 The next item of business is a debate on motion 3190 in the name of Mark McDonald on improving the care experience for looked-after children. May I ask those who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons and can I warn everybody that we are running short of time already. So a tight seven minutes please Mr McDonald to speak to and move the motion. Presiding Officer, when the First Minister announced the commitment to carry out an independent root and branch review of the care system in Scotland, it's fair to say that there wasn't a dry eye in the conference hall and that's because she talked about this most vital issues in a way that we can all understand. There are three fundamental aims at the core of this commitment. First, the review will be driven uniquely by those with experience of care. So I can advise Parliament that the group to be appointed to drive forward and lead the review will include people with care experience so their voices and views are heard at its very heart. The review group will be asked to ensure that the very varied experience of other children, young people and adults of all the many parts of the care system influence its scope and its outcome. Scotland's care system is not a single entity. It's a complex network of interlinked supports, often designed in isolation but trying to work together for children and families. Over the decades, we've learned a lot about what works when it comes to intervening in the lives of children who have been neglected, abused and traumatised. We're making real progress through getting it right for every child, changing culture and practice to prevent children from coming into care and to intervene early when they are at risk of becoming looked after. This work is vital and must continue, which is why, Presiding Officer, I can announce investment of £3.3 million in 2017-18 by this Government for organisations working alongside statutory agencies to directly support better outcomes for looked-after children and provide support for vulnerable families to help to prevent children from becoming looked after. We know that we also need to better protect the most vulnerable children and young people and I will report to Parliament on our programme to improve child protection early next year. Our work at both ends of the care spectrum will involve this wider care review. However, the second fundamental aim of this review will not be to explore what more we need to do to stop things happening to children and young people but rather what we need to do to enable things to happen for them. We need a care system that makes a real and positive difference to the life chances of vulnerable and disadvantaged children. We can point to progress in some areas, look after young people now do better at school or more likely to leave school with qualifications and under this Government we have the fewest ever young people not in employment, education or training after school. However, evidence persists that our system does not result in children and young people in care having the same choices and chances to succeed at school and in life as their peers. So, while the review group will determine the scope of its work, I wanted to consider how to change the care system to achieve this. Since October, I have sought views from individuals, care experience young people and organisations throughout the sector, not to pre-empt any decisions but to galvanise my thoughts on what the review must seek to achieve. The approach to this review is truly experimental, therefore participants will need to work together in a safe and supportive spirit to gain insight from each other and appreciate the balance of perspectives. I thank the minister for taking the intervention. He will be aware that during the last Parliament, the education committee conducted two inquiries into young people in care, the first one on attainment at the school of young people in care and the second one into when to take young people into care. Will he be considering those inquiries reports as part of his review? I have announced that there will be a group that will drive forward this review. I would expect them to consider the totality of evidence that exists out there, both in terms of the system that is currently in place but also, as Joan McAlpine rightly highlights, the reports that have been produced by previous committees of this Parliament. I would expect that to be part of it. The review will need to be inquisitive and genuinely curious about why things are the way they are and to challenge systems, culture and behaviours. It should consider what works here and in other countries. In particular, I want the review to consider how we might continue to build on the permanent and care excellence programme, which is a successfully used improvement methodology to reduce drift and delay in the system and to advise on how to realign children's services for long-term impact. That is why I am happy to accept the Conservative amendment today to acknowledge that elected members have a significant role to play in the care system as corporate parents have looked after children. They need to hear what care experience young people have to say about how they are currently being parented corporately and what needs to change. I want to include elected members in the review, but I also expect them to play an active role and come ready to consider fully how they can fulfil their statutory obligations differently and more effectively. I am sure that they would want to contribute their thoughts on how we free up current resources, people, budgets, facilities and services to encourage more innovative thinking and more empowered leaders. Where the review group identifies opportunities for change, I make this commitment. I will not wait for the review's final report. I will act to implement those changes as soon as they are recommended. I hope that we can agree across this chamber that we should be seeking to create a 21st century care system with the needs of children and young people at its core. Listening to the voices of care experienced people will be key, but we have listened to their views and experience before. Frankly, with each legislative reform, new policy and change in practice, we have failed to hear what children and young people in care tell us, or at least we have failed to create a system that delivers the one thing that they crave more than anything else. Children and young people do not just want a care system that supports them. Yes, they want to feel safe and secure, and there are many parts of the system that achieve that, but they also want to feel and be loved. It is the most simple and basic notion, yet the most complex thing to achieve, and this is the third fundamental aim of the review. To consider how we not only give our most vulnerable children a care system that better supports their needs and enables their interests, but how to ensure that it also gives them a sense of family and of belonging. In moving the motion in my name, I ask Parliament to agree that we commit today to working together to share the ideas that exist across this chamber and views with this review to create a care system for Scotland in which children are loved, to give them the childhood and life chances that they deserve. I now call Jeremy Balfour to speak to and move amendment 3190.2. No more than six minutes, please, Mr Balfour. