 Llywodraeth Cymru ar y parwysydd, mae hyn yn eistedd ar ôl y cwyrdd yn llawer o ddweud i'r cwysydd, ac ynghylch i'r cwysrion cyllidol, os ydu i'r cwysdd gydol, gallwn i ddwinddill penwyr gyda'r iawn cwysydd i dweud ag y cyflog, ac yna'r cwysdd ar ei tarredd. A'r cwysdd nifer one, ym Licholas Hamilton. Efallai i'n gwneud i'ch gwrs ar y dyfodol, mae'n ffordd fydd eich bod yn cydwewn i'n additional training on neurodiversity, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia and ADD. We want all children and young people, including those who are neurodiverse, to get the support needed to reach their full potential. We work closely with partners, including Education Scotland, to ensure that teaching staff have access to a range of free professional learning and development resources. That includes the development of free learning modules available via the open university on both dyslexia and autism inclusive practice. On 30 November, we published our updated additional support for learning action plan, which outlines further work that we will take in this area to ensure that teaching staff continue to receive training to support all children with additional support needs, including those who are neurodiverse. Rachel Hamilton I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. I am sure that she will join me in welcoming the launch of the Scottish Borders Council's neurodiversity strategy, championed by our fantastic Borders Councillors. Does she agree that this sets an excellent precedent for how to improve our national curriculum for neurodivergent pupils, and will she explore ways of implementing similar plans across Scotland? I thank Rachel Hamilton for bringing the work of the council to my attention. I would be more than happy to receive further information about what they have achieved and what they hope to achieve in this very important area. Of course, both myself, my officials and Education Scotland will be more than happy to see what lessons can be learned right across the country. I very much look forward if Rachel Hamilton would wish for further correspondence on this issue. Young and neurodiverse constituents tell me that, yes, more additional training is needed, but that small changes to a school day can make a world of difference, such as instigating one-way systems in corridors, reducing busy jostling, something many schools decided to do during Covid, and reducing loud decorative classrooms with overwhelming visual stimulus. Does she agree and is she satisfied that this is an area that is adequately covered in the autism kit for schools and being actioned? I very much agree that listening to the views of young people is vital in this and, indeed, all areas. As the young ambassadors for inclusion put it in their vision statement, adults in school should ask, listen and act on what the young people say about the support that works best for them. This way of working with and involving children and young people is also set out for local authorities in the statutory guidance and the additional support for learning act. The autism toolbox sets out information on sensory differences and what approaches can be taken in place to support young people affected by them. It also provides links to tools like the sensory audit for schools and classrooms. I can also update that the autism toolbox working group is currently undertaking work to update the toolbox. That is due for completion in spring 2023. I would very much welcome any specific feedback from Fiona Hyslop and her constituents that this working group should consider. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. Next year, we will hopefully see the learning disability autism and neurodiversity bill for which the recruitment of a lived experience advisory panel is currently under way. Does the cabinet secretary feel that the commissioner that is envisaged in this bill will have a part in extending knowledge and experience to teachers and educationists across Scotland when the bill becomes an act? It is a very important piece of work that the Government is undertaking to look at that learning disability autism and neurodiversity bill, which is obviously part of our programme for government. Kevin Stewart, the minister who will be taking forward this piece of work, announced that the Government will carry out the scoping work and the remittance powers of the learning disability autism and neurodiversity bill, including any commissioner that could come from that in this parliamentary year. I very much look forward, as I am sure Kevin Stewart does, for working with colleagues right across the chamber to make this very important piece of legislation as stringent and as useful as it possibly can be. Earlier this year, I visited with the cabinet secretary to Coop Primary, where we saw the pioneering neurodevelopmental pathway project being trialled by schools in the area, but I think that I am still hearing from families in Fife who are desperate for this kind of multi-agency support for their children to be rolled out further. Can I ask the cabinet secretary whether that pilot has concluded what findings were gleaned from the trial and if the Scottish Government has firm plans to roll out that type of programme to other areas across Scotland? I thank Mark Ruskell for that question and it was indeed a pleasure to accompany him on a visit that Kevin Stewart undertook. Given that this was a pathway project that does sit under health rather than education, I can perhaps ensure that Mr Stewart writes to the member with further details of where that project has got to and, importantly, the lessons learned not just for Fife but right across the country. I will make sure that Mr Stewart copies me into that and, if Mr Ruskell would like to have further discussions on that, either with myself or with Kevin Stewart, I am sure that we would be delighted to take that up, given the very useful visit that we did have together. