 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face covering should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The next item of business is a debate without motion on the subject of skills and opportunities to support recovery, young persons' guarantee and national training transition fund one year on. I would invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons now, and I call on Jamie Hepburn Minister to open the debate around the living minutes, please minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. On 8 October 2020, the Scottish Government launched the national transition training fund, and in the following month we set out to part the ambitions for the young persons guarantee. Presiding Officer, at the outset of my contribution today, I want to reiterate my gratitude and that of the Government to Sandy Begby for the work that he has done in developing and leading on a guarantee. His passion and enthusiasm has been evident throughout, and I'm delighted that he continues to advance the guarantee and has also taken on the role of national chair of developing young workforce, emphasising his commitment to young people. Presiding Officer, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity today to highlight how, through our partnership, working with local government, our agencies, the third sector, our teachers, lecturers, trainers, key workers and employers, we are delivering on our ambitions. On this, our one-year anniversary of the young persons guarantee, I'll also outline the collaborative next steps that we are taking to deliver skills and training opportunities that are supporting our Covid recovery, and this Government's wider efforts to bring about a fairer future. Throughout the pandemic, we have sought to alleviate the overall harm caused by the virus to our health, to our economy and to broader society. As we move forward with recovery, we must ensure that we build on the strong foundations that we have in our skills system and have appropriate support to deliver training opportunities, to develop the skills that individuals and businesses need now and into the future. Last month, the Deputy First Minister launched the Scottish Government's core recovery strategy. That focussed on the efforts that are needed to tackle inequality and disadvantage, and the action is required to ensure the type of recovery that people, communities and our economy want and need. The strategy recognises that many critical sectors across the Scottish economy are reporting issues with the supply of labour, resulting from the exit from the EU, from food and drink to hospitality to transport to social care. We are working with business organisations to help employers to fill weaknesses. Our employability programmes, upskilling and retraining interventions and fair work tools provide a package of support for employers and for workers interested in moving into those jobs. We are also developing a new 10-year national strategy for economic transformation, which focuses on the economic future that we want to see, a greener, fairer and more inclusive wellbeing economy. This approach will help me to our 2030 climate targets, help to restore the natural environment, stimulate innovation, create jobs, improve wellbeing for all and further embed fair work standards across the economy. The delivery of economic transformation requires that the people of Scotland have the opportunity to acquire the right skills. Throughout the pandemic, we have sought to recognise and understand the challenges that are faced by individuals and businesses in order to develop right interventions to meet their skills' needs. The national transition training fund introduced a specific response to Covid-19's effect on the labour market as just one example of how we move quickly to target our support to those individuals in sectors most need briefly. Daniel Johnson? I am very grateful to the minister for giving me. He stated that everyone should be given the opportunity, but the national transition training fund creates opportunities for around 40,000 people, but there are 120,000 people unemployed. Indeed, there were 80,000 people on furlough when that scheme finished. Does he think that that response is sufficient, or does he think that more places will need to be created? What I would say to Mr Johnson is that the national transition training fund is only one element of the entirety of the system that we have. That is why I made the point at the outset that the national transition training fund, the young persons guarantee build on the strong foundations that we have. I recognise and understand the point that he makes, and it is an entirely valid point. However, the response that I would give to him is that we do not rely on just the national transition training fund, we have the Flix Workforce Development Fund, we have individual training accounts, and we have a wider tertiary education offer. It has to be placed in that context as well. Indeed, that is the point that I made when I said that it is just one example of how we target our support to individuals and sectors most in need. However, looking at the national transition training fund, last year's funding had a number of different strands including individual support for those aged 25 and over who were made unemployed or whose jobs were under threat because of Covid-19. We know that training has been received, for example, the feedback from the participants in the tourism and hospitality talent development programme was overwhelmingly positive. Supporting individuals in the national transition training fund has helped sectors to enhance the skills of their existing labour force. Our partners have delivered a range of interventions that have positively supported a myriad of Scotland's most important and dynamic sectors from tourism and hospitality to green construction to aerospace decommissioning and forestry. Overall, in year 1, with some final figures to be confirmed, up to 9,000 people have benefited from training opportunities. A final year 1 report will be published early next year. This year, we have given the national transition training fund a broader role in supporting Scotland's economic recovery, addressing the impact of EU exit and responding to demand for future skills transitions, including in the transition to net zero. We have sought to apply the lessons learned from the first year of delivery to ensure that funding response to economic needs is committed and committed up to £20 million in funding to support individuals and sectors across over 30 projects. That funding will support up to 20,000 individuals and will offer specific assistance to sectors in need of support such as aviation, social care and digital skills. I recently visited West Lothian College to hear from staff and students about the gateway to health and social care course. A skills boost course that was funded by the national transition training fund was developed by the college in collaboration with the Scottish Ambulance Service. It provided a skilled intervention to a number of participants who moved from different sectors to support our mobile testing centres who now want to stay in the health sector. That is a fantastic initiative and a great example of how our colleges work in partnership to create courses that respond to the needs of sectors and individuals. Like the national transition training fund, partnership working is critical to the ambitions of our young persons guarantee. As a Government, we are delivering on our commitment to young people providing up to £130 million for the young persons guarantee that builds on our existing investment in education skills and training. The funding will support 24,000 new enhanced employment training and educational opportunities for young people with a particular focus on supporting those who face additional challenges in participating in the labour market. The young persons guarantee is youth-focused and employer-led. I am delighted to announce that we now have over 300 employers signed up to the guarantee that are generating in excess of 6,000 additional opportunities. This movement of employers continues to grow and I encourage all businesses and all sectors to get involved. Employers are looking to their local communities to recruit young workers and, alongside developing a young workforce, are supporting the workforce of the future and are just transitioning towards our net zero targets. Our national approach to the introduction of developing young workforce schools coordinators is creating increased work-based learning for pupils and strengthening collaborative working with local employers. In recognition of the need for tailored support for some of our young people, we are providing additional funding to enable an intercultural youth Scotland to support disabled young people and young people for minority ethnic communities in schools. Meanwhile, our local employability partnerships are working across Scotland to change the lives of young people in their communities. From recent galleries growing rural talent project to Orkney's work with Who Care Scotland to improve the lives of care-experienced young people. Those partnerships are also supporting young people who face challenges entering the labour market into fair and sustainable employment through employer recruitment incentives that we have put in place delivered through local employability partnerships. As part of a number of events that are taking place to mark the first anniversary of the young person's guarantee, I was in Inverness yesterday where I had the pleasure of meeting Cap Gemini, one of the first employers to sign up to the guarantee. In collaboration with the local college there, growing the company with local talent to recognise the pathway progression from foundation apprenticeships to their modern apprenticeship programme. A core part of their involvement centres not only on a desire to be a good actor in supporting young people in the area, but also in identifying talent to build the vacancies that they have in their organisation. That is a message that I would like to reaffirm to employers that the young person's guarantee and developing young workforce more generally are certainly a way to give back to young people, but also a massive recruitment opportunity. It is an employer's own enlightened self-interest to get involved, I'll certainly give me. Michael Marra I thank the minister for giving way. He might be aware that last night saw the first meeting of the cross-party group on maritime and shipbuilding in the Parliament and one of the areas that was of particular concern to the industry was the significant skills gaps that they see in bringing people through. Will the minister commit to engaging with that sector and making sure that we can deal with that issue? Michael Marra First of all, I should readily consider that I was unaware of the meeting of the cross-party group, but I'd be very happy to engage with that sector. I'd be happy to engage with any sector that is willing to give opportunities to young people to get into the world of work. As well as meeting employers next Wednesday as part of Scotland's first carers careers week, I am looking forward to meeting a youth panel at the Public Sector and Healthcare Conference and discussing what the guarantee can do for them. Strengthening careers advice and ensuring that every door remains open for every young person is an important part of the guarantee. The former general secretary of the Scottish Trade Union Congress and current board member of the Skills Development Scotland, Graham Smith, is leading a review into career advice and information, as recommended by Sandy Begby with recommendations due shortly. As well as taking forward this range of actions, it is vital that understanding how the support delivered through the guarantees is achieving improved outcomes for young people. Our monitoring and evaluation framework, which is due for publication next month, will support our understanding of the impact of the guarantee across a range of economic education and equality outcomes. That is only a part of our effort to support people to get the skills that they require in a changing economy and to respond to their societal needs. The young person's guarantee on national transmission training funds is alongside our wider tertiary education offer and individual training accounts and the Flex Workforce Development Fund, as I mentioned a few moments ago to Daniel Johnson. All too often in the face of economic challenges, people have been left behind. Through our partnership working, I am determined to not see that happen and that we work together to deliver a real and lasting impact. I now call on Pam Gozo around 7 Minutes, please, Ms Gozo. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I start today by welcoming the opportunity to debate such an important matter, particularly as we begin on our job-focused recovery from the devastating effects of the pandemic. Too often, apprenticeships can be seen as a second best to higher education. That is wrong. If anything, I am very grateful for having bypassed the traditional learning pathway in my own career. I am a great advocate of different pathways into work because, Presiding Officer, there is not one route that suits all, and I think that this is something that the whole chamber will agree on. As Confucius once said, I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. This quote is very relevant to the issue up for debate today. Training and apprenticeships are more important than ever. People must be able to learn and apply what they can learn into the world of work. Presiding Officer, a fall in unemployment rate is encouraging, but we face challenging times ahead, especially as we navigate through new developments in our job market that have emerged in response to the pandemic and our commitments to the greener economy and future. As we build back, I am delighted that the national transition training fund has been dedicated to helping people to develop skills or to retrain in the face of Covid-19 and moving to growth sectors. However, in the survey conducted, 13 per cent of respondents did not secure a job after training. We cannot just forget about that 13 per cent. Can the minister explain what is being done to foster a connection between individuals who have undergone training and businesses experiencing skills shortage? Presiding Officer, I commend the aims of the national transition training fund. In immediate aftermath, it is possible that we will see an increase in new hires as they go back to pre-pandemic levels. However, without offering training based on demand from businesses, we risk the significant gaps and overlaps. More concerning in that, in May 2021, figures released by the Scottish Government put the number of individuals supported by the scheme around 3,000 rather than 6,000. The lack of consideration for what businesses need would also be responsible for the SNP's broken promise on 30,000 modern apprenticeships a year by 2020. I hope that she would recognise two things. First of all, that there was a year-on-year increase in the number of apprenticeships in Scotland as opposed to what was happening south of the border where there was a year-on-year decrease in the last few years. She would also, hopefully, being a fair-minded person, recognise that the reason that target was not achieved in the year-up set would have otherwise been because we were in the midst of a global pandemic and demand fell. I look at what the reason is. Every time we come in this chamber, we look at what the reason is. The reason is always behind Covid, but the fund was set up because we needed it in Covid, so it should have reached the targets that we should have had. The fact that you had a target to reach for 6,000 and then you will need to reach 3,000, and I can see that today you have reached up to 7,500. That still is not enough. We have got 115,000 people facing long-term unemployment. We need to do much more. I want to make some progress with the speech, please. The minister excused the failure under the cover of coronavirus. That is the SNP that the Scottish Government seems to be hiding behind effects of the pandemic for a lot of the policy failures recently. Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on young people in employment, but even before the pandemic, the number of employers with STEM skill shortages were increasing. Even before the pandemic, the number of young people starting a modern apprenticeship had fallen for the five years in a row. Presiding Officer, a demand-led approach to apprenticeships could have increased the number of both modern apprenticeships and the success rate of those finding a job upon completion of training. Not to mention the many graduates who have dedicated years of building up their skills to enter the workforce and have faced difficulties in securing a graduate apprenticeship, paid or otherwise. I understand that in an uncertain market, taking on an apprentice is a commitment that some businesses are unable to make. However, for the same reason that the national transition training fund was created, it was and still is an important time to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to advance people's lives, businesses and the economy. Once again, it has fallen to the opposition to do the numbers for the SNP. The First Minister announced a £15 million programme that would pay businesses £5,000 for each apprentice that she would take on, but the numbers reveal that if the £15 million were divided by £5,000, only 3,000 young people would be supported by the apprenticeship programme. That is less than 6 per cent of the unemployed young people. Does the First Minister agree that her £15 million apprenticeship programme is an advocate in addressing the larger issue of unemployment? Listening to businesses and organisations such as CBI, they have all recommended a demand-led approach to apprenticeships, so I will ask them to commit to the demand-led approach. Is that an intervention? I am genuinely perplexed as to what the member means by changing to a demand-led process for apprenticeships. We have a demand-led process for apprenticeships, and it is, again, seemingly inconsistent in the one hand to say that we should have a demand-led system and then to dismiss the point that I have made that the challenge that we faced in reaching a £30,000 target was for the very reason that the demand was not there. How can she square that circle? I will talk about demand-led. If you are saying that it is demand-led, the fund that you have put together and how you are delivering it, then to be honest, the only thing that I can see is that there is a problem in you marketing it and making businesses aware, because 13 per cent fell through the gap. Those are real people, not just statistics, so you have to look at that. There has to be an issue then in the marketing or how you are making businesses aware. Our world is changing, new skills are needed and businesses are looking ahead to the future, but can the Scottish Government keep up? Presiding officer, I would like to close today by highlighting three key points. Firstly, the training offered by the national transition training fund is not enough to secure individuals a job. Far more must be done and fast. Secondly, a demand-led approach must be taken if we want to make apprenticeships more attractive for employers, especially during these unprecedented times. Lastly, Scotland's young people deserve every opportunity to prosper and thrive. They cannot become Covid's lost generation. The pace of technological change is the fastest it has ever been and the slowest it will ever be again. Economic change has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Climate change demands that, rather than searching for the break, we put our foot on the accelerator. Further, deeper, more profound change. The early days of this Government's response does not bode well. The measures taken, as we have heard already, have been inadequate at best. There is little surprise there, not just in terms of a 14-year track record of inadequate delivery, but it is difficult to find the right solution when you refuse to define the problem. There has been no robust analysis that has been conducted over the impact on attainment on young people's experience of education and skills. This is the case in schools, as it is in tertiary education, including those taking apprenticeships and other skills-based learning. The scale of lost learning, receding literacy and communication skills among the youngest pupils, the numbers of disengaged teenagers, labourers raising these issues and the urgent need for a state of the nation analysis in this area time and again. There appears to be no appetite for this from the Government or to face the reality that families and front-line workers are dealing with every day. We do not know the impact. Learning has been lost, there has been impact on aspirations nor the potential knock-on to the skills gaps in the economy. We do not know either the full extent of the skills gaps that exist regionally or across different industries due to numerous incomplete skills audits, as admitted by Skills Development Scotland in Parliament in recent weeks. That results in an education recovery plan that amounts to little more than a cut and paste of existing policies, pilleried by those on the front line as utterly inadequate and detached from reality. All of those issues have been raised with the ministerial team, all have yet to see action. The unemployment rate for young people peaked at 10.1 per cent this year over double the national rate. There is little to no plan of substance for getting them into employment and equipping them with the skills for the future that is needed. Daniel Johnson has already pointed out the inadequate scale of the current interventions, the national transition training fund and the young person's guarantee amount to 44,000 opportunities around a third of the total required. When we consider this recovery to a realignment of the economy following Brexit and the pandemic, we need to consider that our skills system was not functioning well before either, and we need to consider that so that we can design a system for the future. That future must be strategic in its purpose. I look forward to the reality of the way that our economy is changing, where the opportunities lie and be centred on the individual. We cannot, for the sake of those children, be bogged down by any constant grievance or constitutional bickering that we too often hear around those issues of skill shortages. We know from the experience in my region from the oil and gas industry that the system often struggles to effectively upskill or reskill people into industries where they are needed. Bridging the gap between the current North Sea industry and the next will require significant Government support at scale. However, technology transitions throughout history show that labour follows opportunity rather than forecasts. Essentially, people will only retrain when the jobs are there. A proactive industrial strategy is absolutely vital. Of course, we have seen the SNP Government miss its own targets by some considerable distance when it comes to the creation of green jobs and within its flagship employment fair start Scotland. A key focus must be ensuring that our skills system aligns with the long-term needs and interests of the economy and the people of our country. There could be nothing more important than digital skills and how pervasive they are in all parts of our economy in the future and how woefully Scotland is equipped to embrace the jobs and growth of that future. Speaking to businesses in my home city of Dundee, there is a desperate need for software engineers, coders, developers and IT support, but no considerable skills base from which that need can be met. Literally hundreds of people in the city are missing out on those opportunities because this Government is not equipping them with those skills. Whether you are hiring graduates, whether you are filling technical posts or whether you are recruiting PhDs, far too often young Scots are not available. Sometimes, yes, that issue is complex. It requires careful planning and multiagency co-ordination, as the Logan review touched on, commissioned by this Government, but sadly not particularly well enacted. Let's start with ensuring that there is a higher computing class running in every secondary school with a qualified teacher to teach it. I would ask whether that is beyond the wit of this Government. I believe that the ideas, engagement and will is there from the private sector to engage on those issues. It is, after all, those firms who require the skills that we are talking about, but often they fail they are left to engage pretty much on their own by themselves. On a basis, forge more on opportunity than a cohesive structure and that a fundamental appraisal is urgently needed from the Government to get those structures right. Surely that must form thinking when we consider the funds and the guarantees that we assess today. I am sorry, Emma Harper. You are talking about how there has been no support offered. The member is talking about how there has been no support offered and that young people are doing this on their own. I am just reading that Dumfries and Galloway College, with support from the Scottish Government, are actively supporting young people to engage in digital courses. Wouldn't that be something that we should be recognising? Mike Marra. I think that the scale of those interventions are completely inadequate in terms of what was required for the future of