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I remind the chamber that I am a city councillor here in Edinburgh. I thank the minister for bringing this debate forward and also for accepting, as I move the amendment, in my name. There is no more important matter than the care and safety of our children. We have to address the issue of the knowledge that, if we fail, the results can be heartbreaking for young people, for families and for society. All research shows us that those who come from a vulnerable start in life are far more likely to have experienced neglect, abuse, which can lead to attachment issues and adverse outcomes in adulthood. I acknowledge that the statistics for looked-after children are improving, as the minister has already said in his opening speech. However, the Scottish Government acknowledges that life chances for young children and young people have looked and still remain poor, particularly in regard to employment after the age of 16. I think that this group needs to look at not only what happens to a child in the younger ages but what happens once they leave the care system in regard to further education or employment. Therefore, we, as a group as a party, welcome the independent review of the Scotland's care system and support the requests that are made by the Government. Scotland needs to include, as the minister has already said, our stakeholders. It is important that the review looks across the whole system to understand how agencies successfully and unfortunately unsuccessfully collaborate to develop a system of care based on the individual need and background of a child and how that experience as a child can shape them in adulthood. Can I suggest that it is also vital that, at the heart of the independent review, it listens without prejudice to the care experience of children and young people? They are the experts of the care system, and it is imperative that they are involved and provided with a platform to describe their journey through the care system, both positive and adverse experiences. As I said, I am a city councillor here in Edinburgh. I have to confess that there is a lack of understanding regarding the crucial role that elected councillors play in the care of looked-after children. When a councillor is elected, he or she becomes part of a corporate parent to any looked-after child within that local authority. They have a duty to take an interest and wellbeing and development of those children as it was if it was your own child. Although the lead member of children's services has a particular responsibility in that, it is all councillors who are the corporate parent, regardless of their experience or role within the council. They are there to scrutinise. They are there to set policy. They are there to ask searching questions of what the officers are doing. I am not sure that most councillors take this seriously enough. They leave it to perhaps a small committee, a small group of councillors to delegate that role to them. I wonder whether there is enough training given to local councillors. As we approach the elections next year and with no doubt lots of Conservative councillors have been elected for the first time across Scotland, I hope that each local authority will make sure that the appropriate training is given to all councillors, whichever party, to make sure that they understand their responsibilities. I wonder whether we need to encourage and nudge councillors or deputy leaders to be the chief spokesperson in regard to this area. On a recent visit to a school providing education and care for boys with additional support needs, the director of the school informed me that once a child has been placed in the school out of their area, there is very little interest from the local authority regarding that child's academic progress. I doubt that that would happen if it were your own child. The attitude that councillors need is to challenge, to scrutinise and make sure that those who are in their control are given the best service and the best start to their life. Staff who work in the care system know what is going on. In my short time as an MSP, I have been hugely impressed and full of admiration for the staff and adults looking after care for children. For many of them, it is not a job, it is a vocation, going way beyond that extra mile. Dealing with children who have disorders, emotional chaos and providing them with somewhere safe, loving and caring relationships that help that child to thrive, hopefully, in later years. We, as a group, will be supporting the Government in regard to the motion and look forward to the debate. The First Minister's announcement earlier this year that the Government would be launching an independent root and branch review of the care system was very good news. Scottish Labour therefore welcomes Mac McDonald's motion and will be supporting the Government today and the amendment in Jeremy Balfour's name. On our bench, Kezia Dugdale has long been a champion for the rights of young people in the care system. I was looking back at Kezia's column in the daily record from Christmas 2014. She spoke of the thousands of children and young people in Scotland spending Christmas without the love and security that so many of us take for granted. She made two points that have stuck in my mind in preparing for today, and remind us why that review is so important—that the stigma of kids in care continues, and the life chances of those who are leaving care are too stark. Two years on, the independent care review promises to look at the underpinning legislation, culture and practices within the care system. Scottish Labour looks forward to working collaboratively with all parties involved in the review to ensure that it leads to care experience young people having both the love and the life chances that they deserve. Today, I want to pay tribute to the determination of care experience young people and those who support them, including who cares Scotland. They are making those with the power to do something about it, actually listen to what the solutions are. That is what has led to the great strides that we have seen in recent years in relation to improving the care experience. However, there is much more still to do. We owe it to all of the care experience young people and carers in Scotland who have told us their stories to get it right. We welcome the Government's pledge to inform the review with the voices of care experience people. We hope that the Government will be able to provide more details about how that will be taken forward, and I welcome what Mark McDonald says today about properly hearing what young people are saying. It is important that we do proactively seek out voices that might not otherwise be heard. That review must be inclusive not only from those that will take evidence from but from the scope that it considers. A whole-system approach should look at the experiences of young people, children before, during and after care, because the care system does not exist in a vacuum. For that very reason, neither can the review. It must be linked to more general work to tackle poor mental health and attainment, and reform must be linked to additional resources. The poor outcomes experienced by children in our care system are complex, often linked to their early experiences of abuse, neglect or parental alcohol and substance misuse. It is simply heartbreaking that children in care are more likely to go to jail than to university, or that they are