In fact, I specifically mentioned CAMHS, child and adolescent mental health services in my programme for government statement just last week. On homelessness, the Government is making sure that we have the right legislative framework in place and that we have the right investment in place to tackle, to reduce and to eliminate homelessness. Kezia Dugdale cannot surely stand here in this chamber today and deny the impact of welfare cuts on things such as homelessness and poverty in our country. Last year, of course, Kezia Dugdale was arguing vigorously and strongly for the Tories to remain in charge of welfare issues. That is why her credibility on this issue might be a little bit stretched. For our part, we are spending £104 million this year to mitigate the impact of welfare reform. To add that to what we are doing on legislation, on investment in housing, that £104 million will help to mitigate the impact of welfare reform. It would be better if Kezia Dugdale got behind us in some of those actions and actually stopped arguing for the Tories to remain in charge of those things and equipped this Parliament to do it even better. Rwf Davidson, to ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. Rwf Davidson, we know that qualifications in the so-called STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths at school unlock doors to a huge variety of careers. We also know that far too few young women are taking up those opportunities at school. When I asked the First Minister about that in January, she said—and I will quote from the official report—I readily agree that we need to get more girls and women into STEM subjects. I do not take the view that we have done everything that we need to do, but we are doing the hard work. Let us see what hard work they are doing. What measures is she outline to address this? Perhaps in her programme for government or indeed in her framework for Scottish education? First Minister, I think that this is an important issue. Let me run through some of the work that we are doing to increase the number of women participating in STEM subjects. Then I will come on to some of the progress that has been made both in terms of school qualifications and college and university education. First, we are doing a range of things to encourage more girls at school to take those subjects. Rwf Davidson will be familiar with, for example, the funding that we are giving to Equate Scotland as well as school efforts. That will also be focused at getting more women into modern apprenticeships in STEM subjects. We are also funding work to get more paid placements for female undergraduates into STEM subjects. We are funding Equate Scotland to support recruitment retention and return of women, where they are significantly underrepresented. We are supporting close the gap, which is about changing employment practices. In terms of school qualifications, if we look at the most recent figures that we have available, 48 per cent of passys in STEM subjects at SQF levels 3 to 7 were attained by females. That is a slight increase in the previous year, but there is still work to do. If we look at females at college, again looking at the most recent statistics, we have seen a 20 per cent increase in the number of women doing science and maths, a 32 per cent increase in the number of doing engineering. At university, we have a 56 per cent increase. Those are compared to 2006-07 on engineering and technology. We are making significant efforts here. We are starting to see some progress, but I think that this is an area where there is a considerable amount of work that we still require to do. I want us to have not just in the professions where women are underrepresented but also in the professions where men are underrepresented. I want to see us have much greater gender equality. The pathway into science and engineering jobs starts in schools, but there is no mention in the First Minister's plans for the year ahead of doing anything about that, literally zero mentions. Unsurprisingly, with no plans for improvement at school level, there is no improvement at school level. You will notice that the statistics that the First Minister missed out show that attainment is going in the other direction. New figures show that, since the SNP came to power, the share of young women in higher maths is down, the share in computing is down, in physics and technology is as low as it has ever been. If you contrast that with elsewhere, where there are programmes to make a real improvement, the United Kingdom Government has invested £10 million in that area, and guess what, their numbers have gone up. In Scotland, the First Minister talks a good game, you have just heard some very selective figures, but she does nothing physically, and guess what, the numbers have gone down. They have gone down and higher across the board. We are in a whole new school year, since I last asked the First Minister about this, and she agreed then that more needed to be done. When will she finally back those words and the words today and get on with the action that is so urgently required? I have just given with Davidson a range of things that we are doing. Let me add to that. Skills Development Scotland has supported the appointment of two project officers to work specifically with schools to look at best classroom practice in reducing gender imbalance in terms of students progressing to STEM subjects, and they are focusing particularly on physics. Those project officers will provide practical support for primary schools, secondary school science departments, arranging activities for students and implementing whole-school approaches to tackling gender stereotypes. Ruth Davidson says that I am quoting selectively. I am simply quoting the figures that are based on the most recent figures that we have around passes and STEM subjects. I have quoted levels 3 to 7. Let me also look at level 7, which is advanced higher. 44.7 per cent of passes and STEM subjects at level 7 are attained by females. That is a 2.1 percentage point increase on 2018-11-12. I am not suggesting that there is not much more work that we still need to do, but what I will not accept is that this is not a Government that is absolutely determined to do the hard work so that we have a situation where we do not have the gender underrepresentation in some of the subjects that has been the case for far too long. Neil Findlay. Last week, WRL Glor announced 120 redundancies that are planned in Livingston. What assurances has the Scottish Government received from Glor about the remaining jobs and what support will be given to those who are to lose their jobs? First Minister. Obviously, this will be a very concerning time for those employed at GoTex and their families. The Government is already engaging with the company and, as is always the case in these situations, the pace provisions will be made fully available and the finance secretary will continue to keep very closely engaged on this issue. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the First Minister what assessment will be made of procedures employed in relation to the seizure in non-return of a sea-shaper boat from Larwick Harbour. First Minister. Obviously, it would be inappropriate for me to comment in detail on this, because it is a matter under criminal investigation. The Crown Office received a letter of request from the ferries authorities and subsequently sought a warrant, which was then executed in this matter. That was on the basis of allegations of criminal activity, but, given the circumstances, it would not be appropriate for me to say any more on this issue. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. First Minister. Masses of importance to the people of Scotland. Wille Rennie. Last week, the education secretary defended the Government's return to national school testing by quoting to me the apparent support of the EIS teaching union. But two days later, that claim support evaporated. The EIS said this. It will be almost impossible to put in place safeguards that would stop national assessments leading to league, table and target setting agendas. As the EIS is now opposed, will she now rethink her plans for national testing? First Minister. We will continue to work with teachers, with local authorities, with parents in order that we are taking the action that will allow us to raise attainment and to close the attainment gap. The education secretary met the EIS yesterday. We continue to work constructively with them. Let me repeat what I said last week in my programme for government statement. I think that there is a need to standardise the assessments that are used across the country. This is not about additional assessment, it is reflecting the fact that 30 of our 32 local authorities already use a form of assessment. I think that it makes sense that they all use the same form of assessment, but it will replace the existing assessment so that it does not increase workload for teachers or for students. Secondly, this is not about assessment that is intended to be the be all and the end all in terms of measuring children's performance. It is intended to provide evidence that then informs teacher judgment—not replaces teacher judgment but informs teacher judgment. I have no desire to see a return to league tables. One of the issues that we will engage very closely with teachers and others on is about how we use this information in order to avoid crude league tables being drawn from it. However, I am determined and I make no apology that we have better information about the performance of young people in primary and lower secondary school. Ruth Davidson and I have just had an exchange about higher passes and STEM subjects. The truth of the matter is that any one of us can go and look at higher passes and other qualifications in upper secondary and see how young people are performing and see what the attainment gap is. We cannot do that in the same way for primary school and for lower secondary school, and I do not think that that is acceptable. Willie Rennie cheered by the Conservatives. That is all fine, but in the old days, when the First Minister was in opposition— she complained about targets and league tables. Back then, she said, Governments are attracted to things that are easy to measure and just as easy to manipulate. Back then, she agreed that the aim too often was to come top of national league tables rather than serving pupils' needs. So her past self and the EIS are at one, but not now. Now, it seems, only the Conservatives are on board with her on national testing and league tables. Will she stand with the teachers, or is she just going to stand with the Conservatives? The First Minister Sorry, if that was not so serious, I would struggle to get to my feet and answer that question for the laughter that is inspired by Willie Rennie's last question. The good old days—or they are not the good old days—as far as Willie Rennie is concerned, i.e. the last five years that has been Willie Rennie consistently and consistently cheering the Conservatives. My views expressed all those years ago that Willie Rennie has just quoted. They have not changed. I do not want to go back to national testing that was in place previously—the kind of high-stakes national testing where pass or fail is the only measurement of a young person's performance in school. That is not what I am proposing. Equally, I have no intention of having league tables of school performance produced, but I am determined that we get the information in a consistent and clear way that allows us to know what is working in our education system and what is not working, because it would be an absolute abdication of my responsibility as First Minister not to do that. I will stand with the young people of this country. We need to do more to make sure that they can achieve their full potential in school. I make absolutely no apology for wanting to ensure that we have a world-class education system for everybody, but we make sure that, in the areas that need it most, we are driving up improvement. To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government is taking to promote Scotland as a competitive location for film and TV production. We have no current plans—oh, sorry, I am on the wrong question. It is question 4, First Minister. Obviously, the figures produced this week showing the increase in investment in shooting in films in Scotland were extremely encouraging. As the Government, we have recently announced additional support for the film sector in Scotland, and we want to continue to do that so that we can ensure that a sector that contributes so much to our economy continues to be well supported. I thank the First Minister for that full answer. Welcome, as the record spend on TV and film production in Scotland is, does the First Minister agree with me that the BBC charter renewal process must be used to champion increased and fairer funding for productions from Scotland from the licence fee? As the expansion of investment in Scotland's screen sector from this increase would be transformational, does she share my disappointment at the BBC's first formal response