our economy, whether we are training in artificial intelligence, machine learning, training people to the highest degrees and making sure that we have software engineers, people that can actually work in these industries in the future. There are some limited interventions that the Government has taken, but they are entirely inadequate, as their own publication under the Logan review recognised. Far more needs to be done. I was saying that the private sector is ready, I believe, to engage in this, but more needs to be done to engage them to talk about the skills gaps and what is required. In conclusion, there are many routes and options open to ensuring a better, more responsive and more strategic skills sector. Those benches are ready to make it a reality. What won't get us there, however, is that the Government is burying its head in the sand over the very significant challenges that we face, and we cannot afford more dither and delay. Before calling Willie Rennie, I remind all members who wish to speak in the debate, not trying to catch any particular persons eye, to please press the request-to-speak buttons now. Liberal Democrats have long argued that we need a massive investment in education skills and retraining. The ability to retrain and learn new skills at every stage of life was more important than ever, even before the pandemic hit. Businesses need the tools to thrive, and everyone should have access to good work. Problems such as the climate emergency and the pandemic-related jobs crisis can often feel insurmountable, but a just transition to a net zero economy can and should create opportunities and jobs. With investment and innovation backed up by retraining and upskilling opportunities, there is hope. We have the opportunity to rebuild and repurpose our economy towards climate friendly industry and economy, pursuing and encouraging new green investments. If we get this right, Scotland could have the most highly skilled and adaptable workforce in Europe. In the Scottish budget deal last year, we have secured £15 million and a special allocation for the north-east to pay for skills, training, upskilling and business support, in a region particularly under the pressure given its reliance on fossil fuels. That is how important we regard this agenda. That is why we made the case for a Government-backed graduate internship programme, especially for SMEs, to get new talent into small and medium-sized businesses and to give that talent an important step on the employment ladder. I am pleased that the Government is rolling that out. That is why we welcome the young person's job guarantee because the scarring that we have seen in crisis past must not be repeated this time. I want to thank Sandy Begby for his leadership. That is why we welcomed the national transition training fund, even though it had limited ambition. However, as is often the case with this Government, the rhetoric does not match the reality. The minister and I had a bit of an exchange earlier this year on the Government's failure to deliver its targets on the national transition training fund. The target was 6,000, but only 3,000 were delivered by the end of March. The minister blamed the pandemic and the furlough scheme, but that excuse does not wash because the target was set last October, right in the middle of the pandemic. Only half of an already cautious target was met for the period from October last year. I do not know if he was listening when I made my opening remarks. I said, we are still waiting for the final figures, but the indication is that 9,000 started the national transition training fund last year, so I just thought that that might be helpful. It is curious what has happened with the deadlines and the targets for the national transition training fund, because it has miraculously moved from March until July, an additional four months in which the minister can try to get his numbers up to the target that he set. In a dangerous sleight of hand, the minister can suddenly confess or profess to have met his target. I think that we should view that report with great suspicion. I will take the minister again. Again, I am not sure whether Mr Rennie is aware that a lot of that was delivered through our tertiary education system. He will be aware that that operates on an academic basis, rather than on a financial basis. That is why the figures are as they are. The minister knew that, last October, he suddenly changed every set of criteria, target and deadline numbers in order to suit his own argument. The truth is that the minister failed to meet the target by March. That was revealed in a parliamentary answer at that time. It is very clear that the minister failed, and rather than squirming away trying to come up with various excuses as to why he has failed, he should just confess. He is squirming, he is holding his hands out. That is squirming, if I have never seen it before. I am grateful to the member for coming up. I wonder if he would agree with me whether cwmling about 1,000 or 2 here and there is totally irrelevant compared to the fact that over 120,000 people we currently have unemployed or that 80,000 people were on furlough when that scheme finished. Willie Rennie makes a very good point. That is the point that I made about the limited ambition of this whole programme. Even with that limited ambition, the minister still failed to meet the target that he set only last October. Those are his conditions and he has failed to meet it. It is important that the Government is honest. We have massive challenges in meeting the skills shortages across the whole sectors, from forestry to health, from early years education to the logistics sector, but the minister is fiddling around with small numbers and making very little changes. That is why we are ending up with the skills crisis that we have right now. If the minister is going to meet the ambition that is required of this country, to meet the ambition of young people and, in fact, people of all ages, it is going to have to step up to the mark and start delivering for a change. I am grateful to be speaking in this debate and to have the chance to reflect on the success of both the young persons guarantee and the national transitions training fund. Just one year after their inception, as we steadily and conscientiously navigate our route out of recovery, it is crucial to remember that the social, educational and economic scars of this pandemic have disproportionately affected the lives of young people in Scotland. Research funded by the Scottish Government and carried out by YoungScot, the Scottish Youth Parliament and YouthLink Scotland over the last year. Young people aged between 11 and 25 were given the opportunity to share their views in an open survey on the impact of Covid-19. From the thousands of responses, it was largely girls and young women, young people aged over 18, young people with a disability or long-term illness and young carers who reported lower physical, mental wellbeing, lower satisfaction with educational arrangements and lower levels of optimism about current and future employment prospects. In the same month that the Covid impact survey closed, the Scottish Government launched the young persons guarantee, a commitment that every 16 to 24-year-old in Scotland will be given the chance to work or start an apprenticeship, attend further or higher education or gain experience through specific training, programmes or volunteering. With fair work remaining a key tenant of the Scottish National Party's economic plan, it is essential to create a labour market that values individual wellbeing and actively strives to remove the barriers faced by certain communities to find employment. As such, although more than 18,000 opportunities have already been created by the young persons guarantee since 2020, including modern apprenticeships and graduate programmes, for example, I wholeheartedly welcome the additional £70 million pledged by the Government that will continue to support employers and providers to enable our young people to be equipped with the skills needed for Scotland's future. In addition, as part of building an inclusive and environmentally focused economy, enhancing the national transitions training fund by a further £125 million will allow us to work towards our net zero ambitions and support those aged 25 and over to retrain and develop skills required to move into areas with the greatest potential for future growth and job opportunities. Joining thousands of people in Glasgow at the weekend in marching for climate action, it is fantastic that employment initiatives will have a strong application towards the climate emergency skill action plan and through the green jobs workforce academy, including aircraft decommissioning training for workers in the aerospace sector and upskilling and reskilling of individuals in the construction industry with a focus on energy efficiency. I have seen that first hand at the city of college in Kelvin. I am just about to finish. After the success of its first year, which helped over 6,000 people in role in a variety of training programmes, the national transition training fund will continue for a second year, providing 20,000 training opportunities in sectors impacted by Covid-19 climate commitments and, of course, an unwanted EU exit. While progress has undoubtedly been made, there is no room for complacency. I am proud that this Government continues to act with future generations in mind. To paraphrase Fiona Hyslop, my colleague, when she launched the young person's guarantee, I want young—Scotland's young people to know that we are marching with you. We want you to be successful and we will do everything we can to give you the opportunities that you need. The pandemic is one of the biggest challenges facing young people across our United Kingdom. Young people have been detrimentally impacted as lockdowns and restrictions have affected their ability to work, study and plan for their futures. I can understand the worry that this must have caused to many who have just left school without any certainty of when life will return to normal. As we continue to manoeuvre out of this pandemic, we must turn our attention to young people in Scotland. They will be looking to us to ensure that we are creating jobs and providing opportunities to upskill. It is crucial that they have access to stable employment prospects once they have decided on their chosen career path. Although the pandemic has added to the pressures on the job market, we know that the Scottish Government was under pressure to make improvements when looking at providing opportunities for our young people. If we look at the SNP Scottish Government's record, we know that they have not done enough to provide our young people with the best opportunities once they leave school, higher or further education. For example, prior to the pandemic, the SNP broke its promise to achieve 30,000 modern apprenticeships per year by 2019. It has missed its target on employability fund starts, and the number of young people starting a modern apprenticeship has fallen five years in a row. Given that the SNP has admitted themselves that the youth employment rate could rise to as high as 20 per cent, their plan would only help 4 per cent of our young people. That proves that the SNP does not have the ideas to create more opportunities for them. When we look at the roll-out of the SNP's young people's guarantee and the national merit in the intention, it aims to bring employers, partners and young people together, but the delivery has been poor. Although 4,000 people have had training funded through the national transition training fund, only 87 per cent of those surveyed after completing the programme found a job. That is 13 per cent of young people that will feel let down. I wonder whether the minister in summing up would acknowledge that we need to do more to help that 13 per cent and make sure that that does not happen in future years as we continue with the programme. Turning to the SNP apprenticeship policy, which was announced at its party conference last year, the First Minister promised a £15 million programme that would pay businesses £5,000 for each apprenticeship that they would take on. In principle, it is a good idea, as it supports young people into employment, as well as supporting businesses, as it has been difficult for them to do. However, when you do the maths and my colleague Pam Gossel did that during her opening remarks, only 3,000 young people will be supported by this scheme. The topic of today's debate is skills and opportunities to support recovery, and the Scottish Conservatives have the ambition to help and support young people, and some of those were outlined in our party's manifesto. Ideas such as Unlimity, we know that the pandemic and climate change has created a demand in certain job sectors, and we must take advantage of that by promoting these vacancies and helping young people to obtain work experience and jobs through apprenticeship programmes. It is simply not good enough to continue with the SNP's targets-based approach that ignores employers' needs. We would also look to support more women into apprenticeships. That is an area that is often overlooked, but we know that there is a gender gap, particularly in STEM-related career paths. What better than to use the discussions that we have all had over the past week during COP to bring more women into those sectors by apprenticeships and upskilling? The SNP needs to get a grip on those issues to make sure that our young people are provided with opportunities. If they do not act now to deal with the real issues facing our job sector, then, sadly, many young people will miss out on a life-changing opportunity that could have been offered by the Scottish Government. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The global Covid-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact, a full scale of which is still fully emerged, and in 2020 we saw the largest disruption to education and employment in recent history. School closures are more general disruptions on learning as impacted greatly on education, development and wellbeing of children and young people, and particularly so for those who are vulnerable and marginalised. That says that I have been privileged to witness some truly astounding displays of resilience, determination and flexibility from young people in my constituency in the last 18 months, examples of which I am sure colleagues have also seen in their constituencies the length and breadth of this country. The introduction of the national transition train fund, along with the young persons guarantee by the Scottish Government in 2020, in response to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, was an important commitment to the future of employer workforce development and those that we need are supported the most. By bringing together employers, partners and young people themselves, the aim of the young persons guarantee was to connect 16 to 24-year-olds in Scotland to an opportunity for it to be a job apprenticeship. Fyfyr or higher education, a training programme of odd tiering, was ambitious, progressive and forward looking. I am delighted to see that successful progression of this multifaceted programme has already created an excess of 18,000 opportunities for young people. Alongside the national training transition fund sought to tackle the rise in employment in adults age 25 plus by offering short training opportunities for people to learn in-demand skills, providing adults with tailored support to identify relevant training and employment opportunities, followed by funding training to match their individual needs. Fyfyr is pleased to see that initiatives have been warmly received with Fyf College in partnership with Energy Skills at the heart of delivering this invaluable support. A series of fully funded training courses have been made available to individuals aged over 25 who are either facing redundancy or who have been made redundant since mass last year when the pandemic began. Fyfyr is adversely affected by the pandemic and can access a wide range of courses, including one of the most recent wire and regulation updates and upscaling qualifications and electric vehicle charging aimed to qualify electricians training in the energy sector. Engineering and construction sectors and health and safety qualifications are also on offer, including the national examination board and occupational safety and health new wash, general certificate in the institution of occupational safety and health management. The purpose and design of these courses has been allowed to train people to upskill and help them to move into roles with better potential for future growth and job retention. The renewable industry in Scotland is growing and offers great employment prospects for those who have required skills and knowledge. As we promote and explore the potential of Scotland's renewable energy source and its ability to meet our local and national heat transport and electricity needs, it is clear that a highly skilled workforce will be fundamental to the success of the renewable industry. I am grateful for giving way, but given that his party has been in government for 14 years, does he not feel that we have missed the boat when it comes to taking advantage of the opportunities that the renewable sector offers? I am slightly disappointed that the renewable sector and manufacturing jobs did not come to us, especially those who had a constituency who had by far been in it. The UK Government had a part to play in that, but it is also about training people for global jobs. I have several of my constituents who are now working in the renewable sector in maintenance, and they are working in Turkey, and they are working in it-laid places like that. They are out there in the world market, and they are bringing back that income to local economy and spending it in the local economy. Opportunities such as those being delivered by Fife College through the national training transition fund allow tradesmen and women to retrain in renewable technology, installation and maintenance and develop the required skills to transition into green jobs and a new future. It is important to recognise the progress that has been made that remains work to be done. Efforts must and will continue to ensure that ambition and early success of those programmes are proved upon with addition of new and exciting opportunities. The increased investment of £70 million to support local partnerships or provide training and employer recruitment incentives, colleges to deliver around 5,000 more short industry-focused courses, the continued roll-out of new school, young force development workers and the new graduate internship scheme, increased volunteering capacity in the first sector programme is extremely welcome, as is the 20 million that has been made available through the second phase of the national transition training fund in 2021-22. We all know that our young people will have a key role to play as we deliver a better and fairer country and build upon our ambition for Scotland. We must lend from the work that we have done so far and continue to work collaboratively to ensure that all young people can realise their full potential. The pandemic has caused a shock to the ambitions of young people and we must urgently mitigate it if we do not want to leave an entire generation behind. The unemployment rate for young people is one in ten, and that has over doubled the rate of the rest of the population, with almost two thirds of people lost their job due to the pandemic. They were under the age of 25. Young people have shouldered the burden of the pandemic disproportionately when it comes to employment. As I raised before, tens of thousands of young people shielded, gave up opportunities to basically protect themselves and the rest of the country, and they were not singled out for any attention, and that is something that still disappoints me deeply. As the Scottish Government's former adviser, Naomi Iton, pointed out a few years ago in the review of life chances of young people under the age of 16 to 24, she said that choices of career, further training, employment and housing can be particularly problematic for young adults, but decisions at this stage consent the course for adulthood. I have always believed that she is right when she said that. She is quite right to express the concerns that she has around the rate of youth unemployment. Those are concerns that I share, but she means that there was no response to that, would she not recognise that the young person's guarantee might be felt to be a response to that reality? Pauli McNeill? That is what I want to go on to talk about. Yes, the principle is the right response, but I think it was Michael Marra that pointed out earlier. It is the approach that we take in the scale of that, and I do want to address that in some detail, Minister, because I actually am trying to be constructive about this, and I have gone through this website myself in some detail this afternoon. I find that it is a very clunky website, and I am going to address that. I do hope that, since you have asked me the question, you might take some of these points on board. I do not really think that we have a lot of time here, and I do acknowledge the work of Sandy Begby and Graham Smith. If I was in your shoes, which I am not, I would really put these people right at the leadership of this, because I do think that we do not have a lot of time to get this back on track, given that we do agree on the background of that, because there are 600,000 young adults in Scotland, a significant section of the working population. Yes, I welcome the principle of the scheme, but I honestly think that it lacks any serious attempt to directly engage with young people. That example that I gave is an example of that. I did specifically call on you, Minister—you were Minister at the time— to directly engage with young people who were shielding, because they were really struggling, and many of them still are. A website is not enough. When you click on search for a job, you are presented with a keyword search. It already puts in keywords for you, but I really thought that it should be suggesting the areas that relies on a young person getting the knowledge, flagging up the jobs where there is growth. Where are the jobs for you? Where should they be looking because they do not know that they are 16, 17 and 18 years old. It also includes volunteering roles. Although I do accept that volunteering is beneficial for young people, it is not a paid career, and it certainly is not necessarily a start on the career ladder. The vast majority of young people cannot afford to do it anyway, so I find that a bit of a strange one in the whole scheme of things. I would also like to hear the minister's view on the guaranteed young person scheme that we will not be delivering zero or contract positions, and that is some expectation that we are going to raise the living standards of young people too when they apply for jobs. Last year, the report of the advisory group on economic recovery stated that the scheme should offer secure employment for a period of at least two years to 16 to 25-year-olds paid at the living wage with access to training, apprenticeships and the possibility of progression. However, despite the scheme being launched in November 2020, the Scottish Government has confirmed that they have still set no targets for key performance indicators, meaning that there is still no way to measure the success or the impact of the scheme. I have not promised 130,000 green jobs around 2020, but we are significantly behind with only 21,000 jobs confirmed. The Green Jobs Workforce Academy announced in August this year that it is not really clear how many jobs are being offered under the scheme. The link that is provided on the academy's website comes up with around 900 jobs. I saw this from myself this afternoon. It is the scale of the response, as I will finish on that point. Pretending to be a Glasgow young person, there were about 500 jobs thrown up in the scheme. I think that that is really, really significantly where we intend to be. I hope that we can make significant improvements on the scheme, minister. I hope that you will listen to what I have said. I now call Clare Adamson to be followed by Tess Wight around four minutes. I am enjoying the debate this afternoon. I have changed what I was going to talk about initially, calling on my own experience as an IT professional. It is really to follow up on what my colleague Emma Harper was indicating. There is lots of really, really good work going on out there. I think that we are in real danger of forgetting that and seeing how innovative Scotland is in responding to things such as the IT skills gap. We can top down the industry and maybe put people off. I should declare—yes, I will take it in. Michael Marr. Would the member not recognise the Logan review that was published by this Government, but Mark Logan's own work, that recognised the huge skills gaps that there were in the industry and the potential for growth and the necessity for growth? I speak to employers in my constituency who tell me that software engineers are like hen's teeth. Clare Adamson. I declare an interest, as I still remember, of the British Computer Society, but it is not just in Scotland. It is everywhere those shortages in this area. That is why we should be encouraging initiatives such as dress code, which is a not-for-profit charity, started by a computing teacher in Scotland, that encourages young women to take up computing in school and promotes coding in all sorts of areas—games