four times more likely than their peers to have a mental health problem. That type of inequality is unacceptable, and that is why Scottish Labour support positive measures such as providing free bursary support for looked after children, going on to higher education and qualified councillors for all secondary schools. This week, I heard from a foster carer with over 20 years' experience who told me the one thing she felt that was vital to this review is ensuring that any changes are actually backed up by the resources that are needed. Local authorities and social work services play a vital role in providing support and care for looked after children. Earlier this year, Audit Scotland reported that social work services in Scotland are struggling. Last week's budget announcement that local authorities will be squeezed by another £327 million in the coming financial year will be a real worry to all involved. Reforming the culture and practice of our care system is welcome, as is the £3.3 million that Mark McDonald announced today for the third sector, but it is vital that local authorities are given the ability to properly fund social services at the front line of the care system. We need to reform the care system so that the children at its heart are given the love and support that they need to grow and flourish, rather than merely keeping them safe and a conveyor belt of bureaucracy until they reach the legal age of adulthood. Laura Beverage from Who Care Scotland recently gave a powerful account in Holyrood magazine of her own experience of care, one that moved me greatly and underlined exactly how vital it is that this review works for people in care. She wrote, "...everything I did was written down, recorded and analysed. I was taken out of school to attend reviews and children's hearings, where big decisions about my life were being made by people I didn't know. I can't remember much about what was said at these meetings, but I can tell you what the colour of the carpet was, because that was my focus." We need to change the system so that children like Laura are given back control of their own life, allowing them to form loving relationships with adults who are invested in them and not just be the subject of endless meetings with workers with whom they have no real connection. That is no way for any child to have to grow up. You must close now, Ms Lennon. Thank you. I hope that the points raised today can be fed into the ongoing review process so that the positive outcome can be achieved for all care-experienced young people. We now move to the open speeches. If no one exceeds four minutes, later speakers won't be penalised. Can I ask Fulton MacGregor to be followed by Miles Briggs? Thank you, Presiding Officer. I come to this debate having some experience of working with looked-after children, and I have seen first-hand the effect that spending time and care system can have, so I am absolutely delighted, as others have said, that the Government has committed to a full route and branch review of the system. I also welcome the decision to include at the core of the review people who have been looked after in the past and those who are currently in care. It is important that all viewpoints are taken to ensure that the correct changes are made to care in Scotland and that no one knows what improvements are required more than those who have been at the heart of the system. I am pleased, as Monica Lennon also mentioned, that who cares Scotland is backing the review. There are a lot of hard-working individuals in Scotland who devote their lives to helping children in care and sometimes make great personal sacrifices to better lives. The foster carers and adoptive carers who welcome children into their home and family, the children's unit workers who work on sociable hours and often in very challenging circumstances. I am glad that that fact has also been recognised by colleagues across the chamber. However, the review will rightly focus on the views of those who have experienced care and, hopefully, serve to build upon and improve those services for now and for the generations to come. As has been said, I think that we are all agreed that every child deserves to feel loved and that any improvements that we can make to the care system to make that happen, and we should welcome that. I would like to pay tribute to all the organisations who have been involved in the sector and who will contribute fully to the review and to many senators' briefings. That was very much appreciated by myself. As Mark McDonald, the minister, has already said, the Government is committed to supporting different agencies coming together, and there have been some successes of recent policies over the recent years, with 70 per cent of children now going on to a positive destination, and that has been up from 30 per cent from five years ago. However, I think that everybody agrees that more can and must be done, and I hope that that issue is one that will pass the political divide, and all parties will work together, not just today in the chamber, wherever they are making the right noises, but as we move forward as well. It has been well documented now of one of the first spoken in previous debates about it. The outcomes for children in care are still not great. Educational health and justice indicators and Monica Lennon spoke about something that I had noted as well about the increased issues around mental health, so I will not go over that again. However, it is a real area of concern that we need to address. We need a system that provides for those young people who are often already traumatised when they enter the care system, and when we take on responsibility for those young people. It is us who must provide the sense of family, belonging, love and support. I have personally found that placements with the most success have robust therapeutic and counselling plans in place. I would like to mention Dwyna Grant, chair of the Scottish attainment in action, who I have co-worked with in the past and who is seeking to be involved in the review. She strongly promotes that all children in care have a strong therapeutic relationship. She builds a foundation between the child and the new attachment figure, whether that is a foster carer or a link worker at the unit. I have seen Dwyna work with families and put that into action. It essentially lays the grounds for the love that we are talking about to build and to be in place. I am looking forward to what some children might tell us in the review. They might tell us some very simple things from my experience of what children told me being a social worker. It is about contact with their family. If they are not getting any, why not? Presents at Christmas and at birthdays—this is a time of year where a lot of children will be expecting presents—contact with their pets. A lot of people forget about those things. Haircuts and holiday consent—a lot of times social workers are spent running around getting consent for a haircut while a child maybe needs a haircut and is in a children's unit or a foster give-aways room. You must close now, Mr MacGregor. If you may find room for the improvements in this area. I had a lot more to say, Presiding Officer, but obviously the time is elapsed. So this is the first day of review if it is kind anywhere in the world. It is ambitious. You must close now, Mr MacGregor. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to take part in today's extremely short debate. I thank those organisations that have provided briefings for today's debate, including Barnardo's Who Cares Scotland, NSPCC Scotland and a Life Changes Trust. Scottish Conservatives, as my colleague Jeremy Balfour said, welcomed the review of the care system. All of us can agree that we need to do more for children in care and look at how we can improve the current system that sadly lets too many of Scotland's children down. The statistics for looked after children across the broad range of outcomes indicate starkly how big the challenge actually is. Seven times as many looked after children, school leavers will have no qualifications compared to the average for all school leavers, while only 8 per cent will receive one or more qualifications at SCQF level 6 or better compared to a national average of 60 per cent. Positive destinations after school remain significantly below the national average and are very more likely to suffer, and people in care are very more likely to suffer from poor health and become homeless. Improving education for looked after young people and helping them to go on to training or employment opportunities must be a real priority. Supporting children at the time they are leaving care is another area where I believe that we must see improvement. I welcome what the minister said today. Despite local authorities' statutory duty to offer after care to young people leaving their care, it is unacceptable that 26 per cent of children leaving care continue to have no pathway plan and one in three have no after care whatsoever. Listening to the voices of care experienced young people is a key part of the motion today, and I very much agree with that and welcome the minister's comments again in this area. As Bernardo's has suggested, listening to the views of young people at different stages of their journey should be included in hearing from children and young people who have had a positive experience in the care system. We should build on the successes within the system and try to replicate them. The views of professionals working within the care system are also vitally important. It is the mental health of looked after children, which is a major concern for me in an area that I have been working on as my party spokesman. It is a shocking indictment that looked after children are more likely to self-harm and attempt suicide. I hope that the new mental health strategy will look at how we can deliver significant improvements to access to social prescribing and counselling services, as well as appropriate signposting to services around self-harm, something that was raised with me at a recent visit to the Edinburgh crisis centre run by Penumbra. It is estimated that children in care are more than four times more likely than their peers to have a mental health difficulty, as has already been stated in this debate, with 45 per cent of children in care in Scotland suffering from mental health condition. Like other young people, looked after children face waiting times for mental health services, which are far too long and something that under this Government we haven't seen any real improvement. Better and swifter access to counselling and talking therapies within care settings and additional age-appropriate acute inpatient mental health services are clearly badly needed. I hope that the care review will involve the voluntary sector as much as possible, too, as there is a lot of good work taking place by our third sector stakeholders and partners. Organisations such as Binardo's, Abelaira Action for Children and many others have built up a great deal of expertise and their input is incredibly valuable and essential. To conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, I look forward to the results of the care review and I hope that its recommendations will look at a range of practical measures and allow for improvements to be made throughout the care system in Scotland. I hope that the review and implementation of its recommendations will mean that, in future years, children in care who enter early adulthood can do so with the same support, choices and chances as other young people in Scotland. As Labour's spokesperson on social justice, I am particularly interested in the debate. I have taken to heart the words of Naomi Eisenstadt, the Government's independent adviser on poverty, on the need to focus on the 16 to 24-year-old age group. I realise more than ever that she is right that, at this stage of life, it will be the most important chance to shape your life chances. However, if you have had on-going disadvantage in your life until then, what real chance do you have to reach the most of that key stage in your life if your childhood has not given you that strong foundation of love, support and nurturing that every child needs encapsulated in the Government motion? As other members have talked about, the more you look at the briefings, the statistics are very shocking. If we look after children and it reflects a picture that the life chances of a person in the Scottish care system is severely hampered by the fact that they are one of those 15,000 children in care, half of the five to 17-year-olds who have been in care have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, as Miles Briggs talks about. Evidence and self-harm, death by self-harm and suicide shows an extremely bleak picture. Care experience children are significantly more likely to go to prison and to universities. Monica Lennon says, I think that it is the one that shocked me the most and that it is the figure, I think, or the fact that it told me that there is something that really seriously needs to be done for these children. They are far less likely to leave school with qualifications and only 4 per cent of young people go straight on to higher education. If we look at attainment rates for those children, they are lower than any other disadvantaged group. When it comes to homelessness, as other members have said, we know that if you have been in care research suggests that you have a 50-50 chance of becoming homeless, another shocking statistic. Looked after children through the accident of fate, who are in their care system, will almost certainly have fewer opportunities in every aspect of life. The review is long overdue, but I have to ask what we have been doing. I mean that collectively, it is not slight on this Government or any other Government, but it is staring us in the face that, as a country, as a society, we have failed an awful lot of young people. I am no way overlooking the successes in our care system, but clearly we need to make a great deal of progress to make up for some lost time. I just want to address the question of access, because I think that this is a key debate here that needs some comprehensive discussion. The need to decide on the consistency of offers in university for care leavers across institutions requires another debate within itself. Recommendation 21 from the Committee on Widening Access, the reporter mart, said that, by 2017, those with a care experience who meet the access threshold should be entitled to the offer of a place assessed at the minimum entry levels in 2017 and 2018, and the access thresholds thereafter. I would be interested to know in summing up what the Government's response to that is. On checking in one of my local universities, Glasgow University, who uses a system called the justice offers, which simply means that if you require five A's to get into medicine at Glasgow University, if you are a child or a young person who is leaving school, who has been in the care system, then they will adjust your grades. If you do not have to reach five A's, you might have to reach three A's and two B's. Glasgow University has specifically said what that is. Arguably, that is a clearer system than the contextual system, in which you just make adjustments for someone who is in the care system. I will leave it at that. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I call Alison Johnstone, please, to be followed by Alex Cole-Hamilton. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in today's debate, Deputy Presiding Officer. In this chamber, when we debate care, we often focus on the systems through which we provide support for some of the most vulnerable children in our society. Yet we know too that caring is fundamentally a very human activity. We cannot truly care without building real emotional connections with those we care for. It is those relationships that are at the heart of providing the best care and outcomes for our looked-after children. Research by the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Excellence for looked-after children shows that building genuine, long-term positive relationships with carers and professionals is key for those children and young people who go on to successful lives outside of the care system. We must design a care system where such nurturing relationships can flourish. I welcome the Government's proposed review into improving the care experience for looked-after children by putting the voices of the young people at the centre of the new review. We can design a care system that allows for nurturing and stable relationships to thrive. To do that well, it is essential that policymakers understand the environments looked-after children and young people live in. Putting the voices of 1,000 children centre stage is a key way of making sure that we get our approach right for every looked-after child. We have spoken recently in the chamber about the increased difficulties facing looked-after children, but it is worth repeating again. Looked-after children are eight times more likely to be excluded than their peers, missing out not only on class lessons but opportunities to build relationships with classmates and teachers. They are less likely than their peers to be enrolled in a job, further education or training after finishing school. Colleagues have touched on that, but half of all children in custody have been in care at some point. They are also more likely to experience homelessness and poor mental health. That is not inevitable, and it is essential that we give those children a secure start as we possibly can. Only last month we spoke in the chamber about the need to reduce drift and delay in adoption and foster placements, because that leaves many young people in a state of insecure limbo. Crucial to giving children the confidence to speak about their experiences and desires for their future is giving them a positive vision and aspiration. The 2006 Celebrating Success report intentionally presented the stories of 30-year-old experienced young people who had gone on to have remarkable success as adults. The young people told the researchers that having stability in their care placements allowed them to develop strong relationships with the adults in their lives, and those adults in turn encouraged their aspirations for the future. What is clear from that report is that, when young people know that they will be listened to, they are emboldened to build fulfilling lives for themselves. There are other voices, too, whose views will ensure that that review really does make the necessary difference. I welcome the collaborative, inclusive tone of the motion. Parents, carers and professionals who all have their own experience of where the system is working well and where it needs to improve, Strathclyde's Centre for Excellence found that many parents struggle to navigate the system and to put their views across at hearings. That should be investigated so that appropriate support is available and it is provided. Carers must form a key part of the review. A previous review of foster care, completed in 2013, recognised that carers found benefit from on-going training. I would like to see the findings of the Scottish Social Service Council's consultation into providing learning and development training for foster carers considered in this route and branch review. I support Jeremy Balfour's call, too, for on-going training for all corporate parents. That is a really important responsibility in closing, Presiding Officer. For carers to provide stability for children in their care, they need to be able to afford the costs of running a loving home, ensuring that foster and kinship carers have the financial resources to buy clothing, food, give a bit of pocket money that gives the children and their carers peace of mind. I have previously asked the minister— I know that you must close. Sorry. Really tight for time. Okay. If the minister could just talk— I must close. Thank you very much. I call Alex Cole-Hamilton to be followed by Christine McKelvie. Mr Cole-Hamilton, a very tight four minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I rise to give full throw to support to the Government motion and the amendment, but before I do so, I must declare an interest in that, before I was elected to this place, I served for eight years as the head of policy of Abalara, who provided us all with a very excellent briefing authored by my successor, Martin Canavan. That clearly delineates the work of that organisation in 140 years of history, giving comfort and safe upbringing to Scotland's looked after children in the early days of orphanages and then lastfully into family group homes in the Sycamore cluster through social pedagogy. We have much to learn from them. On Christmas Eve in 2013, I received a telephone call from Elizabeth Campbell, who is the team leader of the Children and Young People Bill Unit. She confirmed to me that the Scottish Government had listened to the two-and-a-half-year campaign on the part of Abalara, Barnardo and Who Cares Scotland, and with them the voices of hundreds upon hundreds of young people in care and those with care experiences. They had agreed to bring forward an amendment that would change the age of leaving care in Scotland from 16 to 21. That met the challenge that was set by the Children's Commissioner, Kathleen Marshall, in her report, sweet 16, some decades earlier. That challenge was so transformational and important to the lives and outcomes of those in care, and here's why. The average age of a young person in a stable family home who leaves that home is 24. But until that measure came in, we had expected that most vulnerable group of young people in our society to leave their homes a full eight years before that, at a time. When they and their peers should have been focused on sitting life-qualifying exams, we were expecting them to get ready to take on a tendency. It's more wonder than, as we've heard in this debate, that the educational attainment a young as among looked after children is the worst family demographic in Scotland, with only 6 per cent going to university, that half of our adult prison population has been through the care system and worse, that a young person with care experience has 