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether a voting favour of strike action by over 80 per cent and over 90 per cent from members of the United Nations and EU trade unions, respectively, is a democratic mandate for strike action. Minister Jamie Hepburn, I recognise that reaching such a threshold provides the legal right to strike under the provisions of the trade union act. Richard Leonard. Can I thank the minister for that brief answer? EU members were on strike last week and the week before with more action planned. EIS members are taking 16 days of strike action early in the new year and today members of the SSTA and NASUWT are taking part in strike action right across Scotland. The cabinet secretary often speaks of a fixed budget. This Parliament does not and never has had a fixed budget. The cabinet secretary speaks as well of unaffordability. But when is the cabinet secretary and the minister going to understand that what we really cannot afford is demoralised and undervalued teachers, more disruption to the education of our children, university staff on poor pay and precarious contracts and a mediocre Government that is too indifferent, intransigent and inept to fund a fair pay settlement for the people who work in our universities, our colleges and our schools? First, I will say that the brief answer was only a reflection of the straightforward nature of the question that was asked of me on the paper. In terms of what Richard Leonard has said about the Scottish Government not having a fixed budget, I am afraid to say that that is inaccurate because what we are talking about is this year's funding settlement. We are talking about this year's pay settlement. In that sense, the budget was fixed last year, so we do have a fixed budget. We are operating to a fixed budget. In terms of the respective situations in terms of higher education, I am in regular contact, in regular dialogue with unions and management alike. I continue to urge them to engage with one another to continue to have dialogue to ensure that they can successfully resolve their dispute. The Scottish Government, of course, does not have a direct role in those negotiations. In respect of the offer that is on the table for teachers, I believe that the Scottish Government's clear position is a fair settlement and, above all, it is an affordable settlement. The Scottish Government cannot go further in terms of what is on the table, and that is the fact of the matter, Presiding Officer. The Scottish Government does have a seat at the table, so that was a disingenuous sort of an answer. In relation to the school dispute, pupils have had heavily disrupted education for the past two years for reasons that we all know, and now, as we have just heard, this will continue into the new year. What contingency plans does the minister have in place to help and support, particularly pupils in the senior phase of their education, to make up for this lost learning and prepare them for very important exams that lie ahead of them in the spring? Let me first of all correct Mr Kerr's observation when I was refent of the fact that we are not directly involved in negotiations. That was a specific reference to higher education, I am sure that he understands. That is the case. In terms of the contingency that we have put in place to support young people, I think that that is the fundamental point. Is it not? We need to make sure that young people get the support that they deserve. There is a range of measures in place through remote learning through A-School to ensure that we support young people in the best fashion that we possibly can, so that they get the support that they require so that they can do the best that they possibly can in the exam period ahead. To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the education secretary has had with ministerial colleagues in relation to the automatic provision by public service bodies of easy read formats to accommodate the needs of people who are neurodiverse. I have had no specific discussions about the automatic provision of easy read formats for people who are neurodiverse. All public bodies are subject to the requirements of the equality act for 2010, including provisions to consider reasonable adjustments that take account of people's needs and preferences in certain circumstances. To strengthen that as part of our current review of the operation of the public sector equality duty in Scotland, we are proposing a new Scottish specific duty that seeks to ensure that inclusive communication is embedded proportionately across the work of listed authorities when they are communicating with the public. The Scottish Government is committed to working with people who are neurodiverse to improve opportunities, outcomes