to the charter, which shows absolutely no ambition for Scotland? Yes, I strongly agree with that. Fair funding for Scotland from TV licence fees collected would allow for a dramatic expansion in TV production in Scotland. The BBC's response to the green paper on charter renewal, published on Monday, has, I think, some merits, but I think that it also falls far short of our ambitions for BBC Scotland. It has made some relatively minor proposals in using current affairs and the online presence of the BBC in Scotland. They are to be welcomed, but I think that they are overdue and they do not need a new charter to be affected. I do not think that that can be the limit of the BBC's ambitions for Scotland, and so we will use the charter renewal process to build support for a better, bolder BBC in Scotland that reflects our national life. A creative industries conference this week, it was clear that the lack of a film in TV studio in Scotland is hindering the growth of the sector. There was a film studio announced over the summer that was in Yorkshire. Scotland productions sits sixth position in the UK outside of London. We are behind Northern Ireland, Wales and other English regions. I appreciate that there are negotiations on going, but can we expect an announcement any time soon? As Clare Baker will be aware, there is work on going to seek to deliver a permanent film facility for Scotland that is consistent with European state aid rules, and we hope to be in a position to make an announcement as soon as possible. I really do not think that we should lose sight of the significant good news that was announced this week. Filming TV makers invested more than £45 million in Scotland last year. That is an increase of almost £12 million on the previous year and more than £20 million higher than five years ago. Obviously, as I have already indicated, the culture secretary announced earlier this year two new funds for additional financial support for Scottish TV and film, and we will continue to make sure that we do everything possible to support what is an extremely important and valuable industry for Scotland. To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with women's groups following reports that the UK Government plans to devolve abortion law. Last year, the Smith commission report recommended that further serious consideration should be given to the devolution of abortion. A final decision has not yet been taken by the UK Government, but this Government's view is that abortion should be devolved to bring it into line with almost all other health matters. This Parliament is responsible for giving scrutiny to how the NHS in Scotland operates. It should also be responsible for setting the laws that the NHS works to. However, let me be absolutely clear that the Scottish Government's position on abortion law remains unchanged. We have no plans to change the law on abortion. Indeed, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport is writing to a number of women groups this week to confirm this and to offer to meet with them if they would find that helpful. I listened to that response with interest. I am glad that she is aware of the concerns of women's groups such as Scottish Women's Aid, Great Crisis Scotland and the STUC, among others. They have real concerns that this can have an impact on women in Scotland. If she has no plans to change the law and, given that we believe that power should be sought for a purpose, can I ask the First Minister what is the purpose? I take the view that this Parliament should be responsible for these matters. I think that across a whole range of issues, I think that, as I said, where this Parliament is responsible for the NHS framework, we should also be responsible, as we are, on most other matters, for the laws that the NHS works within. There are many responsibilities that this Parliament has on issues where I have no current plans to change the substance of the laws. That does not negate the issue in principle that it is this Parliament that should have responsibility. Let me be clear—absolutely clear—of my own view and of the Scottish Government's position. I have no intention—this Government has no intention—of legislating to change the current time limits for abortion. To ask the First Minister in light of the proposed national system of standardised assessment in primary schools, whether the Scottish Government will reinstate the progress in international reading and literacy and trends in international mathematics and science studies for Scotland. First Minister. We have no current plans to reintroduce these studies. In terms of assessment, though, as I have just outlined to Willie Rennie, we continue to engage with local government teachers, academics and parents to inform our approach. By standardising assessment, we will replace the variety of different systems that are used by local authorities and therefore reduce the burden of assessment on teachers and children and provide a clear and consistent picture of children's progress to inform teacher judgment not to replace it. The First Minister will know that several experts in education both at home and abroad believe that both the TIMS and PIRLs measure the qualitative progress that pupils make in relation to the curriculum in a way that does not happen with other tests. Will the First Minister acknowledge that Scotland's absence from those two tests is in conflict with her own commitment to Willie Rennie to improve the quality rather than the quantity of data that we have to hand? I will continue to keep all those matters under review, but it is important to point out—I am sure that Liz Smith is well aware of this—that, since the year 2000, we have participated in what is the largest international survey, the programme for international student assessment PISA, which is run by the OECD. It focuses on maths, reading and science. This is an important point. Unlike TIMS and PIRLs, the two surveys that Liz Smith is referring to all OECD countries participate in PISA, and it is therefore a more effective indicator of how the whole Scottish education system is performing relative to other countries. We have information that allows us to make international comparatives, and with the proposals that we are taking forward around assessment, that can be supplemented with information about how we are performing domestically as well. Of course, we will continue to look at those things to make sure that we are equipping ourselves with the information that we need to do the job of raising attainment and closing the attainment gap.