 The most complex has has reformed at the one-time every expression we have had for many times. The next item of business this afternoon is stage 3 proceedings on the Education of Scotland Bill. In dealing with the amendments, members should have the bill as amended at stage 2, the SP bill 64A, the agrees list and the supplement to the Außerdem list. The groupings The groupings, that is SP64 AG. The division bell will sound and proceedings will be suspended for five minutes for the first division of the afternoon. The period of voting for the first division will be 30 seconds. Thereafter, I will allow a period of one minute for the first division after a debate. Members who wish to speak in the debate on any group of amendments should press the request speak buttons as soon as possible after the group is called. Members should now refer to the marshaled list of amendments. Before I turn to the first group, I could advise the chamber that we are having a sound check because I understand that members are having difficulty hearing the microphones this afternoon. Group 1 is in equalities of outcome, et cetera, pupils with speech, language and communication needs. I call amendment 17 in the name of George Adam, which is group with amendments 19, 20, 23, 28, 33, 37, 40 and 41. I call George Adam to move amendment 17 and speak to all of the amendments in the group. Please, Mr Adam. Can I first move all the amendments? Closing the educational gap is a key priority for the Scottish Government, and I wholeheartedly support it in that aim. We must look at the full picture. If we believe that poverty is a factor in the educational attainment, we must look at the poverty-related educational issues. I believe that many children from our poorest areas experience poverty both financially and also poverty of speech and language. If you turn up at school in primary 1, you are unable to communicate in a way that will help you to engage, you are going to struggle for the rest of your school life. I have a table these amendments today because I am convinced that 50 per cent or more children living in poverty do not have delayed speech, language and communication development, which leads to poor literacy and numeracy skills, which inevitably leads to inequality of outcomes. There are a couple of fundamental points to make in the argument that statistics linking socioeconomic disadvantage, poverty, with speech, language and communication delay are compelling. The Scottish Government commissioned a report on tackling inequalities in early years. Key messages from 10 years of growing up in Scotland's study 2015 highlighted that 54 per cent of children from low-income households per cent below average vocabulary ability at age 5. There is also the fact that living in poverty means that they are around eight times more likely to turn up at primary school with a SLC delay than the average child of whom only 6 per cent have a disorder. Growing up in Scotland also highlights SLC delay in staggering 34 per cent higher among poorer children than children from richer income groups. I am saying with all those amendments that we have to look at the bigger, the larger picture when it is poverty, because if we are saying that poverty is an issue, then we also have to say how we address many of those issues. SLC delay is the second highest type of difficulty recorded among children from low-income families. It is just one point lower than 55 per cent not being breastfed, which rightly attracts a lot of strategic attention, unlike SLC delay. My amendments are not about making a special case for a special group with complex additional support needs. It is not about that and I believe that there has been some confusion. There are about poverty. Those amendments, in fact, address the biggest, most common barrier to learning faced by a majority of children living in poverty and which this bill explicitly sets out to help. The statistics linking SLC delay with inequality of outcomes are equally attention grabbing. The recent Save the Children report, ready to read, closing the gap in early language skills so that every child in Scotland can read well, highlighted the importance of early language skills and setting the foundation of children's later literacy and education. Perhaps even more startling are the studies that have repeatedly shown the majority of children and young people who are in crisis excluded or troubled after having SLC needs. I have often spoke about times when I went to see young offenders institutes and met the young people and they have often said that if they had this opportunity they might not have been in the place that they have been in. Those are the type of people who have this type of disorder. The amendments, I have a table to aim to establish an awareness of strong associations between social, economic, disadvantaged speech, language and communication delay and subsequent low attainment and inequalities of outcome. It gets focus across agency, across discipline, partnerships, action on speech, language and communication and ultimately reduces inequalities of outcomes for at least half of Scotland's poorest children. Young people who arrive at primary school with delayed speech, language and communication development and then carry this learning disadvantage throughout their school lives into adult life when they are statistically more likely to become poor parents of future generations. That, I believe, is the key issue in this debate. I believe that this grouping of amendments can help us to achieve the goal that we all want to achieve to ensure that all of our children get that opportunity and we can close that attainment gap. Mr Adam, I have several members who wish to speak and I call Iain Gray. I rise to support the amendments in the name of George Adam. The purpose of the bill, of course, is to close the attainment gap. Mr Adam said that we need to look at the bigger picture, but I would argue that we need to look at the smaller picture if we are seriously going to address that attainment gap and ask ourselves what are some of the key problems that lead to that gap. Later this afternoon, for example, we will move amendments around looked-after children, a group of young people who have particularly poor outcomes at school. Mr Adam made a compelling case for considering the strong association between socioeconomic disadvantage and speech language and communication-delayed development. The figure that he quoted is a huge one—54 per cent of children from low-income households present with below-average vocabulary ability at age five. That means that they arrive at school with problems in the very skills that are required in order to do well in their learning. It is no surprise that, as Mr Adam said, there is a strong association between speech language and communication-delayed development and inequalities of outcome, including attainment. For those reasons, we would agree with Mr Adam that this is not a special case, but it is a very specific and powerful aspect of the problem that this legislation is designed to address. I want to mention two of the amendments in particular because they seem to me to be quite important. One is amendment 27, the duty to use inclusive communication standards in communicating, for example, with parents. Those of us who have looked at the evidence around the attainment gap are all agreed that engaging with parents and families in the round, not just children, is crucial to making a difference. It is absolutely the case that some of the parents we need to provide the most support for will themselves have SLC needs of their own. We should require schools to consider that and how they can account for it. The other amendment, which I draw attention to, is amendment 28. If the minister does not feel able to support the other amendments, it seems to me to be of particular significance because it would require the national improvement framework to take account of the most common barrier to learning that faced by children and young people with SLC. For those reasons, I would support the amendments in Mr Adam's name. Before I move on, I think that the sound has improved in the chamber, but could I make a plea to members to ensure that their microphones are directed properly? I spoke to several amendments from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists at stage 2 in relation to the Gaelic language. We are very supportive of the principle behind the amendments in the name of George Adam. There all support should be provided to pupils with speech language and communication needs at the right time in their educational process. I am sure that you remember that this has been an issue since the first session of Parliament. In the current financial climate, there is a fear that some of these services may either be cut from existing provision or just not provided at all. I would hope that the integration of health and social care would help. I would also ask the Scottish Government what commitments it will make to ensure that children with speech and language communication needs are fully met, because I am aware that we have had significant legislation and guidance over the four sessions of this Parliament. During the committee's evidence gathering at stage 1, we heard that criticism of the bill's provisions aimed at reducing inequalities of outcome in our education system. The concerns were not about the aspiration of reducing those inequalities or of closing the attainment gap, although there were questions as to what that actually meant and whether it was possible to close the gap completely, as the First Minister and Education Secretary have promised to do. Rather, it was a concern that the bill would do nothing to achieve the shared aspiration. Keir Bloomer memorably described the Government's proposals as, quote, pious thinking, masquerading as policymaking. Others suggested that, while poverty undoubtedly lies at the root of the inequalities of outcome in many cases, it is by no means the sole factor. The evidence clearly shows that the education system is not delivering consistently for those with additional needs, including those with speech and language needs, which, despite what George Adam says, are not solely related to the issue of poverty or, indeed, as Ian Gray suggested, those in the care system. I therefore support George Adam's amendments, as well as those lodged by Mark Griffin in the next group that will turn to shortly. However, it is all very well-putting into legislation safeguards of this nature. If ministers accept them, they must be fully resourced. If councils are not funded to deliver those aspirations, it would look more like pious thinking than serious policymaking. First, I thank George Adam and others for their sensitive presentation of the issues. I absolutely understand their concerns regarding the impact of speech, language and communication needs on children's learning. As many in this chamber will be aware, I have been keen to use this legislation to focus on the particular educational challenges associated with poverty. Clearly, many of the children who face such challenges will require communication support in order to achieve their full potential. It is in this context that I would fully expect education authorities and ministers working in partnership with speech and language specialists to consider how best to support communication provisions when seeking to meet their respective due regard duties under the bill. That is a point that will be teased out in the statutory guidance. I am happy to commit to ensuring that communication organisations such as the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists have the opportunity to influence what we are saying. I hope that that provides Mr Adam with at least some of the assurance that he is otherwise seeking through amendments 23, 28, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40 and 41. It follows that I do not believe that it would be appropriate to extend the duties that section A1 in the way proposed. We have included a regulation-making power to allow us to extend those duties at a later date and I remain open to discussion about how that power is exercised in the future. I therefore cannot support amendments 17, 19 and 20. We are committed to enhancing the communication environment in Scotland. We understand the connections between children having a good communication environment, developing good speech and language skills and their educational attainment. That is why we have taken steps to ensure that all children have those needs identified and met. We have ensured that speech and language is considered as part of the assessment of child development through the 27 to 30-month review. We have put getting it right for every child on to a statutory footing and we also have the additional support for learning legislation, which is about making sure that barriers to learning, which do arise, are quickly identified and overcome. We have also taken steps to promote partnership working between allied health professionals, including speech and language therapists and educational professionals. More recently, the issue has also been considered in the context of the Scottish attainment challenge, with two authorities and a number of schools receiving funding for speech and language therapists. That includes Dundee, who have recruited three therapists as part of their challenge improvement plan. The council is working closely with Tayside Health Board, who are providing additional funding to extend the reach of the speech and language therapy team. Only last week we launched the Ready to Act document that sets out the contribution of allied health services to the wellbeing of children across Scotland. I say this to reassure Mr Adam and other members that the issues raised through those amendments are issues that we are paying close attention to. Further, I believe that those examples demonstrate the progress that we can make within the current legislative framework, given that I cannot support amendments 24 and 26. Of course, we can always do more to ensure that an inclusive communication approach is in place and working well. On this basis, I believe that it may be helpful if we were to bring together our partners to explore how we might build on the good work already being done. I believe that such an exercise has the potential to deliver many of the benefits that Mr Adam is seeking to achieve through the establishment of a speech, language and communication strategy under amendment 25. I give that commitment to convene the summit. I hope that those comments provide some reassurance and in light of the commitments that I have made, Presiding Officer, that I would ask Mr Adam not to press his amendments. I invite George Adam to wind up as quickly as possible, please, and indicate if you intend to press or withdraw. I am pleased that we have had this debate. I have never been so popular with the Opposition members in this chamber, but I feel passionate about this issue. Children in our communities are turning up to school with a language difficulty. If we want to close the educational attainment gap and believe poverty is an issue, we must continue to look at this issue. I still believe that we must remain mindful of this. I understand that I have brought this at stage 3 and that we have not had the opportunity to go through the whole parliamentary process and discuss this issue at length. It is important that we look at our legislation on how it impacts in the real world, how it impacts in people's lives. I welcome the reassurances and the offer of the communications summit that the cabinet secretary has asked. I accept that the cabinet secretary does have a grasp of the issue. On that issue and the fact that we could develop this further and discuss it in more detail at this stage, Presiding Officer, I will not press the actual amendment itself. Thank you. George Adam seeks to withdraw amendment 17. Does any member object to that? No member objects. We therefore move to group 2, which is inequalities of outcome looked after children. Amendment 18, in the name of Mark Griffin, is grouped with amendments 21 and 22. I ask Mark Griffin to move amendment 18 and speak to all of the amendments in the group, please. I move amendment 18 and ask members to support other amendments in the group. We believe that we need to put looked after children at the heart of the atomic gap challenge. We are seeking to provide an equal footing for Scotland's kids in care. That new focus on children from poorer backgrounds. Under amendment 19, we are seeking to ensure that local authorities will have to set out measures on how they tackle the atomic gap for both looked after children and children from deprived backgrounds. We know that education is the most important economic policy that we can pursue. If we can give every child a world-class education, then they in Scotland will be able to take full advantage of the amazing opportunities that future will bring. The Government must be judged on how it supports the most disadvantaged people in our society. I do not think that they come much more disadvantaged than our young people in care. The system is failing them in a way that fails no one else. The state owes a particular duty of care to those children because they are our children. The state is a parent. We pay the bills. I do not believe that we can address the atomic gap without specifically addressing the educational needs of our young people in care. I would like to start by thanking Mr Griffin for once again using the opportunity offered by this bill to recognise the particular educational challenges faced by our looked after children. As I outlined during stage 2, I absolutely accept the thrust of Mr Griffin's argument. The state has a great responsibility towards these children. We are indeed their parents. We know that the educational outcomes are not as they should be. Throughout the bill's passage, I have also been clear of my wish for the legislation to first and foremost address the particular educational challenges that are associated with poverty. This remains my view. However, I very much view the bill as the start of a process through which we can explore how best to use the powers set out in section A1 to support other groups who also face particular challenges. I have already alluded to this point in response to Mr Adam's amendments. Of course, that process must be an inclusive one. We must provide all of our partners with the opportunity to consider whether, and if so, how such a step could practically benefit our learners. In the context of looked after children, I am minded to strengthen the legislative amendments for supporting this group. However, we must first consider how the duty would interact with local authorities existing corporate parenting responsibilities introduced by this Government through the Children and Young People Act. We will also explore how the national improvement framework can be developed over time to help us to meet the needs of this group of young people. I am sure that we would all agree on the importance of building on our recent efforts to ensure a clear line of sight between policy and legislation at a national level and face-to-face work to improve educational experiences for particular groups of learners in classrooms across the country. Those issues, I am sure, are not insurmountable, but nor are they trivial, and that is exactly why we must work with others to overcome them. The regulation-making power included in the bill allows for this dialogue to take place, and I am happy to commit to consulting with the view to making regulations that extend the duty to look after children. I intend to start this work immediately by engaging with key partners, including Celsus Education Forum and children, with the experience of our care system. Those discussions will, of course, be delivered within the context of a system that is undoubtedly improving outcomes for looked after children. Attainment levels are up, as are positive destinations, while exclusions are down. We are clearly on the right path, but that is not to say that more cannot be done as absolutely can be done and must be done. I would once again like to thank Mr Griffin for raising the important issue, although I cannot support his amendments for the reason set out. I hope that the commitments that I have made today will provide him and other members with the reassurance of our commitment to improving the educational outcomes for this group of children. I thank you and invite Mark Griffin to wind up and indicate please if you intend to press or withdraw. I intend to press my amendment. The cabinet secretary described this as the start of a process. The process would have been loud and proud on the front of the Education Scotland bill about a statement of intent as to how we intend to support children in care. The children, as the cabinet secretary, set out our children, we are the responsible guardians. We are the state parents for these children. I know that the cabinet secretary talked about that regulation making power, but I think that it would have been a fantastic message to send out from this chamber today or at the start of the process, rather than being a secondary part of the bill. One of the first thoughts when we came to tackling the educational attainment gap was how we tackled that gap for looked after children in particular and asked members to support the amendment in my name. The question is that amendment 18 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. There will be a division. As this is the first division of the stage, I suspend Parliament for five minutes and thereafter it will be a 32nd division. Order. We will now proceed with the division on amendment 18. This is now a 32nd division and members should please cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 18 in the name of Mark Griffin is yes, 42, no, 73. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. I now call amendment 19 in the name of George Adam, which has already been debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. In which case I call amendment 20 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. I now call amendment 21 in the name of Mark Griffin, already debated with amendment 18, and I ask Mark Griffin to move or not to move. I now call amendment 22 in the name of Mark Griffin, already debated with amendment 18, and I ask Mark Griffin to move or not to move. I now call amendment 23 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. I now call amendment 24 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. I now call amendment 25 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. I now call amendment 26 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. I now call amendment 27 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. I now call amendment 28 in the name of George Adam, already debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. Not move, Presiding Officer. Thank you. In which case that then brings us to group 3 National Improvement Framework Standardized Testing and a call amendment 29 in the name of Liam McArthur? Groups with amendments 30, 31, 32 And 39. I asked Liam McArthur to move amendment 29 and speak to all of the amendments in the group please. Mr McArthur, before you do just check that your microphone is directed properly Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Thank you for allowing all of these amendments to be considered at stage three. At the outset, I would observe that Mark Griffin's amendment 39 appears to be driving it much the same as my amendments 30 and 31, while my amendment 32 aims to hold ministers to their word about the timing of national testing should it go ahead. However, my preferred option I will urge the Government to heed the calls of teaching unions, teachers and parents to drop plans for national standardised testing in primary schools. fel hyn o ein llai kwybod gyda'i gweld gwahodol, pan y byddwn ni yn cael ei taff honoredd ei chanel mommyadau i ddau i ddiwrnodau llai'r lleoliadau ei chanel wedi'i gydag bobl arall. Yn ei gymryd yn Sgoetl cuisineillaid yng Nghymru, efo'r ystyried mewn gw strategau i niad yn ei chanel aru'i errwmwysigau cyd, bod y cyfnodau cyfnodau cyrfaen. Felly mae'r byw'r percyn dydnog wedi'u ceiwch, oeddyntio ar y fwyllgor ysgrifennu will be amenable to equally short-term solutions. This oversimplification, I believe, is epitomised by Minister's determination to return to national testing for primary pupils. It has been criticised by teacher unions as a backward step and few teachers have a good word to say about it. As the emeritus professor of education at Strathclyde University observed last week, it is notable that the last time such an approach was introduced was by a conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher, born of a lack of trust in the teaching profession and narrow vision of what constituted progress. Denials from the education secretary and First Minister that they are not ushering in a return to higher stakes testing, teaching to the test and league tables are difficult to square with what is proposed. Information will be available on a school-by-school basis. Whether league tables are sanctioned by ministers or not, they seem inevitable. Of course assessment of pupils is at the heart of good teaching. Teachers do that on a daily basis, observing what happens in the classroom, marking pupils' work, gleining information from the standardized tests that are already in place and, crucially, from having an in-depth knowledge of the young person as an individual. The Scottish education system has no shortage of such data, particularly at the classroom and school level. The focus should be on making better use of the wealth of information that we already have. Previously, the only people arguing for a return to national testing were the Conservatives, but they have never made any secret of their desire to return to league tables. Bizarrely, the Scottish National Party Government now wants to ignore the concerns raised by teaching unions, teachers and parents, and abandon the ethos of curriculum for excellence by pursuing a similar approach. Jackie Brock of Children in Scotland concludes, There is clear evidence that high-stakes standardised testing, as proposed in the National Improvement Framework, can have a detrimental effect on all children's wellbeing. In that context, I urge Parliament to reject that approach and support amendment 29 in my name. Many thanks, I now call on Mark Griffin to speak to amendment 39 and to other amendments in the group, please. The National Improvement Framework will result in a new era of data-gathering by the Scottish Government on educational performance and outcomes. That new data will rightly support the Government and Parliament in taking the necessary measures to close the attainment gap. In light of that new data and the gathering of it, I believe that international best practice should be at the centre of that new approach. The amendment in my name would require the Government to again look at the international benchmarks and how they interact with the national improvement framework. Those are studies of the study known as the trends in international mathematics and science, the study known as the progress in international reading literacy study. I believe that if the national improvement framework data was constructed in such a way as to reflect those studies, it would allow us to compare ourselves with other leading countries in the field of education, but we are all ambitious about the future of our country. We want to cut the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms to make Scottish education the best in the world. I do not want to measure success against countries across the UK but countries across the world. By undertaking such a review, we would be able to look again at how we benchmark progress in Scottish education against countries across the developed world. Scotland, as an outward-looking confident country, should be prepared to participate in well-recognised, authorative international studies and ask members to support my amendment in this group. I have two members asking to speak in this group, so I call Liz Smith to be followed by Ian Gray. As Scottish Conservatives have said many times before, we are very firmly committed to standardised and consistent testing, which allows parents and teachers to have a very meaningful and accurate process of information about the progress of their child and how that progress measures against other pupils. That has been driven not just because literacy and numeracy trends tell us that educational standards are not as good as they should be, but just as importantly because it is actually the right thing to do educationally. It is not about more testing or about reporting about how we test, but it is about better testing. We wholeheartedly support the principle of good-quality testing, but we want to see the result of this bill being successful classroom practice rather than burdens on local authorities when it comes to their reports. We cannot agree with Mr MacArthur in amendments 29, 30 and 31 given that they subscribe to the Liberals overall objection to national testing and what would be a very complex reporting structure about wellbeing. Although we would accept amendment 32, shooty decide to press it since it reduces the unnecessary burden on councils about the dates of testing, which we believe is far too prescriptive. In relation to amendment 39 in the name of Mark Griffin, we have some sympathy with the intention, most especially when they need to ensure that Scotland participates again in Tim's and in Pearl's data since we firmly believe that this has had very considerable qualitative value in the way that we think is important when measuring educational output. However, the other parts of this amendment are overly prescriptive and, for that reason, we cannot accept it. I rise to oppose the amendments in Mr MacArthur's name. In many ways, we reach with this group the heart of the bill, the national performance improvement framework, which is ironic, of course, because, when the education bill was introduced, the national performance improvement framework was not part of it and did not exist. At stage 2, although the Government moved amendments to bring the framework in, there was no framework to consider what it was that was being included in the education bill. We have been critical of the approach that the Scottish Government and the First Minister, in particular, has taken to the debate here around national standardised testing. It is our view that she has on occasion tried to play both sides and to convince some commentators that she was supporting a return to high-states national testing and comparisons, while reassuring particularly the teaching profession and parents that that was not the intention. The original version of the performance improvement framework did, in my view, rather risk that. However, the final version does remove, in our view, much of that risk, although, to a degree, it does that by delaying or knowing what national standardised testing will look like and a working group is taking forward the development of that. However, the minister's cabinet secretary and the First Minister have given us very strong assurances that all that is really intended here is the replacement of existing standardised testing already used in schools with a particular national system that will be developed. That should, in itself, improve the data that is available to us and that has to be a good thing as long as it is done in a way that avoids high-states testing, teaching to the test and crude league tables. On the basis of the assurances that we have been given, we won't support Mr MacArthur's amendments this afternoon. The national improvement framework represents a significant step forward. I have been heartened by the widespread support since the First Minister launched it early last month and the positive contribution made by teachers, parents, children and others to its development. Of course, the framework will not in itself deliver the improvements that we all want to see, but it will, for the first time, mean that we have comprehensive information available to inform our decisions. It is how the information is used that will determine our success. The framework sets out six drivers, all of which are vital to securing improvement. One of the six drivers is the introduction of a Scottish standardised assessment. That is a crucial element of our approach to improvement. We have worked closely with partners across the education community to develop a model that we believe will benefit parents, teachers and, most importantly, pupils. It will provide us with more consistent and reliable data at both local and national level. It will also allow us to identify both successes and areas for progress in foreign policymaking and enriched teaching within the classroom. It is a key strand of our strategy for improving evidence throughout the primary and early secondary phase, a finding from the recent OECD report on our education system. It has always been the intention that assessment will be used to inform the professional judgments of teachers without creating the perversion incentives that can often accompany high-stakes testing. I was therefore disappointed to see amendments from Mr MacArthur that seemed to take no account of the progress that we have made to secure consensus around our approach. Given that consensus, I cannot understand why, through amendment 29, Mr MacArthur is again trying to remove standardised assessment from the national improvement framework. Firstly, I do not think that it would be right to legislate on such a specific point of detail in relation to the framework, but more fundamentally, there has never been any question that assessment is critical to supporting children's learning. It already is a feature of day-to-day learning and teaching across the country. Most councils do baseline assessment of some form of standardised assessment in primary 1, and by introducing a more consistent approach, we will only add to its value. Of course, 30 out of the 32 local authorities have already used a form of standardised assessment, and the opportunities with the national approach is to strip out duplication costs and consistency, and for the first time, to have a standardised assessment tool bespoke to curriculum for excellence. Mr MacArthur's amendments 30 and 31 seek the publication of certain reports before assessments are introduced. Again, in arguing against those amendments, I would point towards the significant degree of engagement that has taken place up until now, and we will continue to take place as we seek to implement this new approach to assessment in the months to come. The data obtained through assessment will be a driver for improvement alongside the range of other evidence that teachers already gather about children's progress on a daily basis, and will be used by teachers in a way that usefully informs the judgments they are making about how best to support individual children as well as supporting their discussions with parents. Our approach to assessment has never been a feature of this bill. As I have already said, I do not think that it is right to legislate in this level of detail for the individual elements of the framework. Rather, the detail should be in the framework itself and be informed and amended through the annual review process. Further, both the First Minister and I have been clear that teachers should be able to use standardised assessment when they think that it is the right time to use it, and I would hope that this will give Mr MacArthur the assurances that he is perhaps seeking through amendment 32. I have been clear that when we are designing the standardised assessment, we will be sure to learn from the experience of other countries, hence my decision to include a new requirement at stage 2 requiring all annual reports produced by Scottish ministers to take account of relevant international benchmarking data, suggesting that those considerations be restricted to the narrow and incomplete list of surveys set out within Mark Griffin's amendment 39 would not be helpful. I do not think that it would be appropriate to prescribe arrangements in the bill in the way that is suggested by those amendments, and for that reason I cannot support them. I now ask Liam McArthur to wind up and indicate if you intend to press her with a drop, please. I thank all those who contributed to the debate, and I thank Mark Griffin. I think that I would fully accept the points that he makes about the need to re-engage with the international benchmarks. I think that Liz Smith made a fair point about the qualitative nature of that data in those assessments. I thank Liz Smith, who was very clear in her support for the support that has been very consistent, and I thank her also for her indication of her support for amendment 32. I thought that Iain Gray very elegantly set out the cart before the horse approach that has been taken to this element of the bill where we are being asked to vote on the national improvement framework that nobody had yet seen, certainly, within the committee. I acknowledge that Labour, like the Conservatives and the SNP, are supportive of this reintroduction of national testing in primary schools. The cabinet secretary alluded to being heartened by the widespread support for the national improvement framework. I think that in terms of the focus on leadership and supporting teachers, engagement of parents, there is much to be welcomed within it. However, when she talks about the consensus that exists, she needs to recognise that, equally, there is a consensus in opposition concerned with the approach that is being taken in relation to the imposition of national testing in primary schools. It has been described as a retrograde step. That is just one of the reasons why I and my colleagues will not be supporting it in the context of the national improvement framework. Therefore, I move amendment 29 in my name. Thank you. The question then is that amendment 29 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Palmytus not agreed, there will be a division. This is a one-minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 29 in the name of Liam McArthur is yes, nine. No, 107. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 30 in the name of Liam McArthur. I move amendment 30. The question then is that amendment 30 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Palmytus not agreed, there will be a division. This is a 30-second division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 30 in the name of Liam McArthur is yes, nine. No, 106. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 30. The question then is that amendment 30 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Palmytus not agreed, there will be a division. The result of the vote on amendment 30 in the name of Liam McArthur is already debated with amendment 29, and I ask Liam McArthur to move or not to move. I therefore call amendment 32 in the name of Liam McArthur already debated with amendment 29 and I ask Liam McArthur to move or not to move. The result of the vote on amendment 32 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Palmytus not agreed, there will be a division, this is a 30-second divided. Please vote now. Rwy'n credu llyfrion 32. Mae'r ffordd yn yr ystod oedd yn Ym boards 32 yn y rhan o Leanne MacArthur. Mae ym 12, rydw i'r Ym 22, mae'r E94. Mae cynhyrch yn yr ym 32, mae'r Ym 34 yn ym 7, a'r Ym 37 yn y rhan o'r Ym 32 yn y rhan o'r Ym 17, ac mae'r Ym 37 yn y rhan o'r Ym 17 yn ym 17, ac mae'n rhan o'r Ym 34 yn y rhan o'r Ym 7 yn y rhan o'r Ym 21, Felly, disturbed draft was a the National Improvement Framework provisions. Amendments 1, 2 and 3 amend new section 3C4 of the Standards in Scotland School, etc. Act 2000, making clear that it is for Scottish ministers to determine those parents and pupils to be consulted as part of any review of the National Improvement Framework. As currently drafted, the provisions could be interpreted as requiring that ministers consult all parents and pupils and clearly this is not the intention. However, I would like to take this opportunity to make clear my personal commitment to ensuring that the National Improvement Framework continues to be and is seen to be a shared endeavour with parents, pupils, teachers and of course government locally and nationally all playing a key role. It is only by taking this type of collegiate approach that we will be able to unlock the huge potential of the framework and indeed our education system as a whole. It is for this reason that we will continue to involve as many individuals and organisations as possible as we work to bring the framework to life. If passed, we will commence the relevant provisions in the bill later this year. Amendments 4 and 5 focus on the definition of school education for the purposes of the framework. Section 2 of the 2000 act makes clear that, for the purpose of raising standards, school education is to be taken to mean education, which is directed to the personality, talents and mental and physical abilities of the child or young person to their fullest potential. It is this definition that is to be applied in relation to the development, review and implementation of the National Improvement Framework. In the case of ministers duties to establish and review the framework, this is made clear through the inclusion of new section 3C7 of the 2000 act introduced by amendment 4. The same clarification is not necessary in respect of education authorities' duties to work towards achieving the priorities of the framework. As set out in the new section 3D2 of the 2000 act, as a term, school education is not used to frame the duty in the same way. Consequently, amendment 5 removes section 3D3 of the 2000 act, which has been introduced at stage 2. I encourage members to support the amendments and move amendment 1. Thank you. Another member has requested to speak. Cabinet Secretary, do you wish to add anything? Nothing further to add. Many thanks. The question then is that amendment 1 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. I now call amendments 2, 3, 4 and 5, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated. I invite the cabinet secretary to move amendments 2 to 5 on block please. Moved on block. Many thanks. Does any member object to a single question being put on amendments 2 to 5? Since no member objects, the question then is that amendments 2 to 5 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. I now call amendment 34 in the name of George Adam, which has already been debated with amendment 17. I ask George Adam to move or not move. Not move. In which case, I call amendment 35 in the name of George Adam, which has already been debated with amendment 17, and I ask George Adam to move or not to move. Not move, Presiding Officer. I call amendment 36 in the name of George Adam, which has already been debated with amendment 17. George Adam to move or not move. Not move, Presiding Officer. I call amendment 37 in the name of George Adam, which has already been debated with amendment 17, I ask George Adam to move or not to move—not move, Presiding Officer—that brings us to group 5, reduction of inequalities of outcome links with children's services planning, and a call amendment 38 in the name of Liam McArthur in a group on its own. I ask Liam McArthur to move and speak to amendment 38, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I will not repeat the concerns I raised previously in relation to the Government's plans to reintroduce national testing. However, given that this appears to be the direction on which we are now set, I hope that the Minister and indeed Parliament will accept this further minor amendment. As children in Scotland point out and as the Education Committee heard repeatedly during our stage 1 evidence on this bill, tackling inequalities and closing the gaps in attainment cannot solely be laid at the door of our education system. Jackie Brock of Children in Scotland reminds us that education cannot be considered in isolation to wider children's services planning, and any new duties introduced should be in harmony with the only very recently enacted Children in Young People Scotland Act 2014. My amendment 38, which I have a pleasure in moving, makes sure that this will happen. Others have a role to play, including health partners. However, on reflection, I was reluctant to add further reporting requirements to health boards. I am persuaded that a more proportionate response that should achieve the same outcome is to incorporate that within children's services plans, and I hope that Parliament will agree. Many thanks. Other member has requested to speak, therefore, to call the cabinet secretary. Throughout the passage of the bill, we have been keen to identify opportunities to streamline and integrate the range of reporting requirements placed on education authorities. At stage 2, that led to the removal of outdated planning arrangements provided for through the Standards in Scotland Schools Act and the introduction of consolidated planning and reporting arrangements covering both inequalities of outcome and the national improvement framework. We have also sought to directly link school improvement planning and education authority standards and quality reporting to the framework, resulting in a coherent approach that I believe is well placed to support improvement at all levels within our education system. That being said, I absolutely recognise that education planning, reporting and delivery cannot be viewed in isolation. Many of the challenges that lead to low attainment simply cannot be fixed by our education services alone. Instead, they required a joined-up approach whereby all local agencies come together to plan and deliver services with their children's wellbeing being placed at the centre. That is the key thrust behind the children's services planning and reporting arrangements that were brought forward through the Children and Young People's Scotland Act 2014. I absolutely advocate the need to develop clear links between those arrangements and the planning structures provided for through this bill. To that end, my officials have committed to exploring how we might usefully support education authorities and other agencies in that endeavour, not least through the planned consultations on the respective pieces of guidance that focus both on this bill and on children's services planning. Nevertheless, I see no good reason why our commitment to a more coherent planning framework for public services should not be reflected on the face of the bill. It is on that basis that I am mindy to support Mr MacArthur's amendment 38 and would encourage colleagues across the chamber to do likewise. I thank the cabinet secretary for her comments. I would certainly accept the point that she makes about the need to streamline the reporting requirements. I move the amendment probably more in hope than expectation, but I am delighted with the response from the cabinet secretary and, therefore, press the amendment in mind. The result of the vote on amendment 39 in the name of Mark Griffin is yes, 38, no, 73. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendments 40 in the name of George Adam. Already debated with amendment 17 and I asked George Adam to move or not to move. That then takes us to group 6 review of effectiveness of measures to reduce inequalities of outcome. ac fyddwn i'r ffordd lleolwyddon間di dmell – a ulyn i'r ffordd lleolwyddon yn ddarparu mwy. Rydyn ni'n bwysig o'r ffordd lleolwyddon yma, a Sut yn ei wahanolion, ac nid oedd yn ffrifungi adeth sylweddol yn nesaf. A ddigonwch, wrth gyffredinol, yn amhiliad yn bwysig, er i'n gweithio hi'n ddifffredinol cy чего? Rhywbeth ei wneud yn ffrifuig, parell, yn eich ddysgu o'i roi rhai yn ffyrdd eich cyfaint o blaid. that we support the Government and their intention to do so. We remain concerned that, without focusing additional resources at those who need it most, the good will and efforts of this Parliament will be lost. That is why we are asking the Government to review the progress that is being made on the aims of the bill and specifically to look at whether extra resources will be required. That would include looking specifically at should raise taxes on the highest earners to raise extra revenue. The truth is this, Presiding Officer, how much we care about the issue will be demonstrated by how much we are willing to invest. It is a well-rehearsed point that Labour members believe that we should commit to a higher rate of tax for higher earners and devote the resources to closing the attainment gap. I accept that legislation is not where such a policy would normally lie, but we have been keen to explore ways to ensure that the legislation requires proper consideration of the resources that are devoted to achieving the purposes of the bill. We are not asking for the Government to commit here and now to our position. We know that they have consistently voted against progressive taxes on higher earners to pay for those who need it most. We are asking for them to review the case for further resources. I hope that the minister will consider that. The cabinet secretary said earlier this afternoon that she was right. I hope that I get this quote correct. The national performance improvement framework will not by itself close the attainment gap. It is what we do with the data, which will have that effect. That is absolutely true. This amendment goes to exactly that point. It is simply not enough to legislate the end no matter how noble that end might be if we do not ensure that we will the means to achieve it. A track record on this, and the Scottish Government's track record on this, is not a good one. We have the examples of climate change, fuel poverty, parents' rights, where in every instance we have legislated for an entirely laudable end, but the Scottish Government has then failed to deliver the means in order to achieve that end. The amendment simply says that where the means allocated have proven inadequate to achieve the purpose of the legislation before us, that that should be corrected, or indeed the Government should explain why it is unwilling to do so. As I have already stated in my response to Mr MacArthur's amendment 38, it is my view that the bill now provides us with a robust, comprehensive planning and reporting framework, providing us with the wide range of evidence that we need if we are to deliver the excellent and equity within our education system that I am sure we all strive for. Through the publication of annual plans and reports at both authority and national level, we will be able to assess our progress and the effectiveness of an overall approach to raising attainment. Clearly, that scrutiny will extend to the legal framework within which we operate. In light of the above, I simply cannot see what value could be added through the type of one-off sunset review that Mark Griffin's amendment 42 seeks to introduce. Indeed, I question whether such a review to be delivered so soon after royal assent could realistically offer any meaningful learning. After all, it may be the case that certain provisions have not even been commenced by that point with statutory guidance yet to be produced in partnership with education authorities, and that would not be unusual. Further, I cannot see how a one-off review is consistent with our drive for continuous improvement with our system. Of course, we want to see improvements 12 to 14 months from now, but that improvement must be sustained. We must have a means of measuring it, and that is exactly what the annual reporting process already included in the bill delivers. I also note the suggestion that any such one-off report should describe our plans in relation to income tax rates, and I cannot see why. Any revenue generated from the Scottish rate resolution or devolved taxes will be added to the pot of funding available to Scottish ministers who will then decide how those resources should be used. At stage 2, Mr Griffin indicated again that how much we care is demonstrated by how much we invest, hence the need for dedicated additional resources. The Government has a strong tracked record of investing in our children's futures, supporting education authorities across the country to spend £4.8 billion on education, according to the most recent publicised figures. Through the Scottish attainment challenge alone, we are providing some £100 million over four years to support learners from our most disadvantaged communities. I dispute the remarks from Labour colleagues because their plans are not progressive in the slightest. What Labour is proposing today is previously blunt instruments that try to redress the lack of power to apply tax progressively, which at the end of the day will only hit ordinary work in Scots with additional taxation at a time of austerity, shifting the burden of austerity. I have had some interesting emails from teachers this morning objecting to Labour's plans on the basis that they have bent through a period of pay restraint and now to find their proposals from the official opposition to tax them more. Of course, there are many of the same arguments that were rehearsed at stage 2 when Mr Griffin brought forward a similar proposal. I absolutely accept the value of providing members across the chamber with an opportunity to consider those issues, and it is in that context that I welcome his amendment. However, for the range of reasons that I have set out, I cannot support it and would encourage colleagues to do likewise. At the moment, there are thousands of pupils living in areas or experiencing deprivation in their own family, who are now missing out on the Scottish attainment challenge fund. We have consistently pushed for additional resources to be targeted in a different way that means that those pupils will then benefit from that funding. That is why I said that how much we care about this issue will be demonstrated by how much we are willing to invest, because at the moment thousands of pupils are having zero invested in closing that attainment gap compared to their peers in other areas. Perhaps the cabinet secretary has a different idea of what progressive means to me. I think that increasing the top rate of tax on the people who are most willing to afford it. Order, please. Mr Griffin, can I stop you a moment? I remind the chamber that, if anyone wishes to make an intervention, they can request that of the member. Perhaps SNP members should have been listening to the consistent calls that we have made over a number of months for our fair start funding to be supported by an increased level of taxation of 50p on high-strate energy. I will give way to Mr MacDonald. On the subject of consistent calls over a number of months, can the member explain why today's proposals were announced after Labour members signed up to a finance committee report that recommended no changes to the Scottish rate of income tax? Mark Griffin. Order, please. Order. Order, Mr MacDonald. Order. The Scottish Labour Party are setting out a clear progressive agenda ahead of me's election, setting out where we will raise additional funding to reverse the £500 million of Scottish Government cuts to local services. I make no apology for that. As I said, thousands of pupils are missing out on the additional funding to close the attainment gap. That review is necessary to see what additional funding would be available at the point of review to support those pupils. I ask the Parliament to support the amendment in my name. Thank you. Order. Question is that amendment 42 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. There will be a division. This is a one-minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 42 in the name of Mark Griffin is yes, 38. No, 81. There are no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. That then. Group 7, inequalities of outcome targets. I now call amendment 43 in the name of Mark Griffin, which is grouped with amendment 44. I ask Mark Griffin to move amendment 43 and speak to both amendments in the group. Please, Mr Griffin. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move amendment 43 in my name. I believe that a strong legislative framework is needed to secure faster progress in closing the attainment gap in every part of Scotland. We particularly believe that an ambitious goal is needed to help to close the socioeconomic attainment gap in children's literacy. Specifically, we want to see a clear approach and an ambitious timescale for making progress set out in legislation. There is a precedent for that approach, such as national targets on fuel poverty, climate change reduction and on child poverty eradication. It is our belief that enshrining targets in legislation will clearly articulate the scale of Scottish Government's aims in relation to closing the gap. It will promote greater public understanding of this key Government priority and raise the profile of the issue. It will demonstrate the changes that need to occur for it to be successful and ensure that future Governments remain committed to this vital objective. Achieving those goals in Scotland will require greater focus on supporting improvement for the poorest children, who are more likely to fall behind whilst being consistent with the responsibilities of education authorities to support all children's attainment. It will therefore drive a more effective strategic approach to closing the attainment gap at a national and local level. Just now, 12 per cent of children are not reading well by the time they finish primary school. The majority of those children live in the most deprived areas. That is a key driver of the attainment gap in Scotland and its damaging implications for our children's outcomes later in life. We believe that, to close the attainment gap, the immediate priority must be for schools, parents, teachers and Government to secure rapid improvement in literacy outcomes, particularly for the poorest children. Evidence suggests that that is an achievable goal and that considerable progress can be made over the next decade. No other member has requested to speak, so I therefore call the cabinet secretary. Amendments 43 and 44 are similar to amendments lodged by Mr Griffin during stage 2. Argyn for the amendments that he identified at targets such as those being proposed would promote greater public understanding and demonstrate the changes that need to be made in order for our efforts to be a success. I would like to start by once again reiterating this Government's commitment to making significant progress in closing the attainment gap over the coming decade, and the information that we will gather through the national improvement framework will allow us, over the next few years, to set clear, precise and meaningful milestones on the road to closing that gap. On that, I think that we share a common objective with Mr Griffin. Our differences seem to relate instead to the means through which we can best drive improvement and monitor progress towards closing the gap. I set out at stage 2, and we will do so again today. Some of the clear risks that can come with the adoption of narrow targets such as those that are being proposed here. Where such targets focus only on a select number of measures, they do not always provide us with an accurate picture of how an education system is performing as a whole. Further, that partial picture that I have described can have the potential to skew learning and teaching in a way that is unhelpful, narrowing the breadth and depth of our learning that our children can expect. Indeed, it seems to me that many of the arguments against high-stakes testing are equally applicable to high-stakes targets. A key reason for developing the national improvement framework was to broaden the range of available evidence at key points throughout our children's learning journey. It therefore seems slightly counterintuitive to do, on the one hand, expand the range of evidence on which we can collectively rely, only for us to turn our attention to only one or two indicators of success. Of course, we will ultimately rely on key evidence relating to the achievements of curriculum levels when measuring progress. We will consider such information within a broad context. Published information on the annual basis is required under the bill. That material can then be used by parliamentarians, parents and others to identify both successes and areas for improvement. It is that improvement, which is key, sustained improvement against a range of measures, ultimately extending into the early years, which will allow us to ensure that all children and young people have the potential to succeed no matter where their individual strengths lie. It is important to note that the 20, 70 and 30-month review is a review and it is not some sort of compulsory test. It is a review to provide proactive care and support to identify early the development needs of children. In light of that, it remains my view that the targets being proposed would not be helpful at this point in time. It is for this reason that I cannot support amendments 43 and 44. I hear what the cabinet secretary is saying about high-stage targets, but we are suggesting attainment gap targets within the legislation that could build on what are already existing attainment goals in our current work through the early years collaborative and raising attainment for all initiatives. Those include a goal for 90 per cent of children in participating areas, achieving all the expected development milestones by the time they start primary school by the end of 2017 and a goal for 85 per cent of children in certain cluster schools to have successful experience and achieved CFE, second level literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing outcomes in progress preparation for secondary school by 2016. The issue with those current goals is that they do not ensure that the improvements are made for the poorest children. Those who make up the majority of the 10 to 15 per cent of struggling learners who are not included in their ambitions do not have national coverage and do not have a statutory status. Therefore, I will ask Members to support the amendments in my name and I press the amendment, Presiding Officer. Many thanks. The question then is, that amendment 43 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. There will be a division. This is a one-minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 43 in the name of Mark Griffin is yes, 36, no 81. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 44 in the name of Mark Griffin. The question is, that amendment 44 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. There will be a division. This is a 32nd division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 44 in the name of Mark Griffin is yes, 36, no 80. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed to. That brings us to group 8 requests for provision of Gaelic medium primary education, initial and full assessments. I call amendment 45 in the name of Mary Scanlon, which is grouped with amendments 46 to 52. I ask Mary Scanlon to please move amendment 45 and speak to all of the amendments in the group. I move amendment 45 and speak to the other amendments in the group. Those amendments are seeking clarity around the provision of Gaelic medium education. As we all know in passing legislation, it is not what happens in here, it is how our legislation is implemented around Scotland. The provision of Gaelic medium education has to happen in partnership with local authorities. It is there for important in looking at those amendments. We examine the issues that COSLA and other local authorities have raised in order to ensure successful implementation. Amendment 45 seeks to ensure that, before a council decides whether to proceed to a full assessment costing £25,000, it is able to take into account existing information that is relevant to the delivery of Gaelic medium education. The bill, as introduced, allows a council to consider only demand from parents as the sole measure of whether a more detailed assessment is warranted. It is completely proper that parental demand be given proper attention and prominence in the bill, and amendment 45 asks for that. But where an education authority already has information about other factors that could determine the viability of Gaelic medium education, that information is taken on board at the earliest possible stage. For example, they may have advertised unsuccessfully several times to recruit a Gaelic teacher, and those amendments would present an education authority with the ability to balance parental demand with other existing information relevant to the delivery of Gaelic medium education. It will help education authorities to take a more balanced decision on whether to proceed to the full assessment or, despite everything, deliver Gaelic education. As I said, councils will have to pay £25,000 to carry out the full assessment, even if they know that the end result is likely to be that there are insufficient resources or, more particularly, insufficient teachers to be able to meet parental demand. My amendments seek clarity and some understanding from government of the issues facing local councils at this time. I do hope that the minister will bring forward this information needed in order that councils can positively make provision for increased Gaelic teaching in our schools. Amendments 46 and 48 seek to create the condition that an education authority can consider at the assessment stage other relevant information on whether GME could be delivered. Given the duty on local authorities to provide Gaelic medium education, they are asking what happens if they cannot recruit teachers or find adequate premises. It is a fact that there has been a shortage of Gaelic teachers for more than nine years, even before the Government came into power, and there is still a drastic shortage of Gaelic teachers. We heard at stages 1 in two of the practical issues of the lack of teachers and also the lack of additional funding for this provision. As it stands, COSLA is worried that parents will be disappointed as detailed assessments found her on a lack of teaching staff or insufficient resources. I am unclear as to the Scottish Government's presumption in favour of Gaelic when the local authority cannot, despite all its best efforts, recruit qualified teachers. I am seeking clarity, Presiding Officer, on this point. Resources are not available when a presumption already exists. Finally, what action will the Government take in the circumstances that would be helpful for local authorities to know? We are delighted to support Michael Russell's amendment No. 51. Michael Russell, to speak to amendment 51 and other amendments in the group, please. Without doubt, parents groups have had a very strong influence in the growth and development of Gaelic media medication. That role needs not just to be recognised but to be utilised to ensure continued community support. Common Apparent and National has helped to drive forward Gaelic media medication and represent the interests of parents who are enthusiastic about Gaelic education, including parents who are not Gaelic speakers themselves. They gave evidence to the committee when the bill was in progress and it is right that it should now be included in the bill and given a role in the process. That is a welcome process of change. It takes forward a commitment for wider Gaelic education, but it will be all the stronger if the right organisations are involved. Therefore, I hope that the Government will accept that and the chamber will support it. It is entirely commensurate with the wider policy of parental involvement, and it has a wide support in the Gaelic communities. I move amendment 52 in my name. It is a modest proposal. It is much narrower than a right to Gaelic media medication, which many myself included would favour. What it relates to is the degree of discretion that local authorities would have to refuse requests for Gaelic media medication. The bill establishes a complex mechanism for assessing parental requests for Gaelic media medication. The major weakness, as I say it, is in the key section 10, subsection 7a, which currently provides, and I quote, the education authority must decide to secure the provision of GMPE, Gaelic media and primary education, if the GMPE assessment area, unless having regard to the matters mentioned in subsection 6, the authority considers that it would be unreasonable to do so. There are 12 matters mentioned in subsection 6, some of them have been alluded to already, factors relevant to the decisions such as the level of demand, the cost, the availability of premises etc. The amendment would simply remove the phrase the authority considers that, so that it would read. The education authority must decide to secure the provision of GMPE in the GMPE assessment area unless, having regard to the matters mentioned in subsection 6, it would be unreasonable to do so. That change would ensure that the issue would be assessed in terms of objective reasonableness rather than the authority's subjective perception of reasonableness. If an authority refused to provide GMPE, it would thereby be easier for parents to exercise the basic right to make an appeal under section 70 of the Education