20 times more likely to die before the age of 25 than other young people. I'm confident that history will reflect that that change in the care-leaving age was the single most important thing that we could do in our care landscape. I'm grateful to the Government for the announcement of their review, because there is still much more to do. I have on many occasions publicly thanked Aileen Campbell—I do so again today—but I would like to break with convention and thank those civil servants, Elizabeth Campbell, David Blair, Cat Duggan, Sheila Caradice, Carolyn Uney and even special advisers to the First Minister Colin McAllister, who, among other civil servants, worked with a quasi-religious fervour so compelled by the testimony that they heard from the young people with care experience. Each of them acted in the finest traditions of public service and deserve our thanks. I am heartily glad that the Government has now sought to build on the cross-party achievement in the review that formed the centrepiece of the First Minister's conference speech in Glasgow. Such a review is both timely as it is necessary. It shall be conducted with the full co-operation of these benches, because there is still yawning gulfs in provision. As we have heard at first contact, there is still an unacceptable drift and delay in many areas of Scotland between a child first becoming known to social work and a supervision order being brought in place. We need to do more for those young people who are looked after at home, which are the biggest cohort of looked-after children yet still manifestly experience the worst life outcomes. Finally, we need to do more to equip our teachers with the full understanding of the impact of trauma attachment disorder and loss and the impact that can have on a child's behaviour in the classroom. I can think of no higher calling in our role as parliamentarians in the discharge of our duties that we all share for the looked-after people, those 15,000 children who, on any given day, find themselves in care in this country. It should rightly be a subject that we visit time and again in this chamber with utmost regularity, and as such I congratulate the Government for bringing this motion forward tonight and assure them of our support. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr Cole-Hamilton. An exemplar in keeping to time, I call Christine McKelvie, a last speaker in the open debate. Ms McKelvie, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Cering for a child and all of them in whatever circumstances is not just the responsibility of immediate family, but of government too and of local government, as we have heard from Jeremy Balfour. If we recognise that and we do, that our children hold in their hands the future wellbeing of society, then we need to do everything that we can to equip them for that task. Care is a vital part of the child protection system. Many young people in care that I have spoken to have said that their experience was good and that it was the right choice for them at the time, but more needs to be done to ensure that all children in care are healthy and safe, have the same opportunities as their peers and can move successfully into adulthood. Children's early experiences have a significant impact on the development and future life chances. As a result, their experiences, both before and during care, looked after children at greater risk than their peers are. According to the Life Changes Trust, the Root and Branch review of the care system signals one of the most profound commitments towards improving the care and protection of our children and young people by putting young people at the heart of change, and that is the key here. However, while we recognise and champion the need for a lovable, stable, loving, stable relationship, we have all seen the failures in the past that have led to the deaths of children in care. Baby Pea, Victoria Calimbey are some that shocked me in my career in social care. Closer to Homeville, 30 looked after children died in Scotland between January 2009 and 2011—an astonishing number. The reasons for those deaths were not necessarily violent. Some were murdered, which is horrifying. Some with life-limiting conditions, but many to suicide and addictions. That really shouldn't allow us to be off the hook when it comes to looking after these children at all. How do we do better? Bringing in the young people who have already shown their courage and strength, that is something that we should do. Let them use their own personal experience to make the changes in legislation. Let's not say, as adults, that we know what is best for you and that they know what is best for them. Allow them to do that. That would be a good start. They have already played a part in shaping the Children and Young People Scotland Act, and they are the people who understand what being looked after actually means, both positively and negatively. I draw the minister's attention to something that I have drawn other ministers' attention to over the past few months. It is about supported accommodation. I have a blue triangle organisation in my constituency. One action that the Scottish Government could take now, because it now has the power, is to ensure that young people who are in supported accommodation receive and enhance their supported housing benefit. Do not lose that benefit if they take up a modern apprenticeship or take up a low-paid job or go on a training course or go to college or university. They currently do lose that support, and losing that support means that they will lose their supported accommodation. It is that two years that the need of that loving holistic relationship to allow them to thrive. That is something that I would really impress on the Scottish Government to take action on today if it can. We need to turn the telescope around and stop thinking in terms of the needs of the system and turn to the needs of the children and young people and have those at our core. Most of us here in this place have been blessed with caring families and a positive home life, although probably not all of us. We all recognise how important that has been to us. Imagine for a moment if it had not been like that. Can you guess how you would feel then, angry, bitter, lost, isolated and unloved, even if you have never experienced love, something that you recognise, the magnitude of what you are missing? Today, the Scottish Government has a plan. It needs to create that plan with actions. We need to ensure that children in care should feel loved, accepted, valued, wanted and, most importantly, listened to. Of course, every child should get that opportunity. Please, just let's make it happen. Thank you very much. I turn to closing speeches. Daniel Johnson for Labour, up to four minutes, please, Mr Johnson. I wouldn't dare to do otherwise. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. And let's see you put actions into words here. I'm using up my time. And do you see anything back to the chair while you're at it? On that note, the first thing to say is that we have done a fantastic job of really doing justice to such an important subject in such a short amount of time. I think that it's always notable that, when we discuss matters such as these to do with children and future generations, we always do seem to step forward and talk with a degree of consensus. It's important clearly because, as individuals, the importance of children and the way we bring them up is clearly important. As policy makers, we are talking about future generations and so forth, for that reason, the future of our country. I think that the one other thing that seems to find common cause across the benches in this chamber is the fact that we cannot tolerate accidents of birth, given rise to differences in opportunities in people's life chances. Indeed, as Monica Lennon pointed out at the fact that Kezia Dugdale is often quoting, it cannot be tolerated that a child who has experienced care is more likely to go to prison than go to university. Indeed, other people have noted that. The fact that Scotland has brought forward the concept of corporate parenting is to be celebrated. It's right that we understand parenting as a collective duty, not just an individual one, but we also need to recognise, I think that this debate recognises, that we need to go much, much further. In a sense, it's about the things that we almost take for granted with parenting, that we need to look at how we improve corporate parenting. It's around the individual contact and attention a parent can give a child, the unconditional support, regardless of what the child might do, physical affection, hugs and indeed love. It's these emotional aspects, attachment and bonds that we need to address when we look at the issue surrounding care experience children. Indeed, Mark McDonald was right to highlight the three key pillars. I think that they are the correct ones, that this is a review that should be driven by the experience of care. I think that the only way that we can get to the bottom is if we actually bring on board those experiences into the heart of that review. Likewise, I think that he's right to highlight the fact that we need to look at how we enable and empower people who are experiencing care and finally a sense of family. I think that the word love has been used a number of times through this debate and rightly so, because that is the missing element that so many of the children who experience care are missing in their lives. We on the Labour benches warmly welcome the review and welcome the amendments from the other side of the chamber. I think that it's right that we have this review at this time. Indeed, I think that it's a world first to have such a holistic root and branch review looking at the experience of care. I would just like to remark on a few of the themes that have been raised. I think that there are four or five key themes that are really important to get taken on board with this. First of all, the child-centred nature of the review. Mark McDonald will highlight this, but it was again echoed by Fulton MacGregor. Again, I think that we really benefit from his professional experience. I thought that Monica Lennon's example of the child having the memory of the carpet from the room where the decisions are made is a powerful evocation of the issues that are faced in the experiences. Indeed, I think that Alison Johnstone put it very well when she said that we come all too often focused on systems in these situations, but we need to focus on nurturing. Likewise, we need to look at stability and permanence. Alexander Cole-Hamilton almost as rapidly as I'm speaking now talked about attachment disorder. I think that it's an absolutely key and pivotal issue. There are 15 per cent of care-experienced children who have more than one placement in a year, 6 per cent, three placements near that. That just can't be right. We need to look at that permanence. We need to look at the support. Again, as Alexander Cole-Hamilton raised the issue of the typical age of children leaving home being 24 in normal— You must now conclude, Mr Johnstone. I'm sorry. I will just conclude on the point that we welcome the motion and the amendment. No, you must conclude one of your members to connect to him for a minute. That's why you've been cut short. I now call on Liz Smith, the Conservatives, to close, please. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I congratulate the Scottish Government on bringing forward this independent review, but also on the tenor of this afternoon's debate, which obviously has had that consensual nature to it. In a very short space of time, I think that people have delivered some very poignant remarks about just why this is so important. I know that Pauline McNeill is no longer in the chamber, but she raised a very important point for those of us who have been in this chamber for some time. I will remember back in 2011, when the SCRA report came to the education committee between 2007 and 2011. Again, it came back in 2015, and we're now in 2016. I warmly welcome the minister's determination to move things on, and I particularly welcome what the minister is saying about using those who are most experienced in the process. I pay tribute to Fulton MacGregor and Alex Cole-Hamilton in the experience that they have brought to the chamber this afternoon, because your experience is perhaps greater than the rest of ours. That is a very important thing to put on record. If I look back on the previous two parliaments, I think that maybe that's where we've gone wrong. To take up the point that Jeremy Balfour made about councillors not feeling particularly comfortable in this environment, I think that I could say the same for myself. It was an issue that I didn't know terribly much about, and yet it's something that is obviously extremely important to take up the point that Christina McKelvie raised. It matters so much to the young children involved. Alison Johnstone raised an important point about the systems management. Yes, we are often talking about systems in this Parliament, and this is so much about people. Again, I commend the Government for recognising that and bringing that as the central principle that will underpin what we do from now. Monica Lennon, in her opening speech, mentioned about the vacuum. I think that that's a very good way of talking about what can often happen in care and for the youngsters. They often feel that they are in a vacuum, and there's no way out of that. In a vacuum, there's no link with the outside world. That's something that we need to pay great attention to. When I look back on what we have achieved in this Parliament over a 10-year period, I think that we have understood the principles and what we are trying to do, but sadly we have not been very good about putting that into practice. The determination that we have now collectively and driven by the Scottish Government is something that is very much appreciated, and it's certainly been appreciated by the youngsters involved. I'll finish there, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I'll keep that to three minutes. That's very kind of me, thank you very much. I believe that everybody is getting cut short, because I'm now calling the Mark McDonnell to close with the Government up till five o'clock, please, so you've lost some time to fame. I feel that Liz Smith's brevity has gained me some time to be honest, Presiding Officer, so let's use it, not lose it. I think that this afternoon's debate has been consensual, but, most important, it's allowed us to examine in some depth some of the issues that we need to probe as part of this review. As I said, we will be supporting the Conservative amendment at decision time. Councils are currently offered corporate parent training. My expectation would be that councillors would avail themselves of that opportunity, and