design, but also in cyber security. In fact, I believe that they are running a competition for a poster to encourage more women to take part in it. I have taken one intervention—oh, I have got four minutes, sorry. Those initiatives are really making a difference to encouraging people to come forward. One of the things that I am going to talk about if I get back to my speech I planned to do this afternoon was the way that our educational establishments work with our communities and work in partnership with people across Scotland to encourage people to take part in education. One of those is the open university and its coding skills plus programme. They responded to the Covid pandemic and there are 100 opportunities that were made available to our £1 million digital start fund that was managed by Skills Develop in Scotland. It was all about taking on people who had been furloughed or made redundant as a result of Covid and training them 30 weeks and 10th training in IT to give them the skills that they needed to take up those very productive, highly-played jobs that we want into Scotland. I feel that we have to do that. I also point people to Scotland. Scotland is doing an incredible amount of work in terms of encouraging people into IT in Scotland and presenting that. We have so much to be thankful for in terms of the success of our games industry, the success of Abertau University and other universities that have taken up the games industry and are teaching people to code in it. Sorry, I am not going to take another intervention. That is where I wanted to be today because I really wanted to talk about coming back to my constituency. The great work that has been done there with foundation apprenticeships has particularly had the joy of visiting with the Deputy First Minister a few years ago, Braidhurst High School, and they have really embedded that partnership with New College Lanarkshire. New College Lanarkshire is an incredible college exemplified by the success in the world's skills competitions where they are taking on people each and every year to competitions in Britain and then to the wider world. Exemplifying all the training that they are doing, skilling young people and being an absolute exemplar of how that can work to encourage young people to take up apprenticeships that are so, so important going forward. The young person's guarantee is such a great development and we cannot forget just how important some of those initiatives have been in encouraging young people and giving people confidence that they do not need to go to college or university, albeit that is a brilliant way for them to go forward. However, there are opportunities through foundation apprenticeships and through working and gaining those skills while they are working, but please, please, can we also have fair work? Please, no more discrimination against age because of young people are paid less minimum wage and please, can we also put an end to unfair work trials that are unpaid for our young people going forward? I now call Tess White to be followed by Paul McLean around four minutes, please, Ms White. The challenges facing our young people as a result of the current public health crisis cannot be overstated with implications for social, economic and health related outcomes. Against that background, the ambition for the young person's guarantee was bold and I too thank Sandy Begby. Within two years of its introduction, every 16 to 24-year-old in Scotland will either be in paid employment, on an apprenticeship or training programme, enrolled in education or engaged in formal volunteering. Key to the success of the guarantee in its design and pace of implementation is the think tank. Our Scottish future argues that job creation through the scheme is taking second place to several rounds of consultation and governance design. Overall, it identifies a disconnect between ambition, incentivisation and opportunity creation. We know, however, that time is of the essence. Figures published in September this year show that there are around 8,300 more unemployed young people than there were pre-pandemic, a rise of 2.7 per cent. The minister confirmed earlier this year that the Scottish Government has not set targets—you might say about 9,000 and you come up with a target but you haven't set targets for the young person's guarantee. Meanwhile, the overarching key performance indicator is a return to pre-pandemic levels of unemployment by the end of this parliamentary terms. I might take an intervention at some point when you sorted out your clunky website and something that is easier to navigate but not now. Unemployment by the end of this parliamentary term is, of course, critical that we assess the impact of Covid-19 on the opportunities available to young people, but the absence of opportunities cannot be blamed on the pandemic alone. Labour market statistics for Scotland show that the employment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds has been decreasing since July 2018, which suggests that at least some of the underlying drivers are systemic. Ensuring that Scotland's young people have the right training and skills is key to long-term attachment to the labour market. Apprenticeships in particular can help to provide the next generation of workers with the skills our economy needs, yet modern apprenticeship starts for the 16 to 19-year-olds have fallen every year since 2014. We know from the most recent Scottish Employer Skills Survey that more than a fifth of all vacancies were skill shortage vacancies. Employers couldn't fill them because applicants simply didn't have the skillset, knowledge or experience to do the role, and it's not just software engineers. Furthermore, the OECD's 2020 report on skills in Scotland emphasised that improvements could be made to increase the responsiveness, quality and flexibility of the apprenticeship system. It's good to hear you say, minister, that you are heeding the calls from organisations like CBI Scotland and the Scottish Conservatives who have always advocated strongly for a demand led approach that would enable businesses to create apprentice places based on their specific needs. That is the skills revolution that Scotland needs. Finally, it's undoubtedly true that the past 18 months have been incredibly challenging, but there is scope here to create a skilled workforce of young people that can meet the emerging needs of the economy as it recovers. I now call Paul McLennan to be followed by Martin Whitfield around four minutes, please, minister. I thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate this afternoon. Only last week, I arranged a meeting with Skills Development Scotland, the DWP and East Lothian Works to look at our Skills and Employability Strategy. At that meeting, we discussed the situation in East Lothian. We talked about the sectors that have been impacted by Brexit. In hospitality, many businesses aren't working on full capacity. In farming, many fruit farmers are telling me that they won't be planting fruit next year as they have no one to pick the fruit. In care, all our providers are struggling to recruit. At that same meeting, we heard about our unemployment rate, which is 5.8 per cent, which is higher than the national rate of 4.8. An employment rate for 16 to 24 year olds is higher than the national rate of 12.4 per cent. However, for context, and I hope that our Tory colleagues will listen to that, the UK rate for 16 to 24 year olds unemployment rate is 17 per cent, so I am not going to take any lessons for Tories on youth unemployment. The claimant count for East Lothian in September was 2,435, which is 30 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic levels in February 2021. Between 1 July 26 October 2021, there was 2,421 job postings advertised across East Lothian. We can see higher claimant counts with higher job postings. The challenge is how to be married work on these stats and marry these stats. I want to focus on the young person's guarantee in this speech. We need to make it as easy as possible for young people to understand their learning and career choices at the early stage and provide long-term person-centred support for the young person who this is most is key. I know Skills Development Scotland, the Leon Collaborative System-wide review into careers information advice, and we've got careers week next week in guidance to bring together reviews and experiences of young people, parents, employers, teachers and an expert. In addition, Skills Development Scotland has held a series of mapping workshops with the Department of Work and Pensions, local authorities and the third sector on behalf of the Scottish Government. Looking at the interaction points and handovers between SDS, DWP, local authorities and, importantly, third sector employability, provisioned for young people. The review of the senior phase will help us to better align education provision at all levels with the future economic strategy for Scotland with the needs of employers. The implementation of DWP school coordinators in every secondary school in Scotland is also key with engagement partners looking to increase opportunities for work-based learning for pupils and support their access to education, work and training. There are discussions about apprenticeships and they play a crucial role with developed pathway apprenticeships and confirmed funding that the minister mentioned for foundation and graduate apprenticeships. The work of the enterprise and skills strategic board is also important for this work, as well as the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland and Enterprise agencies. The Scottish Government, UK Government local authorities all work together and have seen this in East London to ensure alignment between the kickstart programme and the young person's guarantee. I am having courtly meetings in East London to ensure that we all work closer together. Local tailored approaches are key as we tackle the issue. In supporting the issues that we need the most, we need to gain a better understanding of the sectors that support groups of young people who can face barriers and why they face due to inequality, which we know has been exacerbated due to the pandemic. Local partnerships with additional funding for recruitment initiatives to support young people into jobs and apprenticeships is key. Some of the hardest-hit sectors are leisure, tourism, hospitality and care, but additionally young people, people from minority ethnic backgrounds and women, have secured jobs. Opportunities and roles within the health and social care sector could be used to support young people into employment. There are opportunities to develop local and sector-based initiatives such as hospitality academies. In rural economies, the growing rural talent programme allows opportunities to young people to develop relevant skills and knowledge of both the forestry and agricultural sectors, while still at school as part of the pathway to a range of opportunities post-school. In conclusion, a highly skilled, motivated young workforce is key to meeting the challenges of Brexit and Covid recovery. Let's all play our part in supporting this agenda and developing young people as best we can. I am very grateful to the Deputy Presiding Officer. In the short time that I have, I would like to concentrate on the young person's guarantee of this afternoon's debate. The young person's guarantee, the commitment to bring together employers, partners and young people, it aims to connect every 16 to 24-year-old in Scotland to an opportunity. But what is that opportunity? It could be a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or indeed, from the scant evidence available, more likely to be a volunteering opportunity. As we emerge from the pandemic, there is a real and present danger that the Covid generation of 18 to 25-year-olds coming through this crisis are set at a permanent disadvantage compared to their elder peers. We have a group of young people with a lost 18 months, a lost 18 months of developing with the experiences those that went before had, a lost 18 months of extending those friendship circles that are so important going forward, a lost 18 months of growing up with the support that existed to those who went before. They are our Covid generation, a generation promised that they will have an opportunity. Despite the scheme being launched in November 2020, the Scottish Government has confirmed that they have still set no targets, no key performance indicators for their young person's guarantee, meaning that there is no way to measure the success or indeed the impact of the scheme. In June this year, responding to a written question, I'm sure that he wouldn't want to mislead the Parliament. The KPIs have, in fact, been published. I'm happy to send them to me. I'm very grateful for that intervention, because