Act 1980. It has been 17 years since an additional local authority began to offer GMPE, which was sterling. Quite a few authorities have a poor record, so local authorities, having too much discretion in terms of deciding reasonableness, would undermine the core purpose of the new education bill in relation to Gaelic. In relation to the other amendments in the section, I do not support my colleague Mary Scanlon providing additional escape clauses. I do support my colleague Michael Russell's amendment 51. Thank you. John Finnie suggested that the Minister initially offered Parliament and parents a clear, consistent process for assessing applications for Gaelic medium education. Goded by Mary Scanlon ever since, he has been dragged to a point where he is now promising a presumption in favour, or as he referred to at its stage 2, an entitlement. For the reasons cited by Ms Scanlon and detailed by COSLA in terms of a lack of resources, including teachers, that commitment looks increasingly like a hostage to fortune. Thankfully for the minister, he will not be left dealing with the angry and frustrated parents whose expectations have been unfairly raised by the bill. Councils, on the other hand, will again be left carrying the can. Over recent days, the historic concordat has never felt so historic. We support Ms Scanlon's amendments 45 to 50. Likewise, Mike Russell's amendment, which, as he fairly said, is in keeping with the general thrust of parental involvement in education across the piece, although we have misgivings about Mr Finnie's amendment. The bill currently delivers our manifesto commitment for parents to have an entitlement to Gaelic medium primary education where reasonable demand exists. Where there is that demand and the full assessment process envisaged by the bill identifies no fundamental obstacles to its provision, the authority should and will provide it. The full assessment process in section 10 of the bill is just that—an opportunity for authorities to look at all relevant matters in the round and decide how to take things forward. I appreciate the interest that Ms Scanlon has taken in this bill. As I explained when those amendments were first proposed at stage 2, amendments 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 and 50 would, I believe, add significant considerations to the initial assessment stage, which already feature in the full assessment and, in my view, are not suitable for inclusion at the filtering stage of the initial assessment. Of course, I accept the point that Ms Scanlon is making about the shortage or the demand that there is for Gaelic teachers nationally. I am not so sure that I accept the point locally, because I do not believe the example that Ms Scanlon gives of a council that has already advertised for a teacher for a non-existent post before the assessment process begins, is one that I see very likely to be taking place. However, I understand the spirit in which she has investigated those issues. Our aim in this bill has also been to make the initial assessment stage as light as possible, with minimal requirements on local authorities and parents at the requesting stage. If we are serious about promoting and supporting Gaelic, we need to create a system for assessing requests that parents understand and which they believe will give that request a fair hearing. Keeping the initial assessment process simple and straightforward and moving quickly to a full assessment will, I believe, give parents that confidence. I cannot therefore support amendments that would allow an authority to decide not to provide Gaelic medium primary education at the initial assessment stage, with reference to just two factors in isolation. Those factors are relevant, but they should be considered as part of the full assessment process. Therefore, I respectfully ask Mary Scanlon if she would withdraw amendment 45 and not seek to move her other amendments in the group. In response to Mr Russell's amendment 51 to include common and parent, I say that that sits squarely with the Scottish Government's belief that those bodies with relevant expertise and interests in the matter of Gaelic medium education should be asked for a view on an authority's decision about whether or not there is a potential need to secure the provision of Gaelic medium primary education in a certain assessment area. For that reason, I would ask you to support the amendment put forward by Mr Russell. Turning to amendment 52 from John Finnie, the bill creates a strong presumption that Gaelic medium primary education provision will be established where there is a wish for it and where reasonable demand exists. Section 107A places a duty on authorities to decide to secure the provision of Gaelic medium primary education unless, having regard to the specific list of matters in section 107, as part of the full assessment process, the authority considers that it would be unreasonable to do so. It is well established that local authorities must act reasonably, as such an authority already has to act reasonably under section 107A. If concluding that in its view, it would be unreasonable to provide Gaelic medium primary education. Section 112 also ensures that the authority is required to account for its decision with reference to its duty and each of the matters it is required to have regard to. It is right that this decision lies with the authority and the bill is clear about this. Amendment 52 would not change the matters on which the decision must be taken or justified or the basis of the decision namely reasonableness. However, Mr Finney's amendment ensures that the decision on whether it is unreasonable to provide Gaelic medium primary education must be taken and justified from an objective perspective rather than in the subjective view of anyone. Let me emphasise that when an authority takes a decision after a full assessment of a parental request for Gaelic medium primary education, it must have regard to a number of factors. The presumption is in favour of establishing Gaelic medium primary education. If an authority's decision was against that, then the authority would already have to demonstrate that that is because the provision of Gaelic medium primary education is unreasonable with reference to the specified factors. We have already taken steps to constrain the subjective nature of that decision and Mr Finney's amendment is in line with our stage 2 amendments. For those reasons, I welcome Mr Finney's amendment, I support him in moving amendment 52 and urge members to support it also. Thank you. I now call on Mary Scanlon to wind up an indication to enter pressure with draw, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'm very grateful for the members bringing forward all their points. I'm grateful to Liam McArthur for pointing out that I did actually have to look at the SNP manifesto for 2007-11 to see that an entitlement was promised and all that we were getting in the legislation was an administrative process on looking at parental assessments. However, I think that I've made some gains here and we've now moved on to a presumption of Gaelic. There's just one, a couple of points I want to raise. I did ask the question about the £25,000 that local authorities have to pay for the full assessment. Will there be additional funding from the Government for that? You can tell me another day, but I would also like to know where there is a presumption to provide Gaelic medium education, but despite every best effort by a local authority to recruit a teacher, where does that local authority stand? I'm happy to get that in correspondence from the minister. I realise that the historical concordact died in the water a long, long time ago, but given the amendments that I raised today, most of them came from COSLA and local authorities, so I ask the minister if he will continue to talk to COSLA and local authorities regarding some of the information that they seek. On that note, I will seek to withdraw amendment 45. Thank you very much. Does any member object to amendment 45 being withdrawn? No member objects, therefore. I now call amendment 46 in the name of Mary Scanlon, which has already been debated with amendment 45, to move or not to move? No. I now call amendment 47 in the name of Mary Scanlon, which has already been debated with amendment 45, and to move or not to move? No. Ben 50. Ben 4? Ben 5. Ben 6. Ben 7. Ben 8. I call amendment 51 in the name of Michael Russell, which has already been debated with amendment 45, and I ask Michael Russell to move or not move. Moved. Thank you. In that case, the question is that amendment 51 be agreed to, are we all agreed? There was, I know, I'm going to call that again. The question is that amendment 51 be agreed to, are we all agreed? I ask all of the members who are agreeing with this amendment to stay silent. I'm going to call it again because both myself and the two clerks here heard a no being shouted from the Labour benches, so I want silence please in the chamber, and if there is a no on this amendment, I want it shouted out very, very clearly. The question is that amendment 51 be agreed to, are we all agreed? Parliament is agreed. We therefore move on to question 52 in the name of John Finnie. Order, please. Question 52 in the name of John Finnie, already debated with amendment 45, and I ask John Finnie to move or not to move. Move, Presiding Officer. Sorry, can you clarify, did you move amendment? Move, Presiding Officer. Thank you, Mr Finnie. Question is that amendment 52 be agreed to, are we agreed? Is not agreed, there will be a vote, this is a one minute division, please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 52, in the name of John Finnie, is yes, 82, no 5, there were 28 abstentions, the amendment is therefore agreed to. That brings us to group 9, which is rights under education additional support for learning Scotland Act 2004, a call amendment 53 in the name of Liam McArthur, grouped with amendments 60 to 73, 16 and 74, and to ask Liam McArthur to move amendment 53 and speak to all of the amendments in the group, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'll be as brief as I can, notwithstanding the complexity of the issues and importance of the underlying principles in the amendments in this group. As at stage 2, my amendments are backed by a wide coalition of experts in this field to whom I am extremely grateful. The schedule to this bill extends a range of rights to children with additional support needs. At present, parents can exercise these rights on their child's behalf. This bill seeks to put 12 to 15-year-olds on a similar footing to those aged 16 and over by enabling them to act independently. I support this extension but am concerned by the bill's approach. It requires children to successfully negotiate two assessments before they can even begin to exercise their rights. The first on capacity to establish whether a child has sufficient understanding to exercise a particular right would be carried out by a local education authority or the additional support needs tribunal, depending on the right being exercised. The second is an assessment of adverse impact on wellbeing. Ministers argue that this is needed to guard against a child being damaged by the experience of pursuing their rights. This approach is, I believe, well-intentioned but misguided. Exercising a right may be difficult for a child, but instead of looking at how the process could be made more child-friendly, ministers appear to have ensured that only those judged by adults to be most resilient are ever likely to be able to exercise those rights. This, despite the bill creating a support service specifically designed to assist a child in exercising their rights, and yet the Age of Legal Capacity Scotland Act 1991 already provides an excellent framework for establishing a child's capacity. My amendments 53, 60, 61 and 63 to 75 use the law currently in operation as the basis for assessing capacity, including a presumption of capacity for all children over age 12 unless proven otherwise. Where there is dispute over a child's capacity, the child can appeal to an ASN tribunal, but the starting point of the 1991 act is that as many children as possible should have the option to exercise their rights regardless of whether or not they eventually choose to do so. That is consistent with what the minister said he wanted at stage 2. The minister also expressed concern that those rights would not be and nor can be absolute. Implying the approach that I was advocating would not allow for a situation where a child lacks capacity. That is not true. Some children may never be able to exercise those rights. Again, the 1991 act makes provision for that. Yes, we must consider a child's wellbeing but more broadly look at the substance of a child's request rather than as an initial assessment that prevents them from making the request in the first place. Let me conclude by illustrating the problems created by the bill as it stands. A child who wishes to make a disability discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010 would be required to bring their case to the additional support needs tribunal. Unlike the bill, the 1991 act presumes capacity at 12 years of age. A child pursuing such a claim is presumed to have capacity to do so from age 12. Where they have that capacity, there would be no need to undertake further assessments before taking a case to the tribunal. That same child, however, in exercising one of the rights extended by this bill, will have to successfully complete both the capacity and adverse effect on wellbeing assessments before doing so. My amendments seek to remove both the capacity and adverse effect on wellbeing assessments and amend the 1991 act to ensure that, where those rights are extended under this bill, the 91 act will apply. Where there is a dispute about capacity, there needs to be a way of resolving that as such, I have ensured a route of appeal to the tribunal. I fully support the extension of those rights to 12 to 15 year olds. However, I want children to feel that exercising their rights is a positive experience to feel supported and to be confident that they can exercise their rights without adults putting unnecessary barriers in their way. The 91 act acted as a framework for children's capacity for over 20 years. Professionals are familiar with it and know that it works well in a wide range of scenarios. There is no reason why that could not work just as well in supporting children to exercise the rights extended to them by this bill. I have pleasure at last in moving amendment 53 in my name. Many thanks. I now call Liz Smith to speak to amendments 62 and the other amendments in the group, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I think everybody recognises that this is an exceedingly complex area of legislation, not least because of the very diverse assessments of those who do have additional support needs, and most especially because of the growth in the number of children who are identified with these needs. Of course, in recent years, the number of professionals who have been involved in working with these young people has also grown considerably, and that has therefore increased the responsibilities that have been put on local authorities and other stakeholders. I am very grateful to the Minister for his willingness to engage on section 17, a section that still contains, in my view, a little lack of clarity when it comes to the interpretation of specific policies, most especially in relation to the definition of the word capacity. That point was made in the committee's stage 1 report, and it has also been made by many groups for children and young people. It is exactly why we have been left with an extensive number of amendments, all seeking to clarify the language of this section of the bill. The minister has made the point very fairly that we must comply with the rulings in relation to European convention on human rights. The existing legislation in Scotland prevents some listing of specific capacities, lest that list should be discriminatory in any way when it comes to the offer of assistance to those who have ASN. We totally accept that. However, the word capacity itself is creating difficulty with interpretation in this bill, and I think that it is reflected in some of Mr MacArthur's thinking as he submitted his own amendments. It is very much the reason why I have chosen to resubmit amendment 62 at stage 3, so as to probe further with the minister about the wording, because I think that we are in difficulty of some very general language being misinterpreted. I move amendment 62. Many thanks. I now call on the minister to speak to amendment 16 and the other amendments in the group, please minister. Presiding Officer, can I firstly thank Liam MacArthur for his presentation of this sensitive and very important issue today. While I recognise and understand his intent, I continue to disagree with the approach that he proposes. This Government is committed to enhancing, promoting and respecting children's rights wherever we can. We also have the responsibility to ensure that children and young people's wellbeing is at the heart of what we do. We need to respect and take into account the views and responsibilities of parents and carers and ensure that our approach strikes an appropriate balance between all those things. Amendments 53, 60, 61 and 63 seek to significantly change the definition of when a child has capacity to exercise rights under the 2004 act to remove any statutory requirement for authorities to assess a child's capacity and wellbeing before the exercise of rights and to extend the rights under the 2004 act to children of any age. I believe that an evidence-based decision should be taken by education authorities about whether or not there would be any issues in relation to each individual child exercising a right under the 2004 act. The requirements to assess capacity and wellbeing are the correct approach to take rather than for capacity simply to be presumed for those children aged 12 and older over with no statutory assessment for those children aged below 12. If Mr MacArthur's amendments were accepted, any issues or problems would only emerge once the child proceeds to exercise a right and could create a situation where further additional support is required. My preference is that those issues are dealt with up front and transparently with appeal rights to the additional supports needs tribunal for children and parents if the decisions of the education authority are felt to be incorrect. I am aware of the comparison of presumption of capacity in disability claims at the tribunals and the assessment of capacity in those provisions. However, the right to make a claim about disability discrimination is a single right that takes place in the formal setting of a tribunal at which it is expected that the child would be legally represented. We propose a range of rights of which a handful relate to tribunals. Those enable the child to be central in the requests, decisions and information about their support. The child may or may not choose to be supported or represented in those processes, and we must establish at the start whether there is likely to be any adverse effect to the child. Concerns have been raised that there may be a conflict of interest due to the requirements on authorities to assess capacity and adverse impact on wellbeing. However, I believe that there is no organisation better placed to establish a child's requirement of support, capacity or the potential for adverse impact on their wellbeing. That is no different from a lawyer deciding whether the child has capacity in a legal case or a medical professional deciding capacity in relation to a medical intervention. The provisions provide the safeguard of an appeal should it be felt by either the child or the parent that the mistake has been made. Turning to Liz Smith's amendment number 62 on the definition of lacking capacity for young people, I recognise the points that Liz Smith is making and her motivations for making them. However, my view remains the same that the level of detail that amendment 62 brings to the definition is not required, particularly given the stage 2 changes to remove the assessment of a young person's capacity prior to their exercising rights under the 2004 act. Therefore, there is no longer, I believe, a need to include a detailed definition here, as a young person will be presumed to have capacity under the 2004 act unless it is clear that they do not have sufficient understanding to do so. We also intend to produce guidance on when an authority might consider a young person to be lacking sufficient understanding to do something under the 2004 act. I hope that Liz Smith finds the assurance that I will do that addresses at least some of her concerns. The amendments that follow amendments 64 to 71 and 74 from Liam McArthur are consequential on his earlier amendments related to the definition and assessment of capacity. They seek to remove amendments made to various provisions of the 2004 act and to replace them with amendments that provide that children of any age provided that they have a general understanding of what it means for them to do so may exercise rights. For the reasons that I have already explained, we cannot support those amendments that include no safeguard as to whether children, including children of a very young age, are equipped to cope with the processes associated with the exercise of those rights under the 2004 act. Unfortunately, the drafting of some of those amendments is not entirely clear, particularly amendment 70, where there is ambiguity about the role of parents. The remaining amendments 72 and 73 are also consequential and seek to extend the remit of the children's support service established by the bill to support all children considering using their rights and not just those aged 12 and over. For the reasons that I have already given, I cannot support that approach. The provisions in the bill do significantly extend the rights of children, but they also provide appropriate safeguards. They ensure that children will not have to cope with information, processes and decisions that could be detrimental to their wellbeing. They ensure that parents and carers are involved appropriately and that they provide an established route of appeal where those safeguards can be rigorously tested and challenged if a child or parent feels that they are being applied wrongly or unfairly. Amendment 16 is a technical amendment that strengthens the process of parliamentary consideration of any regulations made under section 3AA of the act. That amendment is made to ensure consistency with any other regulations made under the Children and Young People Act to change the list of shenari indicators to be considered in assessing adverse impact on wellbeing. In conclusion, I cannot support the amendments made by Liam McArthur or Liz Smith for the reasons that have set out. I therefore urge Liam McArthur to consider withdrawing amendment 53 and to consider not moving his other amendments in the group. I urge Liz Smith to consider not moving amendment 62. However, I invite members to support amendment 16 in the name of Angela Constance. The debate goes back to stage 1 of the education bill when the concerns raised by the Children and Young People's Commissioner and the Equality and Human Rights Commission formed part of that debate. There are concerns that the extension of rights to 12 to 15 year olds, which they fully supported, had what appeared at the time to be some unintended consequences. At the time, my recollection is that the cabinet secretary and ministers indicated that they would seek to address those concerns. It is clear from the briefings that we have received, from the commissioner and from the Human Rights Commission, that those concerns have not been addressed for the reasons that Liam McArthur described. For those reasons, we will support the amendments in Liam McArthur's name. I thank Ian Gray for his support. He rightly points to the coalition of experts in the field who have been supportive of those amendments. I have been raising those issues since stage 1. The Children and Young People's Commissioner and the Human Rights Commissioner have been too, but the Government law enables inclusion and others have been involved. I thank Liz Smith for very fairly articulating the linguistic minefield that we have been operating in in this area since stage 1. I think that she is absolutely right to flag up some of the ECHR issues that the coalition brought to the attention of the committee right at the outset. I also thank the minister for his remarks and for his willingness to engage with me between stage 2 and stage 3 to see if there was a way of trying to address the concerns that I and that coalition have. It is fair to say that we reached an honest disagreement at the end of it and I think that that reflected in the exchanges this afternoon. He talks about the determination to extend rights but put in place safeguards. I think that I am still of the view that the 1991 act provides a framework that allows us to do just that. It has demonstrated over the last 20 years its capability to do that. I think that I would probably conclude with the words from the Children and Young People's Commissioner. It says that the bill places children in a position where they are given the impression that they can exercise their rights independently yet, in reality, they are beholden to adults to assess that they are capable of doing so. I think that with the introduction of the support service and other measures in the bill, I think that we can have confidence that the 1991 act is up to the job of extending those rights while providing the safeguards. On that basis, I will be pressing my amendment. Many thanks. The question is that amendment 53 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There will therefore be a vote. This will be a one-minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote in amendment 53 in the name of Liam McArthur is, yes, 41, no, 73. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. Now I move to group 10. I call amendment 6, in the name of the cabinet secretary, group with amendments 7 to 9, 54 to 56, 10 to 14, 14a, 57, 15, 58 and 75. Cabinet secretary, to move amendment 6 and speak to all amendments of the group, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Amendment 6 to 15 make a series of improvements to section 17 B of the bill, refining the provisions brought forward at stage 2 to prevent a reduction in the length of the primary school week. Before describing the changes in detail, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of the, in my view, misguided criticisms that surround our decision to introduce those provisions. Turning first to the lack of formal consultation, I have been absolutely clear, both in my representations to the Education and Culture Committee at stage 2 and in all subsequent discussions on this matter, that any regulations made under this section of the bill will be underpinned by a robust and inclusive consultation exercise. Indeed, that is why the bill provisions have been drafted in the way that they have, intentionally providing us with the necessary flexibility to respond to the outcome of those discussions, which I hope will start later this year. We have also been criticised for stating our view that a primary school week consisting of 25 hours contact time with a qualified teacher seemed a reasonable starting point for those discussions. I believe that this position to be an entirely reasonable one. After all, it simply reflects the level of provision currently made available in the vast majority of schools across the country. Further, it is the level of provision that teachers, parents and most importantly pupils have come to expect over many years and which has survived through periods of significant transformative change within our system, not least the introduction of curriculum for excellence. To start anywhere else will therefore seem to me to be rather counterintuitive. As I have already said, we are keen to listen to the representations that will undoubtedly be made, particularly in relation to the level of provision within infant primary years, where there is already some slight variation in practice across the country. However, let me be clear that the decisions that we reach will not be driven by the same financial considerations that have underpinned many of the local proposals to reduce the school week that was brought forward in recent years. Our children's education is simply too important for that. I have brought forward those provisions in order to prevent the type of postcode lottery that would undoubtedly have developed had local councils preceded with those proposals. It remains absolutely my view that this cannot be allowed to happen, to do so would be short sighted and inconsistent with this Government's commitment to deliver an education system that delivers for all. For those reasons, it will come as no surprise to members that I reject Mary Scanlon's amendments 58 and 75, which seek to remove the learning hours duty from the bill outright. For different reasons, I do not support amendment 54, which Mary Scanlon has lodged, in order to ensure that the learning hours duty cannot be imposed before the beginning of the 2018-19 school year. I fully accept that education authorities and grant-aided schools require advanced warning of the learning hours duty and time to ensure that they are able to comply with it. As I have already made clear this afternoon, I accept too that we must take the necessary time to consult fully and widely on the detailed implementation of the duty through regulations. It is important that we listen to stakeholders and that we understand fully the implications of the duty as imposed, and it is important that we get this right. However, I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate for a timetable to be included explicitly on the face of the bill, not least an arbitrary timetable that takes no account of what will doubtless be an important consultation feedback on this matter. The changes proposed by my amendments at stage 3 are relatively minor. They are designed to clarify aspects of the legislation and to ensure that we have the necessary flexibility to accommodate those situations where it would be entirely legitimate to offer a reduced level of provision. Starting with amendments 6 and 8, those are minor drafting changes that are required to improve on the readability of the section and to leave out one unnecessary word. Amendments 7 and 9 should be considered together. Amendment 7 makes clear that the duty and education authorities in grant 80 schools to provide the prescribed number of learning hours is subject to the power set out in new subsection 3 introduced by amendment 9. That subsection provides for fewer than the prescribed numbers of hours to be provided in certain circumstances set out under subsection 3A. Those circumstances cover situations where an individual pupil's wellbeing would be adversely affected as a result of them receiving the prescribed number of learning hours. Situations where, due to matters outwith their control, it would be in practical for the school to provide the prescribed number of hours. That could occur due, for example, to severe weather. Subsection 3AC allows ministers to prescribe through regulations other circumstances in which fewer hours could be provided. Amendment 9 also introduces new subsections 3B and 3C. New subsection 3B requires that, where the prescribed hours are not made available due to the circumstances that I have just described, the authority or school must make available reduced hours. New subsection 3C defines reduced hours as the prescribed hours less those hours that would have been provided but for the circumstances arising. The result is to place a cap on the reduction in the number of learning hours the child receives. The learning hours can only be reduced insofar as they need to address the relevant circumstances under subsection 3A. In contrast, Mary Scanlon's amendments 55 and 56 seeks to disapply the learning hours duty in its entirety in relation to all pupils or groups of pupils. In the case of amendment 55 and whole schools in respect of amendment 56, where it is deemed that the provision of the prescribed hours is not in those pupils' best interests, once the duty is disapplied under those proposals, we would return to the status quo, whereby there is no requirement placed in education authorities or managers of grant-aided schools to provide a particular number of or indeed any learning hours. I have already made clear that I do not find that position tenable and I cannot support amendments 55 and 56 on that basis. Our amendment 9 also makes clear that, where an authority or school is considering reducing the number of hours made available to a child due to a concern around their wellbeing, they must do so with reference to the shenari indicators. Already recognised in law through the Children and Young People's Scotland Act 2014, the effect of this amendment is therefore that the prescribed hours can only be reduced insofar as those hours can be demonstrated to impact adversely on the extent to which the child would be safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included. Amendment 14 provides for ministers to modify the list of shenari indicators and regulations following consultation. I have been clear throughout that we are committed to consulting on the regulations through which the learning hours duty will take effect, so I commend the policy intention behind Mary Scarlin's amendment 57 and would be happy to place on statute a requirement for Scottish ministers to consult in advance of making regulations. As amendment 57 stands, however, it falls short of requiring statutory consultation to take place in relation to all aspects of the learning hours regulations, focusing instead on just the number of hours to be prescribed. Amendment 14A ensures that the consultation duty is more comprehensive. Amending amendment 14 to require Scottish ministers to consult in relation to the number of learning hours, the nature of those learning hours, the additional circumstances in which fewer hours can be made available and any modification of the list of shenari indicators against which consideration of any adverse impact of the prescribed hours should be made. I believe therefore that amendment 14A gives better effect to Mary Scarlin's policy intention than does amendment 57 and asks Mary Scarlin not to move amendment 57. Currently, section 17B4 of the bill allows ministers to prescribe a different number of learning hours for different purposes and for different types of pupils, providing us with scope to adjust the duty to reflect the needs of particular groups. Amendment 10 extends its flexibility by allowing ministers to define learning hours differently for different groups or for different purposes. For some, learning hours might be taken to mean contact time with a registered teacher. For others, such as those with additional support needs, the nature of provision may look quite different. Further, amendment 10 allows ministers to specify through regulations circumstances where fewer than the prescribed number of hours may be made available for a particular group of pupils or for a particular purpose. Any such regulations will be subject to affirmative procedure as a result of amendment 15. Amendment 11 allows ministers to make transitional or transitory provisions in relation to the learning hours duty. That would allow ministers to introduce the new duty in an incremental way, for example by requiring that a certain number of hours be made available by a certain date, climbing to a higher number of hours by a date further into the future. Amendments 12 and 13 are minor amendments that are consequential to this change. Taken together, the amendments will deliver a strengthened set of provisions well-placed to accommodate the findings of the consultation that will follow. It is for this reason that I ask the chamber to support my amendment 6015 and not to support the remainder of the amendments in this group. I move amendment 6. Many thanks. I now call on Mary Scanlon to speak to amendment 54, other amendments in the group. I have no spare time left, so as briefly as you reasonably can. I'm delighted to hear that consultation will now take place on the measures before us today, but can I just remind the Government that consultation generally takes place before stage 1, even before stage 2, but not really generally speaking after stage 3? I just say that Highland Council has taken pride in its long-standing, close and constructive relationship with the Scottish Government. I also put on record, as an MSP for the Highlands and Islands, since 1999 I have never had any complaint whatsoever about the quality of teaching in any Highland or island school. The Highland Council was there for more than surprised by the announcement without any notice or consultation of a proposal to legislate for a 25-hour week in all Scottish primary schools, regardless of local circumstances, four days before the Education Committee consideration of stage 2 amendments. Objections came from Margaret Davidson, leader of the independent group, Bal Sir Christie, leader of the Lib Dems, Jimmy Gray, leader of the Labour group, Drew Miller, chairman of the Education Committee and leader of the Highland Alliance group. Most Highland primary schools have always operated 22.5-hour week for primaries 1 to 3. That involves 272 schools from the north of Sutherland to Badenoch and Strathsby, and it's mostly because of the length of the day for young children who may have to travel considerable distances to school. Young children traveling to school for a 25-hour week could be away from home for more than 35 hours and travelling more frequently back and forth in the dark. There is no educational evidence, which links a 25-hour school week to better attainment. Although all local authorities currently operate 25 hours for at least P3, P4 to P7, a number of councils already successfully operate 22.5-hour school week for younger pupils. The director of caring learning in Highland has said that this measure would mean the provision of 1,000 extra teaching hours and 30 additional teachers. Murray Council has said that it requires an extra 13 teachers, and this is at a time when it is difficult to recruit for existing vacancies, and the number of teachers simply does not exist. COSLA was never consulted on this issue. In a letter of 22 January, it said that there was not a hint at any meeting between COSLA Government officials or the Cabinet Secretary that the Government amendment on the length of the school week was even being considered, let alone it was likely to be a prospect. In the Cabinet Secretary's response to me, she says that teachers and parents have been championing this matter for months, although they certainly have not been championing it in the Highlands. However, I did in the same response think that there was a glimmer of hope and understanding in the response to this new duty, where the Cabinet Secretary stated that it will be necessary to provide a degree of flexibility enabling ministers and education authorities to make exceptions for individual children or groups of learners in certain limited circumstances. Pupils living far from the school whose travel time lengthens the day to the extent that in the younger stages, in particular, it may be inappropriate for them to spend as long at school as others. That does not apply to an individual pupil. The length of the school day and it gets dark at the same time for every pupil in the school. Amendment 54 seeks to delay the implementation of this measure for two years until councils can plan and recruit additional teachers and reallocate funding. However, since submitting the amendments, I note that there is a new financial memorandum, and paragraph 24 states the year 2018-19. I seek clarity on the issue, because if that is the case, I would not wish to move the amendment. The supplementary financial memorandum, which is not part of the bill and has not been endorsed by the Parliament, states that an additional 120 teachers will be needed across six education authorities, and we trust that the Government will pay the extra £4.8 million to councils to fund this proposal. Amendments 55 seeks to exempt a whole education authority such as Highland from implementing the 25-hour week for children in primaries 1 to 3. Amendment 56 seeks at individual schools, particularly in the most remote and rural areas, for example in North West Sutherland, to be considered for exemption. Amendment 57, I understand that the Government has accepted the principle in this amendment and, in fact, go further, so I will not be moving amendment 57 as the Government has gone even further in that amendment. Just finally, we will be supporting amendment 9, stating the exemption criteria for individual pupils, although, obviously, I would wish that to go further. I would like to speak in support of the amendments in the name of Angela Constance on learning hours. During the stage 1 debate, I highlighted Scottish Labour's intention to table amendments to the bill to guarantee primary school pupils at least 25 hours teaching time a week. I am pleased that we are seeing progress on this issue and that the Government has brought forward those amendments today. I know that this is an issue of huge importance to mum's dads and carers. I represent in Dumfyrmland just as it is important to mum's dads and carers right across Scotland. Parents quite rightly want to know, as the cabinet secretary said, that their children's access to learning is not based on their postcode lottery. Yet right now this is what parents face with the reform Scotland estimating a variation of 149 hours a year in the teaching that our children receive. While preschool children have got a statutory right to 15 hours free education a week, there is no such requirement for school-age children beyond the stipulation of 190 teaching days a year. Scottish Labour will be supporting those amendments, because they are about protecting the rights of pupils and teachers. They are about ensuring that every child in Scotland, wherever they live and go to school, will have their learning hours protected and ensuring that parents do not face the fight to protect the school week, as councils are forced to think they are unthinkable to meet their budget challenges. Our children should not pay the price of cuts. We do not, however, believe that the Government's amendments are perfect. We would prefer to see primary legislation to guarantee a statutory number of learning hours, rather than seeing this in regulations. We would like to see further assurances to that teaching time will be with registered teachers. Nevertheless, we are placed to see progress. We believe that every child in Scotland should have a guaranteed number of hours and will be supporting their amendments today in the name of Angela Constance. Repeatedly, during the committee's consideration of the bill, we heard from witnesses complaining about a failure by the Government to consult. We were even put in the position of having to take additional evidence at stage 2 to deal with the rather hand-fisted approach to managing the bill. Even then, however, we were denied an opportunity to consider the minute-minutes, the costs and the implications of the Government's proposals to mandate learning hours for every school in the country. Why? Because the cabinet secretary failed to inform the committee that she was even minded to introduce such amendments at stage 2, and yet, at the 11th hour, to avoid being outflanked by the Labour Party, who had made their intentions clear to curry favour with the EIS, the minister took it upon herself to legislate without consulting local authorities, without evidence of the need or the cost, but with utter contempt for the committee, its members and Parliament. Amendment 6-15 shows that the minister is still scrambling around to make sense of her proposals. Meanwhile, the revised financial memorandum reveals the costs of this approach around £5 million a year, along with a further loss of flexibility for local authorities. At a time when the Government is already proposing to cut council budgets by £500 million with the inevitable consequences for education spending at a local level. As Mary Scanlon rightly said, for the cabinet secretary to offer a consultation after writing this into legislation with no warning and no evidence is pretty insulting, local authorities in Scotland deserve better, this Parliament deserves better and teachers, parents and pupils deserve better of their legislatures. I make absolutely no apologies that this Government's conviction is that no matter where in Scotland a child lives, he or she should be entitled to receive a consistent education offer, and that lies at the very heart of our decision to establish a learning hours duty. Perhaps later, no parents should have to fight to protect the numbers of hours of education that their child receives from cost-cutting proposals, sacrifice in their children's education and the name of savings is quite simply too great a price to pay. The amendments that I have brought forward today are aimed at clarifying and refining the provisions that we introduced at stage 2 and ensuring that the bill is sufficiently flexible to accommodate both now and in the future the varying needs and circumstances which could arise and my impact on the delivery of the learning hours duty. It has always been an attention, as I stated at committee, that consultation will be key in taking forward these provisions and in developing regulations briefly. Thank you cabinet secretary. Even if that was correct, would you acknowledge that there has been a complete lack of consultation with those who have to deliver the education, namely local authorities? That is really interesting because that just gets to the nub of the matter. I have stood in this chamber and answered oral parliamentary questions on proposals coming from Falkirk. When the Government last attended a Cabinet meeting in the Highlands, there was a public Q&A, I was asked in front of