certainly following the local elections in May, I will be seeking to ensure that councillors not only receive their corporate parent training but take up that opportunity when it is provided to them. I also made clear in the adoption and permanence debate recently in the chamber that I would offer the opportunity for some corporate parenting training for MSPs as well in the early in the new year, and hopefully MSPs will take the opportunity to avail themselves of that. Monica Lennon highlighted a couple of important points. She highlighted the issue around the continuation of stigma. That is a fair point and one that we should reflect on, as well as addressing the issues that exist in terms of the system. There is the wider societal attitude that can exist in relation to individuals in the care system, and there is work that needs to be done in relation to that. She also spoke about ensuring that, when it comes to social services that resources are available, as I highlighted previously, the Audit Scotland report on social work in Scotland highlighted that, since 2010-11, there has been a real-terms increase of 3 per cent in relation to social work funding, so it is clear that local authorities are taking that role very seriously indeed. I thought that Fulton MacGregor made one of the most powerful points in the debate, because he spoke about everyday things that the rest of us just take for granted. We take for granted that we will go and get our hair cut when it needs cut, or at least some of us do. We mention the fact that gifts at birthdays and at Christmas time are just something that we take for granted. That holidays, going to doctors and dentist appointments is something that we take for granted, but for children in the care system, those are often tasks that require forms to be filled in, risk assessments to be undertaken, all kinds of onerous burdens that are placed, which result in the experience being somewhat less than every day. I think that that was a very powerful point that he made and one that I am sure will be a consideration as part of the work that the review group takes forward. Miles Briggs spoke about the difficulties that are faced in terms of pathway plans, in terms of achievement of aftercare. Certainly from the latest stats that we have available, 95 per cent of looked after children have a current care plan, and there are obviously requirements under the 2014 act around continuing care. There are also requirements around aftercare, and I am keen to ensure that we have better understanding out there in relation to that. Pauline McNeill asked about the issues around widening access. This Government accepted all recommendations of the widening access commission, and we appointed a commissioner on Friday who will be responsible for ensuring that those recommendations are delivered upon. She also touched on issues around homelessness, and Christina McKelvie also touched on the issue around housing support for those in supported accommodation, many of whom will have come from a position of being looked after. I have had discussions with my colleague Kevin Stewart, the Minister for Local Government and Housing, in relation to the housing system and how it addresses support for individuals from looked after status. I am happy to pass a copy of Christina McKelvie's speech to the Minister for Local Government and Housing and the Minister for Social Security, who will obviously have responsibility for looking at the areas that she has highlighted in relation to that. In relation to Alison Johnstone's speech, she finished by talking about the text that the Greens had put forward as an amendment. I can say that, had the Greens amendment been tabled, we would have accepted it, and I am keen to explore how the issues that it raises can be factored into the review. I think that it sits well with my expectation that, rather than us waiting on a final report some years hence, we will take that forward as a kind of iterative process whereby recommendations that can be acted upon in the here and now will be acted upon, rather than us waiting for them to come as part of a final report. Alex Cole-Hamilton acknowledged the role of those who work alongside, but also for the Government in relation to delivering on those objectives. I think that his speech highlighted that where an approach is truly collaborative is the best way forward in relation to that. There is clearly a lot of goodwill across the chamber in relation to the review that we take forward, but I want to finish on that point that I made in relation to Monica Lennon's speech about the stigma that often attaches in relation to looking after children and children in the care system. She mentioned Laura Beverage. Laura is somebody who delivered a TED talk in Glasgow, which I would highly recommend members to look for on YouTube if they have the opportunity to do so. It is a very powerful seven minutes, which crystallises the very issues that are at the heart of the review that we are taking forward. She spoke about an experience at a public meeting in Musselburgh, a public meeting where huge numbers from the community had turned out to voice their opposition to the building of a residential home in the community. It struck me that, as well as our efforts to review and assess and challenge the system and reform it to ensure that it meets the needs and requirements of those young people, we also have to ensure that, in parallel to that, we work as politicians, as community leaders, to drive change in terms of society's attitudes and the stigma that attaches to those children in care. That will not be an easy task, but I believe that if we apply ourselves collectively to that task, which I think that today's debate has shown that we are willing to do so, there is no reason why we cannot do that. After all, the only reason that you limit ambitions is if you put a ceiling on them. That concludes our debate on the care experience for looked after children. The next item of business is consideration of legislative consent motion 3181, in the name of John Swinney, on the Higher Education and Research Bill. I call on John Swinney to move the motion. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 3222, in the name of Jo Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a revised business motion for tomorrow. I would ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press the request of street button now. No one has done so. I will put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion 3222, in the name of Jo Fitzpatrick, be agreed? Are we all agreed? We come to decision time. The first question is that motion 3173, in the name of Ruth Davidson, on a motion of condolence, be agreed? Are we all agreed? We are. The next question is that amendment 3190.2, in the name of Jeremy Balfour, who seeks to amend motion 3190, in the name of Mark McDonald, be agreed? Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The next question is that motion 3190, in the name of Mark McDonald, on improving the care experience for looked after children, be agreed? Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. The final question is that motion 3181, in the name of John Swinney, on the higher education and research will be agreed? Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes decision time. We will now move to members' business, in the name of Kezia Dugdale. I will take a few moments just to change seats.