and support. To this end, we will introduce the Learning, Disability, Autism and Neury Diversity Bill. I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply and I am encouraged to hear about the work that she proposes. Does she, as I am sure she will, appreciate that intervention of that kind is necessary to ensure that all public bodies realise that the provision of material, whether it is in braille or whether it is easy read, is essential to support the inclusion of all and ensure the equitable access of all to public services? We are proposing that creation of a new Scottish specific duty that seeks to ensure that inclusive communication is embedded proportionately across the work of listed authorities when they are communicating with the public. We are on a public consultation from December 21 to April 22 containing a series of detailed and ambitious proposals for changes to the PSED scheme. That would sit alongside the Scottish Government's other work to embed inclusive communications across the public sector, such as developing national standards, best practice and a monitoring system for the effectiveness on that. We will, of course, engage further with stakeholders to ensure that any revised regulation and the implementation environment around them can deliver our goal of better outcomes for those who continue to experience inequality. To ask the Scottish Government what work it is undertaking to enhance data collection for educational improvements. The Scottish Government always aims to improve the availability, quality and consistency of data to extend its understanding on what works to drive forward improvements across all parts of the Scottish education system. More recently, a consultation was launched in May this year and the results from that will inform the 2023 national improvement framework and the improvement plan. Local stretch aims for improvement and closing the poverty related attainment gap have been gathered as part of the Scottish attainment challenge and will be published this afternoon. I will be making a statement to Parliament emphasising the collective ambition of local authorities to ensure recovery and accelerated progress in closing the poverty related attainment gap and this data will provide a strong indicator of ambition and a baseline for improvement. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response in clearly having useful informative and up-to-date data as essential and driving improvements in education, especially as we look forward to reforms. Can I ask how this enhanced data will help bring about improvements specifically for those learners in the senior phase of secondary education, such as S4, S5 and S6 pupils? Having access to comprehensive data enables schools and local authorities to analyse their performance within a culture of self-evaluation and reflection, and the Education Scotland work with local authorities to provide improvement support. In order to support self-evaluation improvement at the local level, the Scottish Government provides the insight benchmarking tool, which helps schools to integrate their own data and use that data to inform improvements and, ultimately, to improve the outcomes for learners. At the Education and Skills Committee in September, Derek Smill from Glasgow Kelvin College raised concerns about how completion and drop-out rates are recorded in Scotland's colleges. When the minister was in the committee recently, he accepted that improvements are needed in this area and stated, my ambition is to do it as soon as possible. If we do not have accurate data on this issue, we cannot make informed decisions. Can I ask the minister what work is he undertaking to fix the issues and the data collection on completion and the drop-out rates? Cabinet Secretary? Well, there is work under way on this issue, particular issues that we know the system does not deal with adequately at the moment. For example, as someone who leaves their course early, that may be because they have moved on to another destination. For example, they began a college course and then began university later on or indeed into employment. We are keen to work with the college sector to ensure that the data that is being collected is useful and, therefore, our ability to improve what is happening in the college sector follows from that. I am sure that the minister would be delighted to hear more from Ms Gozzle on how she thinks that we should improve the system. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the implementation of its policy, language learning in Scotland, a one-plus-two approach. I can report that almost all schools now provide entitlement under the one-plus-two approach. To date, we have invested nearly £37 million to successfully achieve a culture shift in schools with more children learning languages throughout the broad general education than ever before. Their share's funding of £2.5 million is supporting local authorities and other partners to deliver professional learning for teachers, provide classroom assistance and deliver school outreach projects. We will continue to consolidate this progress, ensuring that our approach provides the most appropriate access to language learning for Scotland's young people. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer and I welcome that the one-plus-two language policy has been rolled out in all secondary and the vast majority of primary schools. It's clear from the debate that we had in Parliament last month on protecting Scotland's indigenous languages that the Scottish Government has a strong commitment to language education, but it's important that other minority languages, such as BSL, are not forgotten about. Can I ask the cabinet secretary for an update on progress on outstanding actions in the BSL national plan? I fully agree on the importance of BSL as a language of Scotland and making it available for young people to learn. The Government is working with Education Scotland, Scotland's national centre for languages and others to promote BSL to local authorities and to ensure that teaching resources are available. In terms of progress, we surveyed local authorities on language learning last year and over 100 primary schools reported providing BSL as part of their one-plus-two offer. That is a significant increase on previous years and demonstrates the investment we have made to improve language learning in delivering positive outcomes. In the longer term, I hope that that will lead to an improved understanding of BSL and the deaf community and culture in Scotland. We will continue our progress with the publication of the new BSL national plan for 23-29 next October. To ask the Scottish Government if it will review the one-plus-two language policy to bring it more in line with the European language framework to help Scotland to prepare to return to the EU as an independent member state. As the member may know, the one-plus-two approach was developed based on the principles of the European Council's 2002 Barcelona agreement, which called for countries to teach at least two foreign languages from an early age. We will continue to look to European best practice as we consider the future of language learning in schools, but I am pleased that our overall approach is aligned to European principles. Our approach supports young people to be more confident in communicating with each other and with the people from Europe and indeed around the world. That is essential if they are to become global citizens and if they are to participate in our institutions. A reality check. Between 2018 and 2022, there was a 34% decline in the number of entries at higher French and a 38% decline in the number of entries at higher German. That compares to England, where over the same period there were a 5% increase in GSC French and a 12% increase in German. The SNP loved to parade their European credentials. What is the reality? The reality is that we are in a country where young people are being deprived of the opportunity to develop the ability to learn other languages and because of language other cultures. Is the minister concerned that under the SNP take-up of French and German there is such a dramatic decline compared with other parts of the United Kingdom? I notice in this instance that Mr Kerr is quite happy to make comparisons between England and Scotland, and I look forward to him therefore not making any comments if I ever do the same in reverse. However, I recognise a very important point that Mr Kerr brings up about languages. It is important to note that the cohorts that will have benefitted from the full language entitlement in the 10 years of PEG will not have yet progressed to the senior phase, so the full impact of the 1 plus 2 policy in terms of national qualification entrances and passports has yet to be seen. However, I recognise that there is more to do in this area and we perhaps did not get into it in the Conservative Party debate on education yesterday, but if Mr Kerr would like to be forward concrete suggestions and proposals about what can be done, rather than just criticising, I would be more hand than happy to receive them. To ask the Scottish Government what work it is doing to tackle the reported staffing crisis within the early years sector. Scotland's childcare workforce has increased by 7,750 posts between 2016 and 2021 to deliver our transformational investment in 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare. Unlike other parts of the UK, the overwhelming majority of funded providers in Scotland pay at least the real living wage. However, I recognise that, as with many areas of the economy, there are workforce challenges in the childcare sector and we are committed to working with the sector to address those. That is why we are working with our partners to develop a strategic framework for Scotland's childcare profession. The framework will set out priorities for action across key areas, including recruitment and retention of staff, and we will publish the framework in the new year. I thank the minister for the answer. The Scottish Child Minding Association announced recently that 34 per cent of childminders have quit the profession since the expansion of the funded early education childcare in 2016. They warned that this figure could rise to a staggering 64 per cent by July 2026, with over 10,500 childminding places being lost as a result. Two years ago, the Scottish Child Minding Association warned that there was a workforce crisis coming and that crisis is here today. Their calls appear to have fallen on deaf ears. How does the minister plan to not only stop the exodus of childminding from the profession, but also replace the 2,000 childminding businesses