Highland councillors and the leader of the council about their proposals and COSLA, to be blunt, was never off the phone to officials because Labour had been quite open with regards to their views and attentions. In our decision to legislate, no thanks follows representations from key partners, including the national parent forum for Scotland and the EIS, Mr MacArthur might want to sit in his hands when there is a real risk of local authorities, the length and breadth of this country. Mr MacArthur, please sit down. I, for one, will not be accused of sitting on my hands or, indeed, a missed opportunity. This notion that there is no evidence that more hours lead to better outcomes, we are protecting the number of hours as currently stands. This is about safeguarding our children's education. No thanks, Mr Scarlin, no one can suggest that reduced teaching time will improve outcomes. No council has presented proposals to reduce the school week as a means of driving up attainment. Their proposals have been firmly focused on making savings. On a conciliatory note, I say to Mr Scarlin that it is not our intention to introduce the regulations before 2018. As I said in my opening remarks, we do not think that it is appropriate to put the timetable in the bill, as we indeed want to have the full consultation. I am very proud that we have taken decisive action to prevent our children's education from being sacrificed in the name of financial services. I will make no apologies to the Tories or the Liberals on that account. And so the question is that amendment 6 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Thank you very much. Now, amendment 7, 8 and 9, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated, invite the cabinet secretary to move amendment 7 to 9 on block. Does any member object to her single question being put on amendment 7 to 9? There is no member. Does the question is that amendment 7 to 9 are agreed? Are we all agreed? Thanks very much. Now, amendment 54, in the name of Mary Scarlin, all ready debated, with amendment 6, Mary Scarlin, to move or not? Not move. Thank you. Now, amendment 55, in the name of Mary Scarlin, all ready debated, with amendment 6, Mary Scarlin, to move or not? Move. Many thanks. So the question is that amendment 55 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. Thank you. We are not agreed. We are not agreed, so therefore be a division, and this will be a one-minute division. The result of the vote in amendment number 55 in the name of Mary Scarlin is, yes, 17, no, 97. There were no abstentions in the amendment, therefore not agreed. Now, amendment 56, in the name of Mary Scarlin, all ready debated, with amendment 6, Mary Scarlin, to move or not? Move. Many thanks. So the question is that amendment 56 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? No. We are not agreed, so therefore be a division. Please vote now. Result of the vote in amendment number 56 in the name of Mary Scarlin is, yes, 17, no, 96. There were no abstentions in the amendment, therefore not agreed. Now, amendment 10, 11, 12 and 13, all in the name of the cabinet secretary and all previously debated, and invite the cabinet secretary to move amendments 10 to 13 on block. Does any member object to a single question being put in amendments 10 to 13? As no member does, the question is that amendments 10 to 13 are agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. Many thanks. Now, amendment 14, in the name of the cabinet secretary, all ready debated, with amendment 6. Minister, to move formally, please. Formally moved. Thank you. Call of amendment 14A, in the name of the minister, all ready debated, with amendment 6. Minister, to move, please. Moved. Thank you. So the question is that amendment 14A be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. The question is that amendment 14A... Sorry. Call of amendment... Thank you. The question is that amendment 14, as amended, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. Call of amendment 57, in the name of Mary Scanlon, all ready debated, with amendment 6. Mary Scanlon, to move or not? Not move. Thank you. Call of amendment 15, in the name of the cabinet secretary, all ready debated, with amendment 6. Minister, to move, please. Moved. Thank you. So the question is that amendment 15A be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are. Thank you. Call of amendment 58, in the name of Mary Scanlon, all ready debated, with amendment 6. Mary Scanlon, to move or not? Not move. Thank you. And we now move to group 11. I call amendment 59, in the name of Malcolm Chisholm, grouped with amendment 78. Malcolm Chisholm, to move amendment 59, and speak to both amendments in the group, please. Mr Chisholm. Thank you very much. I see that there's only four minutes left. So does that mean I take two minutes on the minister? Two or can I overrun or not? Well, anyway, I better go on, because it's time wasting a while. Just take as long as you need, Mr Chisholm. Oh, that sounds very generous. There is guidance about the administration of medication and meeting the other healthcare needs of children in schools. But the commissioner for children and young people two or three years ago in a report said that it was extensively ignored. And there's no reason to believe that the forthcoming guidance that's currently being worked on will be any different. And the result is that, in some cases, it leads to the enforced absence of children. In other cases, it leads to parents having to come to school to administer medication or give other healthcare support. And sometimes children are in school, but simply not getting the help that it is required. So this is really a further factor contributing to educational inequality. And very often involves a double disadvantage, because, in many cases, children at socio-economic disadvantage are, well, in fact, they are statistically overrepresented in pupils with ill health. So I think that this is very relevant also to the main theme of the bill. The amendment recognises the importance of guidance. It says that education authority should have regard to the guidance, but there's a much better prospect for compliance if this is required by statute. And part of the problem seems to have been the failure of any one particular authority to take responsibility for this. Is it the health board? Is it the education authority or whoever? But this amendment makes clear that the education authority must ensure that adequate arrangements are made for this. This problem was brought to my attention by action for sick children, who have been concerned for some time about the extent to which children's healthcare needs are not being met in various educational settings. And it's not just a matter of educational equality, as I've emphasised, but also a matter of fundamental children's rights. Recent research suggests that 15 per cent of children have conditions that impact on their education. And although not all of these have long-term chronic conditions, the fact remains that this does affect a large number of children. The Government may say that the additional support for learning act addresses this, but it does not refer specifically to the issue of medical assistance. And more fundamentally, the reality is in practice nobody feels that there is any statutory obligation to meet these healthcare needs. The fact is also that these children cannot fulfil their potential without the help that is required. So I would today pay tribute to all the educational support staff and others in schools who do discharge their duty. But today, let's put in place the training or anything else that's required so that all of these children have their healthcare needs met. And we don't end up with new guidance that is widely ignored in the same way that the present guidance is. I move amendment 59. Many thanks. I now call on the cabinet secretary. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Malcolm Chisholm for bringing forward amendments 59 and 76, both of which I've considered carefully. Amendment 59 seeks to insert a new section into the bill which, in turn, would insert a new section 56f into the Education Scotland Act 1980, placing a legislative requirement on education authorities to make adequate arrangements during school hours to support any pupil who requires assistance with the administration of medicines or healthcare procedures and to have a due regard to guidance. Amendment 76 is consequential, seeking to amend the long title of the bill to take account of amendment 59. I do not, however, think that we need further primary legislation in this area. There is already a legislative and policy framework which ensures that this group of children and young people get the support that they need. Under the NHS Scotland Act 1978, NHS boards must secure the medical inspections, supervision and treatment of pupils in schools. Education authorities help them to discharge those responsibilities, and those amendments would, I believe, cause confusion as to which body is primarily responsible. The Additional Support for Learning Act requires authorities to identify, provide for and to review pupils' needs for support, including support that arises from health and medical issues. There is also the Equality Act 2010 that requires responsible bodies to make reasonable adjustments for pupils with a disability. Through the Children and Young People Scotland Act 2014, we are introducing new provisions around the child's plan, including a requirement for interagency planning. It is for practitioners across education and health and other appropriate agencies to work together in accordance with this legislation and policy context to play their part and improve the outcomes for children and young people who require medication and healthcare support. I am mindful to keep things under review. The Scottish Government, as intimate to be Mr Chisholm, has existing guidance on the administration of medicine and the provision of healthcare in schools. He is right that that is under review in partnership with stakeholders. We will ensure that the guidance continues to address the issues raised by Malcolm Chisholm today. I have clearly set out why I do not believe that Mr Chisholm's amendments are needed. There is an existing legislative and policy framework and we are working in partnership with a range of stakeholders to review the guidance. I am happy to meet Mr Chisholm to discuss the issues of practice and implementation. It is for those reasons that I ask Mr Chisholm to withdraw amendments 59 and not to move amendments 76. Many thanks. As we have passed the agreed time limit under rule 9.8.4AA, I consider it necessary to allow the debate on group 11 to continue beyond the limit in order to allow those with the right to speak on the amendments and the group to do so. Now, Mr Chisholm, to wind up and press a withdraws amendment. I thank the cabinet secretary for the kind offer of a meeting. I would never turn out a meeting with her, so I shall take her up on that. But having said that, I do have to disagree with what she said, because she said that the amendments would cause confusion, but I think the substance of her speech indicated that there already is confusion. We have health legislation, we have the additional support for learning education, which is focused on local authorities. I think that this is part of the problem that currently nobody knows who actually has responsibility for this. And over above the confusion within the legislative framework that she describes, the reality is that nobody believes that there is any statutory requirement to fulfil these obligations. So I would argue that the amendment that I have presented to date does actually deal with the existing confusion and present a simple solution to the problem. So I will disappoint the cabinet secretary in pressing my amendment, but I would also welcome the meeting about that. Many thanks. And so the question is, that amendment 59 be agreed to, are we all agreed? No. We are not, though, therefore, be a division. This will be a one minute division. Please vote now. Okay, the result of the vote on amendment number 59 in the name of Malcolm Trism is yes, 42, no, 69. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. Now call amendment 60 in the name of Liam McArthur, already debated. Liam McArthur to move or not. Moved. Okay, so the question is, that amendment 60 be agreed to, are we all agreed? No. We are not, though, therefore, be a division. Please vote now. Result of the vote on amendment number 60 in the name of Liam McArthur is yes, 42, no, 68. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. Now call amendment 61 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur to move or not. Moved. Okay, so the question is, that amendment 61 be agreed to, are we all agreed? No. We are not, though, therefore, be a division. Please vote now. Result of the vote on amendment number 61 in the name of Liam McArthur is yes, 41, no, 68. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. Call amendment 62 in the name of Liz Smith, already debated. With amendment 53, Liz Smith to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. Call amendment 63 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. Call amendment 64 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. Call amendment 65 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. Call amendment 66 in the name of Liam McArthur. Liam McArthur to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. Call amendment 67 in the name of Liam McArthur. Mr McArthur to move or not. Not moved. Thank you. Call amendment 68 in the name of Liam McArthur. Mr McArthur to move or not. amendment 16, in the name of the cabinet secretary, minister to move formally? Moved. Thank you. The question is that amendment 16 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are. Thank you. Amendment 74, in the name of Liam McArthur, Mr McArthur to move or not? Not moved. Thank you. Amendment 75, in the name of Mary Scanlon, to move or not? Not moved. Thank you. Amendment 76, in the name of Malcolm Chisholm, minister Chisholm to move or not? Not moved. Thank you. That ends consideration of amendments. I will now move on to the next item of business, which is debate on motion number 15221, in the name of Angela Constance, on the Education Scotland Bill. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to please press their request to speak butters now or as soon as possible. I now call on Angela Constance to speak to and move the motion. Cabinet secretary, you have 10 minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to open the stage 3 debate on the education bill and would like to thank members for their contributions this afternoon. I would also like to thank the Finance Committee, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee and particularly the Education and Culture Committee for their consideration and scrutiny of the bill as it has progressed through the parliamentary process. This is a wide-ranging bill covering measures that are important to key aspects of Scottish education. It forms part of the work that this Government is undertaking to ensure that excellence and equity are embedded throughout our education system. I acknowledge that this bill began life as a much smaller piece of legislation focused primarily on Gallic media education and extending children's rights in the additional support for learning framework. One of my first acts, as Cabinet secretary, was to ensure that this bill was developed to better reflect and provide for this Government's commitment to raise attainment for all and close the attainment gap. At introduction and at stage 1, I made clear that I wanted to make this bill as strong and effective as possible. To do so, we listened to members' views, particularly on relevant committees and to those giving evidence throughout the parliamentary process. Accordingly, we introduced a range of amendments at stage 2 to strengthen existing provisions and introduce important new ones to provide a necessary statutory underpinning to key policy developments from the programme for government. We have made further refinements at stage 3 this afternoon. I am confident that the bill before us today, in its final stages, achieves its purpose and will elicit the support of the whole chamber. I believe that the common thread across the bill's measures is a focus and concern to create an education system that is wholly centred and focused on children's interests and needs, especially those children with particular interests and needs. The bill places a strong duty on education authorities and ministers to address inequalities of outcome. It makes explicit the link between those inequalities and socioeconomic disadvantage. That marks a significant milestone for education in this country in that we are now utterly focused on their being duties on national and local government to act to reduce the impact of inequality and poverty on children's learning experience. The creation of a new statutory duty, however, is a new stage of our journey to success, which will only be complete by the effectiveness of those actions to close the attainment gap. The bill also anchors the national improvement framework that was published on 6 January in legislation, setting out parameters for the framework, how it might be reviewed, the duties on national and local government to provide plans, regular reporting and, crucially, requiring the publication of an annual equal opportunity statement by education authorities. That statement further ensures a relentless focus on the need to deliver equity for all children in education. I am acutely aware of the importance of headteachers to the success of our education system. That is why school leadership is one of the six drivers of improvements that are set out in the national improvement framework. The bill therefore includes measures to ensure that every child in Scotland has the right to be educated in a school with a headteacher, with appropriate knowledge and skills to help them to succeed and to allow that school to flourish. The Government believes that it is right that the bill protects all learning hours that each child should receive. However, a national entitlement should still be flexible enough to meet individual children's needs and accommodate varying circumstances. It is important that we consult fully to reach agreement on what the national entitlement should be. The bill also provides a consistency of approach around our collective actions to help to remove parents to education, reduce inequality gaps, raise attainment and improve children's health and wellbeing through the provision of school clothing grants. To offer further consistency, the bill will make the provision of a free school lunch equally applicable to young children who receive their entitlement to early learning childcare at partner providers. The bill also provides a regulation-making power to enable the provision of meals other than a lunch, or more vulnerable to three-and-four-year-olds, could receive a breakfast or a tea instead of a lunch if that better suited the time of their session. True to its roots, the bill also introduces new measures to promote and support Gallic medium education. It introduces a right for parents to request the provision of Gallic medium primary education in their local area, and a presumption that an authority must respond positively to that request unless it would be unreasonable to do so. Importantly, the bill enhances the rights of children with additional support needs. We have grasped the opportunity that the bill affords to put children's needs, interests and rights at the heart of our education system. While the bill provides an overarching framework, it does not set the detail in stone. It measures, provides scope and opportunity to bill consensus and collaboration with teachers, schools, local authorities, Education Scotland, parents and children and young people themselves to develop the secondary legislation and the guidance that will ensure that we get the detail right on how things will work in practice. I firmly believe that the bill helps to move Scotland forward in terms of our ambition to embed excellence and equity in education and our determination to create a world-class system in which every child has the chance to succeed. I look forward to today's debate and urge members to pass the education bill. Mark Griffin, up to seven minutes, as we are very tight for time. I come to the chamber today to debate the education bill in its final form and in all likelihood to pass the bill at decision time tonight. I have said it before and I will say it again at the first step towards solving a problem is recognising that there is one and it is welcome that the Government is acting now almost nine years after entering office. Any attempt to close the attainment gap is welcome but we believe that this piece of legislation could be so much more ambitious and yet, where the Government has shown some ambition, there are serious questions around the practicalities of delivery and the intent behind it, given the ever-reducing budgets of education departments and our local councils. We have set out areas where we feel the bill could have been improved, a specific focus on looked after children, reviewing the resources available to support closing the attainment gap when new powers on taxation become available, re-entered internationally around benchmarking and targets on reducing the attainment gap on literacy. As I have already said in the debate on amendments, I think that the Government does owe a particular duty of care to children in care because our children's government should be judged on how it supports the most vulnerable in our society and I do not think that they become more vulnerable than young people in our care. The system is failing those children and this bill and the face of this bill, there is nothing to address that. We have consistently called for the Government to adopt our fair start fund using the new powers coming to this Parliament to raise the rate of income tax on those earning more than £150,000 to £50,000. Rory Mayer, the co-sla chief executive, said, why are we keeping tax the same and making public service cuts? That is the very definition of an austerity budget. That is the description of the austerity budget that the Government will be delivering tomorrow and we feel that the Government should have made a commitment to increase the level of taxes paid by the wealthiest in our country to suppose those who need it most. Our fair start fund would have targeted resources over and above what the Government have allocated to the Scottish attainment funding crucially would follow the child. We have welcomed that Government ambition to close the attainment gap but there is still that big question over how that will be achieved. The attainment fund should be used to close the gap but thousands of pupils across the country are missing out on support. Under the plans, more than 1,500 schools in Scotland get no extra support to close the gap between the richest and the rest and with £500 million of cuts to local