indeed in June this year, in a written response Mr Byn, you said that we have not set targets for guarantee, but it is right that in July 2021 you published an implementation progress report, which states that work continues to develop the measurement and evaluation framework, which will underpin our understanding of how the young person's guarantee is working for young people. That very same report highlights the key risks and mitigations. Let me give you one example. The potential risk is stated as colleges and universities may be unable to deliver additional training and opportunities due to possible lack of resource. The mitigation that is highlighted in it is, one, regular engagement with further and higher education partners, two, regular engagement with students and their representative organisations. Could I humbly suggest that if additional training and opportunities are undeliverable because of resources, the answer is probably not engagement, but better resources? Your written answer went on to say that, as part of this process, we are developing a set of key performance indicators that will help us to understand the cumulative impact of the guarantee. Those are due to be finalised in the summer of 2021, a scheme that shows more hope than delivery. The report provides updates on progress made against the initial recommendations for the guarantee, and out of the 28 initial recommendations, a third are tracked, as work commenced further development required. So, with so many young people unemployed and a scheme being in place for over a year, we can and should do more. Looking at the unemployment figures from June to August 2021, the unemployment rate for young people was as high as 10.1 per cent. It's over double the national average of 4.4 per cent. We can and should do more. So, is there an assurance that zero-hour contracts will not be the opportunity that fair work will lie at the heart of the opportunity? I'm quite happy to give my last 10 seconds if the minister would like to respond to that. The member will know that we have high aspirations for fair work, and we will always seek to advance fair work. If we had, of course, some powers of employment law we could do more. I thank Michael Marra for taking my intervention earlier. I did not thank him earlier when he took my intervention. The financial, social, physical and mental health challenges that people have across Scotland have faced during the Covid-19 pandemic have been extremely difficult. The Scottish young people have felt the effects of the pandemic particularly hard. The pandemic has also had a negative impact on people in sectors such as hospitality and tourism. It's hugely important in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. To alleviate the pandemic's impact, young people looking to enter the workforce across Scotland have benefited from £70 million of investment from the Scottish Government through the young person's guarantee. It offers every 16 to 24-year-old in Scotland the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or volunteering opportunity. Since it was officially launched in November 2020, funding has been committed to create up to 18,000 training, job and apprenticeship opportunities for young people. It includes £45 million for local partnerships to provide training and employer recruitment incentives and £13.5 million for colleges, universities and the Scottish Funding Council to provide industry focus courses supporting up to 5,000 young people and employment support for 500 recent graduates. That funding has allowed local employers such as Jas P Wilson, BSW Timber, Alpha Solway and DuPont Taysian in Dumfries and Galloway to increase their number of modern apprenticeship places. I visited all three of all of these employers recently and previously, I want to thank them all for all the work that they do and for supporting our next generation workforce. However, I have been contacted by local manufacturers, including Alpha Solway, who I visited two weeks ago, who feel that more work could be carried out to promote manufacturing as a positive career destination. I therefore like to ask the minister to ensure that Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Government officials work with manufacturing firms to ensure that young people are aware of the benefits of a career in Scottish manufacturing. That will also help to improve the resilience of our local manufacturing supply chains. I also welcome the £25 million national transition training fund. It has already helped 10,000 people, including 312 young folks across Dumfries and Galloway, to develop the skills required to move into sectors with the greatest potential for future growth. I have been contacted by the national farmers union recently who have highlighted the need for rural skills to be the focus of the fund, as well as for agricultural and rural skills to be highlighted as positive destinations for people of all ages, but particularly for our young people. NFU Scotland believed that schools and career advisers do not promote the farming and food production sector and that it is often perceived as a last resort for less-able or less-academic young people. The farming sector requires an efficient, effective and user-friendly education and skills system that is responsive to the sector's current and future needs. That is particularly important, as agriculture is going to play a huge part in tackling the climate emergency. I therefore support all initiatives to ensure that a professional rural workforce is equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge. Previously, I met George Jimison, policy officer with NFU Scotland, about NFU's report and recommendations on how to improve the rural workforce, which is increasingly ageing. I have written to the rural secretary about how the recommendations from NFU can be taken forward, but I would be grateful if the minister would agree to meet George Jimison and I to discuss the matter future. I again welcome the debate and the steps that have been taken by the Scottish Government to support those who have suffered most during the pandemic and to highlight my ask for manufacturing and rural skills. In my speech, I mentioned the meeting with the DWP, Slymworks and so on. I just wanted to point out that I am a servant councillor and that is on my register of interests. Even though the meeting was on MSP, I want to mention that for clarity and if that can be recorded, please. Thank you, Mr McLean, and that will now be on the record. We now move to closing speeches and I call on Daniel Johnson. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This afternoon, we have been trying to do something that is a little complicated and certainly complicated to do in 90 minutes. That is addressed to big and fundamental issues. First of all, is our skills an apprenticeship system up to the job of addressing the skills issues that have been thrown up by Covid. The second issue is whether or not it is adequately meeting the needs of Scotland in the future. That is a complicated thing to do, but we do not actually have the luxury of picking those issues off one by one. I think that my frustration through this debate from both the Government benches and the SNP back benches is that they have essentially been arguing that because we have the young persons because we have the national transition training fund, no further questions should be asked, but it is absolutely relevant. Indeed, it is important that we question whether or not those schemes are up to the job and in terms of the urgency of the task at hand and indeed the scale of the problem. That is very much the argument that my colleague Pauline McNeill was setting out. It is not to say that those things are not doing work, but are they doing enough work? The second point, which is very well outlined by my colleague Michael Marra, is questioning whether or not the skills system is actually delivering on the fundamental skills needs, such as digital skills, such as zero-carbon skills, that our economy does not just need for the future but relies on. Indeed, my frustration in some ways is summed up by the exchange between Michael Marra and Claire Adamson, because absolutely there are some really great things going on in terms of helping young people into coding, but the fundamental is this. Since 2008, the number of computer science teachers in our schools has dropped by a quarter. You just simply cannot deliver the digital skills that we need if we cannot guarantee, as Michael Marra was calling for, a higher computer science class in every secondary school. Those young people simply cannot have the skills that they need if those subjects are not being delivered in those schools. As a colleague on the last education skills committee, I know that Mr Johnson, when we did our STEM inquiry, will understand that many of the people who are trained in computing science and teachers who become trained go on and take up jobs in that area. That is one of the difficulties in recruiting computer teachers. However, will you also recognise that the partnerships with the colleges give an opportunity for that curriculum element to be delivered through our colleges, through foundation apprenticeships, through young people attending the colleges? That is all about what the development and young workforce programme was about. Daniel Johnson, I will give you a bit of time. Thank you very much. In a sense, acknowledging the problem does not make it go away. Indeed, it has taken to this point to hear an acknowledgement of that fundamental problem from the SNP benches. It is not to say that there are not people finding jobs in this area, that there are not good schemes, but that fundamental lack of teachers is the sort of thing that the Government is simply putting its head in the sand. Further more, if we look at the more urgent and pressing problems from Covid, we are in a different situation than we were expecting to be. I think that many of us thought that we would be facing a very large unemployment crisis. That has not occurred, but there are labour shortages. Indeed, there were 80,000 people on furlough when that scheme came to an end. The question is, are those responses up to the job of re-skilling the people that need to? It is possible to have labour shortages and people unable to go into those jobs, unable to re-skill. The simple maths is that, between the young person's guarantee and the national transition fund, only 44,000 opportunities are even going to be aimed to be achieved, let alone what is achieved. There was a rather odd quibble going on between Willie Rennie and the minister as to whether it was 3,000, 7,000, 9,000—that is irrelevant. The relevant point is that the response is up to the scale of that challenge. The scale of the challenge is measured not in thousands of opportunities, thousands of places, but in the hundreds of thousands of people that are currently unemployed. We need to tackle that. I thought that Martin Whitfield's contribution was— Willie Rennie? Of course the member is right, the scale of the challenge needs to be met, but surely we have to measure the Government on its performance, on the targets that it has met, if we are going to trust its overall strategy and objectives. Daniel Johnson? In terms of my quibbling, maybe I should have been clear, I was not quibbling with my colleague that sits behind me, but more with the quibbling that was coming from the Government benches, because he is absolutely right. In terms of the precise number, but are those strategic targets right? Is the scale of the intervention appropriate to the scale of the challenge? On that, I think that the numbers tell us a much more gloomy picture than perhaps the minister was wanting to paint. Ultimately, we need urgency and flexibility. We cannot simply have long-drawn engagement processes when we are met with a lack of resource to deliver the points as my colleague Martin Whitfield. Quite simply, I think that the Government's approach has been found wanting. By the same token, I think that we must—I think that there was a fair challenge from some of the benches—that we cannot simply paint a complete picture of doom and gloom. There are real strengths in the apprenticeship system. I think that we have seen a system develop that actually has confidence of much of industry. We have a system in contrast with other parts of the United Kingdom, which is actually fundamentally grounded in work and in jobs. To that point, I have to say that I too shared the questions about what the Conservative Benches meant by a demand-led system. Fundamentally, we have a system that is driven by work where I think that there is criticism. We should focus our critique on the flexibility of that system. Too many employers talked to me about the fact that they essentially have to take the modern apprenticeship frameworks as they stand and that they cannot take it piecemeal. That is inflexible to short-term need. Likewise, many employers will point to me, including most notably the retail industry, about the level of benefit that they get. Simply does not match what they are levied through the apprenticeship levy. Only 2 per cent of modern apprenticeships are in retail, and they have seen a 44 per cent in retail apprenticeships. I think that the Government has to address those issues. It is not to say that the system is completely flawed, but if we are going to improve the system, we have to recognise the cause. Mr Johnson, I have been generous. I will close there. We need flexibility, urgency and a response that matches the scale of the issue. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. That has been a wide-ranging and important debate, but I cannot help but feel it is a topic that we are good at talking, but not at doing. My colleague Pam Gosol quoted Confucius at the start of the debate, and although I am not normally into deep words of wisdom, I do think that he is right, because it is almost always what we do that matters. After 14 years under SNP rule, it is not entirely clear what progress has been made. I cannot see any evidence of the parity of esteem for skill-based education that is so often pronounced. In an SNP Scotland, it is school and university-based education that are the default, automatic now for many. In direct contrast, we now find in an SNP Scotland, it is a struggle to access training for real jobs and opportunities where identified shortages exist. That is not an accident. It has come about as a direct result of choices taken in ministerial corridors. We do not have a well-balanced system, nor one that is working well. And behind this inconvenient truth, as we have heard time and time again today in our debate, is a lack of ambition. Whilst it is fair, many nice sounding initiatives have been announced, it is not entirely clear that they meet the scale of the challenge that we face. Many colleagues across the chamber have covered in their own contributions why some of those schemes are not delivering what was promised and why they are not as good in reality as they are when they are announced in this chamber. I do not wish to go back over those points, but they simply serve to reinforce my own view that the Government is falling short. The pandemic and its shocks and the shocks that it has sent through our society and our economy should be the wake-up call that we need to change our approach to skills and training. Our task in building that better would, of course, have been easier if we were in a better position pre-the pandemic, but that is an area where there has been no real drive or sense of purpose for over a decade. We only have to look at how our college sector has been funded and supported to understand how little priority skills and training have been given. In a country serious about vocational education, ministers would be looking to expand access to college places, to turbocharge the whole sector financially and to enable colleges to provide many more modular courses. Instead, colleges continue to be the poor relation undervalued and underutilised. We need to create a system that is dynamic and nimble and that adapts to the changing needs of our economy. Most important, we need skills, training and apprenticeship opportunities that work for people and which are available to them when they need them. That is why, on this side of the chamber, we support a demand-led approach to apprenticeships. We believe that that would make them more attractive for employers and therefore create more opportunities for employees. That is not about setting arbitrary targets, it is about reaching out to businesses, business groups and business representatives and opening up the opportunity to create as many new apprenticeships as possible. As a number of colleagues have touched on, I would be keen to hear the minister's view on that idea. The fact that the SNP is missing its own targets does not mean that there is no more capacity to create more apprenticeships and that employers are not willing to do more. Daniel Johnston is right to look at some of the processes around taking on and training apprenticeships too, because that is often too complicated, particularly for smaller businesses. Emma Harper mentions the farming sector. I met George Jameson recently, and there is a concern within the rural sectors that are often under a lot of pressure that people do not have the time and resource to support apprenticeships, even though they would like to. I think that it is worth looking at what we do there. As I have said already, we need a change in approach, but all that we have in the face of the urgent challenge that lies before us is an SNP Government who talks big on skills but delivers little. An SNP Government who believes that making announcements is the same thing is delivering change. An SNP Government who is out of big ideas and instead focus on lots of small schemes and small pots of money and hopes that no-one is going to notice that there is no real strategy underpinning their direction. Rather than patting themselves in the back, ministers urgently need to wake up to the scale of the challenge facing our economy, our society and individuals across Scotland. The harsh reality is that many of the stubborn skills shortages highlighted today are created here in Scotland by the actions or lack of actions taken here in this Parliament and at the heart of the Scottish Government. Although the pandemic has exposed many weaknesses and increased the scale of the challenge, we cannot and should not accept that these things were not a problem before Covid-19. However, all is not lost. We have everything that we need to succeed. We have an education sector, a workforce and employers all ready to go. The only question is whether the Government is ready to move from words to action and recognise, for the first time, the scale of the challenge that faces the people of Scotland. I thank those who have contributed to today's debate. I think that what we have heard today and it may not have always been apparent through some of the rhetoric that has been deployed is actually a great degree of agreement in terms of the approach that we need to take in gearing our skills system towards the end of better supporting people to where the opportunities lie and the young persons guarantee national transition training fund. After less than a minute, why not? I thank the minister for giving way. He says that there is a wide degree of consensus. Did he hear the consensus across the chamber that none of the actions of the Scottish Government are taking go far enough or fast enough to meet the challenge? I certainly heard Oliver Mundell say that whether that represents consensus is another matter, but I will develop the point that I was going on to make. I recognise that there is not complete agreement in terms of the approach that has been taken. Daniel Johnson seemed to suggest that there is no cognisance, no recognition that more has to be done or that different things need to be deployed. I recognise that that has to be the case. I suppose that the fundamental question—I might be paraphrasing it—that he posed is effectively our skills system up to the challenge that I have just posed. The first thing that I would reflect and again hear some consensus for Mr Mundell, I very much agree with his point about the strong foundations of our education system. I also agree with Mr Johnson about the strengths of our modern apprenticeship system. Of course, we must be ever more responsive to the challenges that we face. We must ensure that our skills system is ever better geared towards the ends that we have to see in terms of ensuring that we support people to where the opportunities lie. That is the direction that I want our skills system to move in. It is laid out in our future skills action plans, so there is probably more agreement in terms of what we have discussed today than might otherwise have been felt to be the case. I was questioning the skills system a little less fundamentally than that. Fundamentally, what I was saying was that there was a lack of analysis coming from the Government of what had worked and, critically, what had not worked in terms of that response in terms of the national transition training fund and the jobs guarantee. What does he think has worked but, critically, what has not worked and what should be improved upon as we go forward? I agree with him. We must always be willing to prosecute the schemes that we put in place to see what has worked and that is something that we are committed to doing. There will be an assessment of the young person's guarantee. There will be an assessment of the national transition training fund and that will be available for Parliament to look at and to assess. I want to turn to some of the points that have been made over the course of the debate. I will start off with Mr Rennie's contribution. I have to say that he thought that I was squirming. He rather overestimates the impact that his words and rhetoric have on me just to put it in its full context. Again, I agree with the point that he made about the need to focus in sectors where we have skills needs through the national transition training fund. Across the range of the over 30 programmes that we have this year, I would absolutely argue that that is where we are very much geared towards. Michael Marra mentioned the requirement to have a very concerted focus on the digital sector this year, the year 2 of the national transition training fund. We have our digital start fund, which will support those who are unemployed and are on low incomes to gain advanced digital skills, our digital reskilling pipeline, our digital skills catalyst fund, Codia Future, looking at other sectors, early learning and childcare taster programme, tourism and hospitality, talent development programme and introduction to adult social care, the open university adult social care boost, aerospace, diversification, aircraft decommissioning, work for aviation work in the construction sector, work for the forestry sector and indeed for the screen sector, as well as others. Hopefully, that is an indication that we have a programme that is geared towards the very end that Mr Rennie was talking about. Of course, I give way to Mr Marra. I appreciate the minister of giving way. On the point of digital skills and the need to enhance it, does he believe that in every high school in Scotland, higher computing should be available taught by a qualified teacher? Of course, we have in common, and this goes back to the crux of the challenge that we face, where we have digital shortage and where we face digital challenges that affects every single sector that relies on people with digital skills. Unfortunately, the teaching profession has been subject to that challenge as well. What I can say to Mr Marra, of course, is that we put in additional support to support career changers from the digital sector into STEM subjects. That is something that I would certainly be encouraging people to avail themselves of. I want to talk about apprenticeships and, in particular, the comments of the Conservative members. I have to say that Pam Goswell was not so much confused, but confused on those matters as far as I was concerned. As indeed was Megan Gallacher, when she referred to our missing, our 2019 target of 30,000 apprenticeships. Our 2019 target was actually 27,000 apprenticeships, and we delivered 27,270. Test rates suggest that the numbers have been falling year in year is fundamentally flawed in 2016-17. We saw 26,262 starts, 2017-18, 27,145, 2018-19, 27,270, 2019-20, 27,875. She might have been getting confused and thinking about the experience south of the border under her party's governance, where in the same equivalent period of time there was a 172,400 decline in the number of apprenticeship starts, a 35 per cent decline by comparison to an increase of 6 per cent here in Scotland. Why not? I was hoping in your closing that you would address the issue of rural skills as addressed by Emma Harper. I recently asked the Government a question about how many female butchers there are in Scotland, and the answer is 15 to 20. How does that demonstrate that the Scottish Government is addressing both the gender skills gap and the overall skills gap? What I can say to Ms Hamilton is that I recognise across a range of frameworks, the gender segregation that we see in apprenticeships is not acceptable. That is why Skills Development Scotland has a programme working to ensure that we see improvement in that regard. That is not restricted just to the area that she has spoken of, but to others as well. Having mentioned Emma Harper, I will be delighted to meet her to discuss some of the issues that she has raised in relation to the rural workforce. Of course, we have a rural skills action plan working towards that end. Returning to apprenticeships more widely, I am genuinely perplexed as to the Conservative position that somehow the figures that we saw last year were anything other than as a reality, the impact of Covid-19. I have literally just set out the figures year on year before. The one factor that we had last year that was different from the years before was Covid-19. What we can see is a further vivid demonstration of that reality, is that the figures out this morning, hot off the press, show that by the end of quarter 2 this year we had 11,104 modern apprenticeship starts, which is an increase of 7,471 by the period last year. That is a very clear demonstration of the impact of Covid-19. I want to turn to Pauline McNeill. She asked me to listen to what she has said. I will be very happy to do that. She made some practical remarks around the website. I am happy to take that away. I cannot promise to fix it myself, Ms White, but I will certainly take it away and see if some people who can have a look at it. She mentioned that leadership should continue to be invested in people like Sandy Begby. I am very happy to tell her that Sandy Begby remains the chair of the implementation group of the young persons guarantee. He is the chair of developing young workforce employers group. He is very much involved and very much leading in that regard. To turn to Mr Whitefield's remarks, I thought that they were a bit confusing. He seemed very confused and concerned about the terms of an answer that I had previously provided him with. He talked about the need to establish KPIs and support for the tertiary sector. I respectfully suggest to Mr Whitefield that the answer that I gave at a fixed point in time does not represent the end of the story. There are developments that are subsequent to that, so I have already made the point about KPIs now being published in a second. In terms of his remarks around the need to support the tertiary education sector in the area of young persons guarantee, I am happy to say that this year we invested a further £10 million to create 5,000 additional opportunities in the college sector. One example is a partnership between Edinburgh College and NHS Lothian to create the healthcare skills boost, which covers part of the area that Mr Whitefield represents. I would have thought that he might have known about that programme and some of the investment that we have made. We have also allocated £3.5 million for a graduate talent internship programme. With regard to the young persons guarantee, what will success look like for any disability young person? That is core. It will be participation in the young persons guarantee, it will be ensuring that they get to take part in the programme just as any other person. That is the very simple and straightforward answer to what was a very simple and straightforward question. I do welcome that we have had the debate. I would again say that through the rhetoric that has been deployed, I believe that there is more agreement amongst us than anyone watching might come to conclude. I want to make the point that I want a skills system that is responsive to economic and societal needs. It has to be through the process of technological change that Mike O'Mara spoke of through some of the challenges that we are seeing in securing labour through withdrawal from use, some of the changes to respondent to the imperative of reacting to the environmental crisis. We have to make sure that that skills system is geared towards that. We have to make sure that no-one is left behind. The young persons guarantee and the national transition training fund are geared towards that end. I am committed to delivering that type of skills system. That is what I will focus on, that is what this Government will focus on. That concludes the debate on skills and opportunities to support recovery, young persons guarantee and national training transition fund one year on. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of a parliamentary bureau motion. I ask George Adam to move motion 2048 on approval of an SSI, and I would ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press their request to speak button now. I now call on Murdo Fraser. I wish to oppose SSI 2021-349 on the introduction of vaccine passports. That is being considered by this Parliament nearly six weeks after the instrument became law. We have on this side of the chamber consistently opposed compulsory vaccine passports in the manner that they are being brought in by the Scottish Government. Nothing that has happened in the last six weeks has persuaded us that our position should change. That is a policy for which no evidence base has ever existed or been presented to us. At the Covid-19 recovery committee last week, as we heard earlier in the chamber, the Deputy First Minister had to accept that the evidence that this policy was working does not exist. However, the Scottish Government today is talking about extending it still further. I thank Mr Fraser for giving way, but I accept that some of the Deputy First Minister's words have been twisted somewhat. It is impossible with any action, including hand washing, to link that to an exact result. Murdo Fraser. If we are being asked to bring in a policy that brings in substantial restrictions on the behaviour of individuals and is having a very substantial negative impact on businesses, there should be an evidence base to support it, and it has not been brought forward. We have heard from the Scottish Government that one of the purposes of this policy is to try to drive up vaccination rates among unvaccinated groups. There is no evidence that that has been successful. Indeed, the committee has heard evidence from scientists that compulsory vaccine passports could increase opposition to vaccination uptake amongst the vaccine hesitant, having the opposite effect to that intended, and there has been no response from the Scottish Government to that particular concern from Professor Stephen Riker and others. I will give way to Mr Cole-Hamilton. Alex Cole-Hamilton. I am very grateful for the member giving way. I absolutely share the member's opposition to the introduction of these, which are Covid ID cards in all but name. Does he share my concern that the statement that we heard from the Deputy First Minister this afternoon represents the gradual mission creep of this policy, that there is no evidential base that these vaccine passports actually stop transmission? In fact, far to the contrary, did the member see last week the document in the Lancet, which actually said that, whilst vaccines are excellent at preventing harm from Covid, they are ineffective at preventing transmission? Murdo Fraser. I thank Mr Cole-Hamilton for that intervention. I agree with his concerns around this particular policy, again being introduced without an evidence base. The committee also heard from the Scottish Human Rights Commission and indeed other organisations involved in the human rights space about the very serious concerns they have over human rights from this policy. Again, there has been no response from the Scottish Government to those concerns. We have heard from those involved in hospitality about a loss in trade of up to 40 per cent following the introduction of this policy and growing levels of abuse of door staff, some of whom have had to walk off the job as a result. We have even seen nightclubs putting chairs on their dance floors to get around the rules so disastrous has this policy been for their business. We have seen an app being launched that did not work first of all and even now will not admit for the status of boosters to be added a major issues over security and reliability. Scotland is the only country in Europe that does not allow a negative Covid test as an alternative to vaccine certification as a price of entry to certain premises. Even Wales, the only part of United Kingdom that has introduced this policy, allows that alternative and yet the Scottish Government is standing firm. We are alone on this issue and we are not doing it well. This is a failing and increasingly shambolic policy. There is no evidence to support it and it should be dismissed by this Parliament. I do not really think in all honesty that Mr Fraser does himself or his arguments any credit by the overblown hyperbole that gets brought to this Parliament about this question. Mr Fraser said that we had provided no evidence that the application of this scheme had driven up vaccination rates. I put on the record at a committee a response to a question from Mr Fraser, the fact that, on 1 September, 53 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds had been vaccinated, by 1 October that was 64 per cent and by 1 November that was 68 per cent, which is a sizeable increase in the vaccination rates in the target population that we were interested in ensuring was the case. The Scottish Government has brought forward the proposition of a mandatory domestic certification scheme that is proportionate and inappropriate at this point in the pandemic. Recent data is a start reminder of the challenges that we continue to face as a nation. We have a strategic intent in relation to the management of Covid to suppress the virus to a level consistent with alleviating its harms while we recover and rebuild for a better future. The scheme is limited. It continues to contribute to meeting the following aims of reducing the risk of transmission, of reducing the risk of serious illness and death and in doing so alleviating pressure on the healthcare system, to allowing higher risk settings to continue to operate as an alternative to closure or more restrictive measures, and to increase vaccine uptake. Earlier on today, I was pressed by members of Parliament about the pressure on our national health service. It is a real pressure and we have to take measures however uncomfortable and reluctant we are to take them to make sure that we are doing all that we can to suppress the increase in pressure on our national health service. Yes, of course, I'll give way. Alex Cole-Hamilton I'm very grateful to the Deputy First Minister for giving way, Presiding Officer, but he talks about the pressure on our NHS as if the Covid ID cards are somehow the answer. As we know, as the Lancet told us, they do not stop transmission of the virus. If the transmission of the virus is principally responsible for a lot of the pressure on our NHS, then those are not the answer. As Mr Cole-Hamilton well knows, this is one of a number of measures that this Government is taking to try to suppress transmission of the virus and to increase vaccine uptake rates, which, of course, if we have higher vaccine uptake rates, it means that those who are double vaccinated are at less risk of becoming seriously ill, which therefore reduces the potential pressure on the national health service. This is a proportionate measure that the Government is taking to address the very serious situation that we face, applied to a limited number of premises. We keep the scheme alongside other baseline measures under review. Covid certification could potentially be extended to other sectors, as I set out to Parliament earlier today, or it could have no role to play in our measures, but that will be dependent on our judgment about proportionality, which is the legal duty that we have got to fulfil. The health protection coronavirus requirements Scotland amendment 2 regulations 2021 were agreed at the Covid recovery committee last week by four votes to two to provide for the Covid vaccination certification scheme. I would invite Parliament to support the proposition that is before Parliament today to ensure that those regulations can come into law, that we can ensure that we have the necessary protections in place. Under the difficult circumstances that we still face, I ask members to recommend approval of the regulations. I offer my assurance that the measure will continue to be under review and will remain in place only for as long as is necessary, but it is necessary today to give us the effective means of suppressing the virus and to protect the public. I invite Parliament to support the regulations today. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of three parliamentary bureau motions. I ask George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move motions 2049 to 2051 on approval of SSIs. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and all moved. The question on these motions will be put at decision time. There are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first is that motion 2048, in the name of George Adam, on approval of an SSI, be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and there will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.