that are already closed? I thank the member for that question. We are committed to building a vibrant, thriving childminding sector and to promoting childminding, along with other roles across the ELC sector, as a valued and a fulfilling career choice. We welcome the SEMA's annual audit and the updated evidence that provides us with the involvement of childminders in funded ELC. We want to encourage more people into childminding, and we are working with the Scottish Child Minding Association and other partners to address the decline in the childminding workforce, a trend that is mirrored elsewhere in the UK. We also want to see new childminding services developing in areas with limited access to this form of ELC. That is why we are supporting a recruitment pilot being led by the SEMA and partners, aiming to recruit and train 100 new childminders in remote and rural areas. I have a number of supplementaries. The supplementaries are going to have to be brief, as indeed are the answers. The Government will be taking a range of actions to help to ensure that Scotland is a sustainable childcare sector. I wonder if, for the benefit of the chamber, the minister could outline those. I will certainly try to be brief. We are committed to supporting a sustainable, diverse and thriving childcare sector, alongside maintaining a robust but proportionate means of monitoring the financial sustainability of the sector. We are providing support through providing the funding to allow councils to pay sustainable rates to private and third sector providers and to childminders for the delivery of funded ELC. Legislating to continue the nursery rates relief scheme, which provides 100 per cent relief on non-domestic rates to eligible day nurseries beyond 30 June 2023. Progressing the action set out in the financial sustainability health check, including funding pilot programmes of targeted business gateway support, which will be available to all childcare services. I have been contacted by a number of deeply concerned constituents regarding the lack of early years care that is available in Huntley and Aberdeenshire. The minister may be aware that one of the providers in the town, called Kiddlywynx, has announced its closure in the coming weeks due to the concerns that the care inspectorate has regarding the quality of the building. Aberdeenshire councils so far appear to be unwilling to plug the gap, and families are reporting that they may have to give up work in a cost of living crisis. Will the minister commit to working with the owners of the nursery and the care inspectorate to find a solution that keeps the vital service open? Of course, Mr Marra will be aware that local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that every child can access a place no matter where they reside. I would be happy if Mr Marra could write to me with the details of that particular nursery and have my officials look into the difficulties that those parents are experiencing. I am sure that the minister is uncomfortable that one of her predecessors agreed that staff in private and voluntary nurseries are paid much less than their counterparts in council nurseries. What steps is she taking to close the gap with fair and equal funding no matter where staff work? As I am sure that Mr Rennie is aware, funding agreement with COSLA allows councils to pay sustainable rates for funded ELCA hours to private and third sector providers and to childminders. The joint Scottish Government and COSLA guidance that was published in May this year is clear that rates should reflect up-to-date information on the cost of delivery and provide scope for reinvestment and enable delivery of the real living wage commitment. While funding to providers in the third and private sector and childminding sectors is an important element of local authority ELCA budgets, funding must also cover a wide range of other costs. For example, as I said to Mr Marra, local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that every child can access a place no matter where they live. They have to provide services that would not be commercially viable for other providers. For Mr Rennie's information, on average, the funding to private and voluntary providers for 1140-years funded ELCA equates to between 33 and 45 per cent of their income. I will have to set homework on the definition of brief but very brief, Brian Whittle. Are we sitting comfortably? No. Following on from what Willie Rennie's question, there is an issue with disparity of facilities that are able to be offered to nursery staff in the private sector and public sector. What can the Scottish Government do to try and prevent the drift away from the public sector nurseries of staff into the public sector? Recruitment and retention of the childcare workforce with the right skills, values and attributes remains a priority. Given the tight labour market, it is a key challenge. We have taken a number of actions to support the recruitment and retention in the childcare workforce, including providing funding to local authorities to enable them to set local sustainable rates, working with the SSC to invite those whose registrations have lapsed in recent years to rejoin the sector, providing resources to support recruitment to all parts of the sector and working with partners on child-mender-specific recruitment programmes.