services, including our schools, coming into the Government's budget. There is a real risk that pupils who are already at a disadvantage will get left even further behind. Figures from the improvement service have shown that the average spend per primary school pupil in 2010-11 was £5,214 and has now dropped to £4,653 in 2015-16, a £561 per pupil drop in education. In light of the further cuts to local government's budgets, it is hard to see how education departments will be able to make real inroads in tackling the issue of educational inequality even after this bill passes. On international testing, with the introduction of the national improvement framework and the additional data from testing, we felt that that data could have been collected and constructed in a way to align with international benchmarks in the study that we mentioned in the amendments on TIMS and PIRLs that would have allowed us to compare ourselves to other leading education providers in other countries. It would be interesting to see, given what the cabinet secretary said in the previous debate about not wanting to restrict the number of studies, exactly what the wide range of international studies the Government now decides to participate in. We also felt that the Government could have been more ambitious with the legislation enclosing the attainment gap that suggested a target on reducing the attainment gap for 95 per cent of children hitting targets for literacy by 2025. Just now, only 12 per cent of pupils are not reading well by the time they finish primary school in the targets that we have suggested would have built on those existing goals and clearly demonstrate the Government's ambition for closing the gap. The national improvement framework was brought into this bill at a late stage and could probably take up a debate on its own, but I will touch on that briefly. The framework set out what the Government feel are the key drivers of improvement, school leadership, teacher professionalism, parental engagement, assessment of children's progress, school improvement and performance information. It is difficult to disagree with the Government's conclusions, but I cannot help wonder if that document was drafted in a bubble, in which it ignores the reality of deep cuts to education budgets by the Government. It ignores concerns of the teaching profession over workload and ignores the question on national testing as repeatedly about how the Government will prevent testing data being used to compile national league tables. I also agree with the section in the framework on parental involvement. It is improving the offer that is available to parents and families to help their children to progress in literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing. Where I think it falls apart is where it then goes on to talk about schools working in partnership with community learning professionals to achieve it. Councils up and down the country are considering wiping out entire departments of community learning and development just to keep schools open. We will support this bill at decision time because anything that raises the issue of the attainment gap and at least starts to describe the problem is better than nothing at all, but we feel that the Government could have been so much bolder, so much braver, so much more ambitious when it comes to making sure that every child in Scotland actually has an equal chance in life. Thank you very much. Before I call on Mary Scarlin, I just want to open debate speakers. Three minutes each please. First of all, I have to say that in terms of developing, consulting and passing this legislation, the Scottish Government has fallen far short of what may be considered best practice in any democratic institution. Despite those experiences, we are supporting the bill and I would like to put on the record my thanks to Stuart Maxwell, not an easy job during Education Committee, but I do think he did it fairly, very measured, very thorough and I do thank him for allowing myself and other members time to speak to amendments where previous consultation and the whole issue simply didn't exist. The Gaelic entitlement promised in the SNP might not be as important as it is in the Scottish Government and the whole issue simply didn't exist. The Gaelic entitlement promised in the SNP manifesto became an administrative process by which to consider parental requests for the children to learn Gaelic and having raised these issues at stage 1. I am delighted and pleased that the minister has now responded with a presumption in favour of Gaelic. With about eight weeks to go before I retire, I think I can take my credit for making sure that the SNP manifesto has been implemented in this Parliament. I do hope that the measures that we are passing today will lead to more people learning Gaelic and I do hope that it will lead to more investment in the language. However, any outcome will be based not on ourselves just sitting here parting ourselves on the back saying that we haven't done a good job on Gaelic. It can only work if we work in partnership with local authorities to ensure that what we pass today will be implemented and we would be arrogant to think otherwise. The costs that we are looking at today, £25,000 for a full assessment, we have heard from councils to say that if that is the case we will have to stop music tuition, the money has to come from somewhere and we are looking at a budget later this week but we are looking at a bill with additional costs on local authorities and talk all around us of £500 million cuts to the same local authorities. We have to be realistic, we have to be honest and we have to, whatever we do, work in partnership and with respect of those organisations and institutions that we expect to implement our legislation. The bill has given me an insight into the joint working between the Scottish Government and COSLA, as well as individual local authorities. It is quite funny that we never hear about the historical concordat and I want to put on the record that Highland Council is very proud of their excellent working relationship with the Scottish Government and I can confirm, reading all the local papers, it is very rare that you will hear Highland Council on the record criticising this Government. That was until, suddenly, with four days' notice, we are told that all the primary schools, one to three, would be a 25-hour week. The fact that people were queuing up to see Angela, none of them were councillors and certainly none of them were known by Highland Council and that is a very good council with an excellent academic record. But no consultation and no evidence base to state that this measure will benefit a child's learning or attainment. Such has been the rapid response changes to this bill that a new supplementary financial memorandum has had to be issued. A financial memorandum does not form part of the bill and it has not been passed by Parliament and, of course, it has never been seen by the Finance Committee. The document states that some of the new provisions will place new responsibilities and costs on local government and it is therefore not possible at this stage to say where all the costs will fall. Can you understand why councillors and councillors are worried if we look at the original estimated cost of this bill? For this year, it was £187,000. Well, it is now £2.5 million. In 2020, the original cost was £0.5 million and, following stage 2, it is now £12 million. It is up 24 times the original costs and very little indication as to who is paying and where the money is coming from and what the opportunity cost is. Given that Highland Council has estimated the need for 30 new teachers, I presume that the £4.8 million identified in the new financial memorandum will find these teachers. I am delighted that we now have a standardised assessment. I hope that no child will be left behind. I hope that it will be a diagnostic tool to identify development needs and that support will be given to each child as and when it is needed. I now move to the open debate. Colin Stewart-Maxill to be followed by Cara Hilton. Up to three minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am proud of this Government's record on education. The recent report by the OECD review group on Scotland's schools shows that there is plenty to be puzzled about. However, the report also underlines a number of challenges to be open about where we can do better. The First Minister has been clear in setting out the Government's twin priorities of closing the attainment gap and improving educational outcomes for all of Scotland's children. The Education Scotland bill contains a range of measures that move us closer to achieving those goals. The drive to tackle the attainment gap is at the heart of this debate and the introduction of the national improvement framework has been the focus of much discussion. The proposed use of standardised assessments has certainly been one of the more contentious parts of the bill, but the Government has consulted widely on the matter, including more than 5,000 teachers, parents, children, academics and other stakeholders in their discussions. The minister has worked hard to address concerns about the proposals and I welcome assurances that teacher judgment will continue to take priority. It is also worth noting that the OECD expert group singled out the national improvement framework proposals for praise. To quote directly from the report, Scotland has the opportunity to lead the world in developing an innovative national assessment, evaluation and improvement framework that is consistent with what is known about promoting student, professional, school and system learning. Part 2 of the bill covers the provision of Gallic medium education. It is an issue that I have been contacted about by a number of Gallic and non-Gallic speakers. I was interested to read the letter from Bruce Robertson, interim CEO of Bournau Gallic, praising the cross-party work of this Parliament on Gallic education and urging all members to get behind the bill. Mr Robertson has been clear that developing the statutory guidance on the presumption in favour of Gallic medium education, Bournau Gallic will work to strike the right balance between prioritising the needs of learners and taking reasonable account of local circumstances. My view is that, whenever possible, those who wish to learn and teach through Gallic medium education should be given the opportunity to do so and I therefore welcome the provisions in the bill strengthening support in this area. Finally, the amendments on school clothing grants introduced by the Scottish Government are also worth highlighting. The child poverty action group and others are to be applauded for bringing attention to the inconsistency in school clothing grants across the country. The provisions in the bill are designed to end the postcode lottery that currently exists, thereby removing an important barrier to education and helping hard-pressed families. I would certainly welcome further detail from the minister on what the Government plans to do to guarantee a minimum school clothing grant for disadvantaged children. Presiding Officer, I would like to conclude by offering my thanks to all those who have contributed to the work of the Education and Culture Committee during the passage of the bill. Obviously, I have not been able to cover the whole of the bill in a speech of three minutes, but it has been very welcome all of their input and their help throughout the whole process. Their input has indeed been invaluable in making a number of improvements to the draft legislation and I look forward to it moving another step closer to ensuring a truly world-class education system for Scotland's children. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There are no greater investments than we can make in our children and ensuring that all our children get the best start in life. We all want Scotland to have a world-class education system to be proud of and we all aspire to have Scotland in which every single child has the opportunity to fulfil their true potential. We all know too that we will only ever achieve a fairer, more progressive Scotland if we ensure that life is fairer, better and more equal for every child. It can never be right that a child's postcode has more influence on their achievements in life than talent, effort or hard work. So I'm pleased that there's real recognition across the chamber about the need to put closing the gap at the centre of all we do. I do believe, though, that the bill is a missed opportunity to be much bolder about tackling the inequality that undermines the opportunities of too many children across Scotland. Ambitious goals are all well and good, but they must be backed up with concrete policies to really end the cycle of disadvantage. Policies like Scottish Labour's fair start fund which would see investment to support poorer children in every school and every community. In my constituency it would mean an extra £1 million a year direct schools to support measures to tackle the gap on top of the Government's attainment challenge. Our aspirations must be backed up with clear targets too so that we can really measure progress and ensure that schools and educational authorities are able to recognise success. This is highlighted in the excellent briefing for today's debate by the Child Poverty Action Group. I am disappointed that the Scottish Government has opposed Scottish Labour's proposals to set a target of having the attainment gap within a decade and indeed all our amendments today. However, I am very happy that the education bill does start to tackle the issue that I raised during the stage 1 debate on the school week and in our debate on the amendments earlier this afternoon. Every parent and carer across Scotland should have the right to a minimum number of hours of learning per week for their child when they send them to school. I hope that this change and willingness to act will ensure that all children, wherever they live in Scotland, have an equal right to at least 25 hours teaching time a week during term time. However, will parents across Scotland should no longer face cuts to the school week as councils are forced into desperate measures, the reality is that our goal of closing the gap will be threatened by the huge cuts to council budgets. In fact, 45 per cent of the council's budget is spent in education and local authorities right across Scotland have said that the additional cuts announced by John Swinney could have potentially devastating consequences for local budgets for schools and nurseries. We can't cut the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms if we're cutting the budgets for our schools, for our nurseries for our early years programmes. In conclusion, I hope that the Scottish Government will think again that we will look at Labour's policies and act now to protect education budgets. Let's use the powers of our Scottish Parliament to ensure that our children don't pay the price of austerity. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, like others, have done thank those who helped the committee in our gathering of evidence. It was more of a challenge than usual, partly because of the rather eclectic mix of issues that were contained within the bill, partly by the chaotic approach that the Government had taken to consultation, which appeared to be on-going as we were considering the bill, whether it's in terms of GTCS registration in independent schools, the statutory requirement for a chief education officer, a range of issues where prior consultation clearly hadn't taken place. The most egregious of those, as Mary Scanlon identified, was in relation to the mandatory minimum of teaching hours. No evidence was provided for that. It came out of left field at the 11th hour. I heard the Cabinet Secretary earlier on tell us about the problems that were coming up, but she was before the committee in November, and even at that stage gave no hint that this was even at the back of her mind. Whatever the merits of the proposal, and we're prepared to have a debate about that, the lack of evidence, the problems that, as Mary Scanlon identified earlier, the problems that were created in certain parts of the country were such a provision. All of those suggest that this is absolutely no way to run a railway, and in a Parliament with no revising right of proposals that Government is proposing to take forward. In the time available, let me touch on a couple of key aspects of the bill. In terms of the ASL provisions, I warmly welcome the extension of the rights, and again I thank the Minister for his engagement on these issues. I realise that we've reached an honest disagreement in terms of our approach on this. I do think that it's regrettable that we haven't been able to adopt the 1991 act in the presumption at the age of 12 that that's embedded and demonstrated over two decades can work. Nevertheless, I welcome the provisions in the bill and hope that we can find a way of making those work effectively in practice. In terms of tackling inequality, I absolutely agree with the Government that a priority needs to be attached to that. I think that time will tell whether the requirements in this bill simply lead to further reporting of activity rather than more effective activity on the ground, including partnership working. I think that the attainment fund that's targeted at an area basis rather than the needs of individual pupils is regrettable. I can't see how that squares with the commitment to close the attainment gap completely. I think that a pupil premium targeted the needs of individual children wherever they live is a far more effective approach. The obsession with primary school testing, a national testing, I think will come to be regretted as the emeritus professor of education at the University of Scotland suggested that it is difficult not to see national standardised testing as anything other than a retrograde step out of sync with the vision of curriculum for excellence. In conclusion, there are elements of this bill that are very worthy. The rarity of having a successful amendment is one from which I am still reeling. I think that some of the Scottish Government claims about the impact may be slightly hyperbolic. In the context of the £5 billion worth of cuts to council budgets, we still have on education and why the children's services is yet to be seen. We will continue to oppose the proposals for national primary school testing but I confirm that Liberal Democrats will support the bill at decision time shortly. I too welcome the passage of this bill and what it actually wants to achieve. As I have said previously, the Scottish Government has to be commended for putting educational attainment at the very top of the political agenda. The bill sends a strong message nationally as well as locally ensuring that we voice our concerns about this inequality. The fact that the bill places a statutory duty on local authorities to close the educational attainment gap keeps us focused on the prize. The bill also ensures that the local authorities require a chief education officer like they do in social work. When you look at this from a previous example as a local council member myself, I can see how local authorities are now merging various departments to a stage where you have children's services and social work together. Now that is all well and good but it is good to have a chief education officer to be able to be there and actually make the argument within at management level within the authority as a chief education officer and keeps us focused on education. The £100 million attainment fund, the Scotland fund, is quite rightly targeted at primary schools that serve our most deprived communities in Scotland. The whole point of the attainment fund is to improve attainment overall and to do that we must be open to innovation and new practice. Local authorities working together, now there is a real idea for them, and sharing best practice addressing some of the issues that some of the Opposition members brought up. Education local authorities need to have a long hard look at themselves and how they do their business, how they deliver their business and how they share best practice. During some of the evidence sessions I asked representatives from COSLA and local authorities what they actually thought of various different ideas to deliver education in a way and I gave them a couple ideas that I had but they had never even looked at anything along that type. They hadn't just looked at apart from what they were doing themselves at that time but had to look at themselves and make sure that they can be up for that challenge because we do live in extremely challenging times. The national improvement framework is an important part of this bill ensuring that we have the opportunity of the right resource to the right place and child at the right time and that along with the attainment advisers and all 32 local authorities which Education Scotland said that those individuals should have the power to be able to make sure that that happens. I believe that this bill sends us in the right direction as we deal with the many challenges in closing the educational attainment gap and I believe that if we continue this debate and move forward we can actually make sure that we can make that difference. Presiding Officer, there are aspects of this legislation that are okay as far as they go for some. It is for the best that they don't go further because it is a pity that the legislation lacks ambition. Most important note, successful legislation needs more than just a bill for without better management and funding whatever the legislation is supposed to achieve for Scottish education is likely to be overwhelmed by the devastation being wrought by the finance secretary attack on the local authorities who deliver education and it may suit the SNP to pass a buck as they often do but it is wrong to blame the councils when the SNP Government expects them to operate with two hands tied behind their backs underfunded on one hand and hamstrung by the undeliverable commitments on the other and that is why Labour sought a review of progress on the aims of this bill and specifically a look as whether extra resources will be required and it is deeply disappointing that the SNP did not support this. While league tables between schools do not accurately reflect their relative merits and can have undesirable consequences the same is not true for international comparisons. For if we are to collect data it should be in a form that enables us to benchmark the performance of our education system as a whole against those of other countries and speaking about Government performance in education if the Government is confident of its ability to tackle the attainment gap why is it so reluctant to set a target to have the gap using attainment gaps should mean ensuring that no one is left behind or underperform because they are disadvantaged and that means extra help for disadvantaged groups such as looked after children and it's disappointing that Labour's proposals were not taken on board the Government's unwillingness to listen as a barrier to progress and this is shown by their reluctance to accept and address concerns from outside this chamber and I know in particular the briefing by several bodies including the Children and Young Peoples Commissioner and the Equality and Human Rights Commission which argued that while extending rights for 12 to 15 year olds the bill would also create barriers for exercising those rights we heard from Liam McArthur about the difficulty this would cause so again it's a pity that these amendments fell in conclusion I will be supporting this bill but I have miscovins about its content and I have miscovins about the SNP's commitment and I have miscovins about the SNP's ability to deliver a better education so my vote will not be a ring endorsement The Scottish Green Party welcomes the introduction of a duty on ministers to reduce inequalities of outcome though we would have preferred a focus on increasing teacher numbers and reducing class sizes but we are concerned with potential outcomes of the duty on local authorities to follow the national improvement framework when it comes to assessment of children's progress the cabinet secretary clearly understands that we require a broad approach to reducing the attainment gap one that requires work within between and beyond schools but we already have a wealth of data at a local authority level and we are more than capable of working together to meet any data needs so while we welcome the cabinet secretary's efforts to ensure assurance on the potential risks of reintroducing standardised testing we remain concerned that in practice it will be very difficult to prevent the data from tests coming out in a way that allows leak tables to be constructed we will support the general principles of the bill but we do believe that testing should remain an internal use an internal tool for use by professionals and while teachers will quite properly decide when tests are carried out the risk of the reappearance of national leak tables remains in closing I would also ask the cabinet secretary to describe what the government will do with this new evidence that it hasn't been able to do so far or is unable to do at present thank you I now move the closing speeches I now call on Liz Smith up to four minutes keep changing the amount of time I have Mark Griffin made a very interesting point when he opened the Labour Party's comments in that when you look at a bill you have to ask what it's for what is it trying to do and what problems is it trying to address and I think this education bill which we will support when the decision time comes is a little mixed in terms of its success I think there have been several problems within this some of them relate to a lack of clarity in the drafting and to the language and that has come through various sections of the bill but it's also come in some aspects of the policy memorandum where I think that different terminology has been used in different accounts actually when the intention has been to mean the same thing so I think there's been an issue there I definitely think that it's absolutely clear that there has been a lack of consultation on several key aspects very important aspects and that has taken away sometimes from some of the very good intentions that span across this bill because there are very good intentions within it can I deal a little bit with the testing issue as I said when we were looking at the amendments this afternoon we are very firm on our commitment to the process of testing because we do think that there has to be a consistency and there has to be an ensured standard that is understandable and acceptable to parents and to teachers to draw down the important data that we need which will allow us to measure that particular child's progress it's not about having more testing and I do think that some of the recent debate that we've had over this has got slightly clouded in what is actually the intention here and I'm very firm that it is a mixture of diagnostic and some of the formative testing that is already on what happens in schools but at the moment we have not got that consistency that we really need to address whether or not we are improving our educational standards as Mark Griffin also said this is a very important thing about raising attainment across the board and trying to narrow that gap nobody has any doubt whatsoever about that but the terminology within some aspects of this bill has been difficult in the way that we need to go about it and there are no doubt there are great pressures on local authorities my colleague Mary Scanlon in particular raised the issues about the Gallic community this bill does some great things but at the end of the day it is very difficult for some local authorities to hire Gallic teachers and they are the absolute essential if we're going to provide that Gallic medium education I think we've mentioned quite a lot about the additional support needs they are crucial too but they are wound up in a complexity sometimes a legal complexity and again that has made it a difficult bill from that angle so can I finish on the basis that this bill does have very good intentions I think it was a pity that it was a mixed bill because it was trying to do an awful lot of sort of catch up in other areas where perhaps the post legislative scrutiny in some other aspects of legislation has not been particularly good so I'm excited to have a catch all in some very important issues there are lots of good intentions which is why we're supporting it but I think there are some really key lessons about what the Scottish Government has to do in how it approaches that legislation and two of the most important ones are ensuring that those who are the stakeholders are going to deliver this are the ones who are being properly consulted very fully consulted and the second issue is to ensure that we have a great clarity on what we're trying to do Thanks up to five minutes please Mr Gray Thank you let me start by congratulating the cabinet secretary for getting the education bill to this stage and its imminent approval I think by the Parliament this evening that's always an achievement for any minister and we'll be supporting her in the vote tonight because there are a good number of things that we do support some of which have not really had much of a mention so the creation of the chief education officer is something that we supported the head teacher qualification which the cabinet secretary spoke about an important step forward in improving the professional standards of our teaching profession also GTC registration of all teachers in the independent sector as well as the state sector we support the measures on Gallic medium education happily strengthened I think at stage 2 and the learning hours duty which as Mr MacArthur pointed out we did in a form bring in at stage 2 I can't help but be a little amused by the cabinet secretary saying that she'd been aware of this recently for example when she was in the Highlands since I think around 2010 when her colleague Mr Mackay was running Renfrewshire council and tried to make exactly this change which would be outlawed by this legislation and ever since I felt it was something that we should introduce so it may be new to the bill but it's not new in terms of being an issue but I suppose if I'm honest if that was how the bill had stayed it probably would have been a worthy bill but hardly air-shattering so it became a much more important piece of legislation when it became primarily about closing the attainment gap with the introduction of the national performance improvement framework and we've already debated today the process of how that happened and some of the curious elements of it that it wasn't there and then it was there in name but we didn't know what the framework actually was and it is still worrying that I think Liz Smith used the word cloudy that it's still quite cloudy as to what the framework will do particularly in terms of testing I have said that we accept the assurances the cabinet secretary and the First Minister have given about national testing I hope she understands that we are taking a lot on trust on this and as our teachers and parents and I hope that I am right about this and in fact Liam McArthur proves to be wrong and it doesn't reintroduce high stakes testing but this bill I think could have been much stronger it is the kind of legislation which is often criticised and I don't have the exact Keir Bloomer quote here but somebody used it earlier on I think it was Mr McArthur about pious thinking masquerading as legislation and there are bad examples of that our climate change legislation could be accused of being that patients rights legislation where we legislate for something which is terribly worthy but don't really know how we are going to deliver it and we have pressed the government to try and show some confidence in their own legislation and their own purpose to that legislation that's why we wanted to ensure the re-entry of Scotland into Timbs and Pearls global comparisons because if we believe we are working towards a world-class education system we shouldn't be afraid to judge it against the world and that's why we wanted to set a modest target for having the attainment gap in a decade which the cabinet secretary resisted again today I don't really understand why I'm sure I heard the First Minister talk about closing the attainment gap in a decade so the target we were setting was extremely modest by her standards and the danger of course is that people might conclude she wasn't serious not serious about what this bill sets out to do but the greatest criticism of this kind of legislation of course is that it legislates for an end but it fails to will the means to actually achieve that end and that's why we have tried both at stage 2 and again today to strengthen the bill by building in assurances that the means will be forthcoming you know the Scottish Government in this bill set obligations on others but they rather dodge some of these obligations themselves the cabinet secretary claimed a strong track record in investing in our children's futures but you know that's not really true the attainment fund only £25 million in a budget of £4.5 billion 1,500 schools where children from poorer families get no help at all it's not true in general either you can't claim a track record of investing in the children's futures if you've cut 4,500 teachers and you're cutting half a billion pounds in local authorities so we do support this bill and we do support its purpose but it could be so much stronger if it came with the commitments to make everything actually happen we'll pass this bill tonight but tomorrow when the budget comes to this chamber we can show that we actually have the will to make it happen as well thank you I now call on Angela Constance to wind up the debate cabinet secretary six minutes thank you I've been a minister now for five years and as chance would have it this is actually my first piece of legislation and this has been a very wide range in debate and I'm quite sure when I go home tonight that my eight-year-old will be somewhat disappointed that it does not include provisions that ban singing practice dancing with girls or indeed home work and over the weeks and the months we've all had a very wide-ranging debate regarding many matters that have a direct impact on Scottish education we've discussed at length the importance of leadership at all levels and I commend this bill in terms of its introduction the qualification for headship I believe the chief education officers posts are very important we have to have quality of leadership at all levels and we need to have ensure that we have registered teachers in all of our schools as well the bill also has a number of very practical measures to improve access to education and I can assure Miss Hilton that as a Government we'll continue to work with the child poverty action group and this bill has certainly absorbed many of the issues that they have raised with us and of course we will continue to seek improvements where we can and I'm proud of the fact that we will introduce regulations to ensure a consistency of school clothing grants and that we're extending the free school meal entitlement to children in early years settings with private providers and I am very proud that we are ensuring a national entitlement of a school week in primary school based on 25 hours a week reflecting curriculum for excellence curriculum for excellence was built on the basis of a primary school week of 25 hours and of course where there are exceptions that are in the interests of children that of course will be reflected in the regulations and how we go forth and I take on board some of the criticisms in and around the lack of consultation and I'm sure some members will indeed understand and accept this that sometimes you just have to make decisions and on balance I would rather be criticised for the action that I've taken rather than the action that I have not taken and at the heart of this bill is indeed the national improvement framework it very much is the next stage of curriculum for excellence the OECD in the recent report are very supportive of our approach and they have laid down the challenge to us that we have the opportunity to be world leaders in developing an integrated assessment and evaluation framework and we have debated standardised assessment at length but I think there's a real opportunity here given that 30 out of 32 local authorities already do some form of national standardised assessment and it's important to recognise and if I can say this direct to Mr McArthur and to Alison Johnstone that we've been very clear given the length of consultation and the reflection that we have had with parents, teachers representatives of bodies educational experts that we have absolutely no desire to introduce an assessment window that the government is not proposing or introducing an assessment window in any shape or form we believe that those decisions about when to assess children should be taken by teachers and that our Scottish standardised assessment it will bolster professional teacher judgment and in no way it will replace it and we will picking up on a point made by Ian Gray publish for the first time the proportion of children reaching curriculum for excellence levels for the first time ever and that information will of course be informed by the Scottish standardised assessment tool and of course other tools that teachers use on a daily basis but in essence we have to ensure that we have the right information at the right time for each and every child to ensure that our system can act to improve the outcomes and achievements of our children and we will indeed have to measure progress and this government is not shying away from that but we have to step up to the challenge laid down to us by the OECD to ensure that we develop the right measurements that reflect the breadth of the curriculum and what we are trying to achieve to equip our children for an ever changing world and First Minister has been cleared that within a decade we want to be within touching distance of actually closing that attainment gap because nothing else is good enough and often in education there is a debate about outcomes and it is important that we talk about outcomes and the variation of outcomes depending on the background of a child or where you live and that isn't according to Audit Scotland always about the money that you spend but it's important to recognise that councils this year plan to spend a 3.3% increase in cash terms 2015-16 it's important to recognise that revenue spending on schools has risen under this SNP government it's important to recognise that revenue spending per pupil has risen under this Government and of course we've heard a lot about Labour's plans today and we'll hear more about that tomorrow, no doubt but as their leader conceded on the radio this morning there is no guarantee that the extra revenues raised will actually be spent on education so here we are another instrument by Labour Presiding Officer just to say that we've had by and large a constructive debate about the Education Scotland Bill which is very much about the new stage of our journey and education to ensure that every child has every chance to succeed and I commend this Bill to Parliament thank you that concludes the debate on the Education Scotland Bill the next site of business is consideration of motions 15512 and 15513 in the name of Stuart Stevenson on code of conduct revisions and written statement determinations I call Stuart Stevenson to speak to and move the motions on behalf of the standards procedures and public appointments committee Mr Stevenson Presiding Officer with the interests of members of the Scottish Parliament amendment act 2016 becoming law we now need to amend the code of conduct for MSPs and the written statement forms which set out the information which members are required to provide when registering interests the standards procedures and public appointments committee report on code of conduct revisions describes the required changes we also propose changes through those for cross party groups our act moves interest currently registrable with the electoral commission into the Parliament's own regime the benefits are MSPs financial interests are in one place on the Parliament's website MSPs will only have to provide information once Parliament officials can advise members on all their interests the complaints process is now all in the hands of one body the commissioner for ethical standards in public life in Scotland the electoral commission who will now rely on our collecting the needs are satisfied with the proposed changes which I am asking Parliament to approve today members new and old can rely on sage advice from our clerks on registration matters talk to them, listen to them, protect our individual and collective reputations the 2016 act enhances the sanctions available after breaches of the rules broadens the existing paid advocacy offence and adjusts the threshold for registering certain gifts all of the changes are set out in the revised code of conduct now on cross party groups the committee previously reviewed our cross party group rules and their operation too few groups fully complied with the form and intention of our rules so twice a year we now consider a report on the activities of groups to the code with some prompting from standards clerks groups are operating to standard where necessary we've indicated that we can deregister a group we have in this context also considered whether the rules are working effectively and whether there is a need for further change in part this was driven by our consideration of some complaints in recent times against groups the revised code of conduct provide clarity for the committee and the public on the status of attendees at meetings and certainty for groups on the purpose and timings of their AGMs we will also consider we also consider that automatic re-registration of a group in a new parliamentary session should not continue prior to our agreeing registration we now routinely assess whether a group's proposed remit overlaps with others the start of a session is a good time to test all previous groups which want re-registration in that way we need a proper balance between the number of groups which we would wish to cover a wide area of interest and the number of MSPs available to be members and finally we're also proposing changes the rules relating to groups being accorded recognition late in a parliamentary session groups should not be able to receive recognition if there is not enough time left in a session for groups to demonstrate that they're able to comply with the requirements of the code we're therefore proposing that new groups will not be permitted to be established after March in the year preceding an election in exceptional circumstances Presiding Officer, I move the two motions you referred to in my name Thank you Mr Stevenson the question on these motions will put decision time business is consideration of motion number 15504 in the name of Drew Smith on the appointment of the chair of the Scottish commission for human rights I call on Drew Smith to move the motion on behalf of the selection panel on behalf of that cross-party selection panel established under our standing orders to invite members to make a nomination to Her Majesty the Queen that Junith Robertson be appointed to the chair of the Scottish human rights commission the official report should record that the selection panel was chaired by you and the other members appointed to the panel where Christine Grahame, John Lamont, Kenny MacAskill, Alison McInnes, Fiona McLeod and Elaine Murray Members will be aware that Parliament is not subject to the code of practice for ministerial appointments to public bodies in Scotland however Parliament does follow the guidelines to ensure that best practice is observed and that the process is open and fair on behalf of the panel therefore I would like to thank Louise Rose the independent assessor who has provided Parliament with a validation certificate confirming that this process complied with good practice and that the nomination is made on merit after a fair, open and transparent process Turning to our nominee Members will wish to welcome Judith Robertson to the gallery Ms Robertson was the unanimous choice of the panel from a strong field of candidates invited to interview Ms Robertson currently works for the Scottish Association for Mental Health as programme director of CME prior to joining SAMH Judith Robertson was head of Oxfam Scotland The panel believes that Ms Robertson will bring to the post enthusiasm, integrity and a determination to promote widespread awareness, understanding of and respect for human rights across all communities in Scotland and I'm sure that Parliament will want to wish her every success in her new role In closing I think that Parliament would also wish to record its thanks to Professor Alan Miller the inaugural chair of the commission and to wish him well for the future I move the motion in my name Thank you Mr Smith The question this motion will put decision time to which we now come There are four questions to be put as a result of today's business The first question is at motion number 15521 in the name of Angela Constance on the Education Scotland Bill be agreed to Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to and the Education Scotland Bill is passed The next question is at motion number 15512 in the name of Stuart Stevenson on code of conduct revisions be agreed to Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to The next question is at motion number 15513 in the name of Stuart Stevenson on written statement determination be agreed to Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to The next question is at motion number 15504 in the name of Bruce Smith on the appointment of the chair of the Scottish commission for human rights be agreed to Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to That concludes decision time We now move to members business Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly