 gwneud i gweithio yn rhanig oedd y flwyddyn iawn i ddigonio a'r teismeth i ddweud o ddechrau. AOOO1OnG, mae gweithio i gweithio ar y fally ar hyn cwm hwnnw, yn y myfyr i ein grei ac i ddepwyd i'r prysbau ffuturryl. Gweithio ar y pai ddweud o ddigonio, mae'r gweithio beth o'r prysgafodol i'r panf Profioglaethol, ac ches i ddugdale, i ddim yn rhanig o ddweud i'r myfyr i ein grei 14 mlynedd, ms Dugdale. Education is my passion. I was raised by teachers. I learned from them how education can enrich lives and overcome any predetermined destiny. Education offers a first chance for individuals to blossom into the people they are capable of becoming. And a second chance to start again, to choose a new life. Our schools and nurseries are where we place our children's future into the trust of the Government's hands. Our colleges and universities are where we see the future prosperity of our very nation. Education is both an anti-poverty policy and our most important economic policy. Education is everything. Our nurseries, schools, colleges and universities are the stairway out of disadvantage. They are the map that shows us where to locate our potential. Ask any of the big thinkers on the left. Joseph Stiglitz tells us that if we don't invest in education, we are transmitting advantages and disadvantages across generations. Thomas Piketty tells us that the best way to increase wages and to reduce wage inequalities in the long run is to invest in education and in skill. The sad truth is that investing in education has not been the priority of this SNP Government. When this Parliament was established in 1999, we spent £204 more per person than the UK average on education. Today that death difference has fallen to just £18. We still have higher public spending than the rest of the UK. We just don't spend it on education. Education must be our national priority. The very first call for resources is the very last place that we choose to cut. Yet the SNP cuts and cuts and cuts. Teacher numbers are at a 10-year low after local councils have been cut and cut. The amount that is spent on primary pupils has been cut by over £560. Primary pupils have been cut. Secondary spend per pupil has been cut by £285. Even nurseries, supposedly the signature policy of this First Minister, have been cut by £290 per person. Audit Scotland found that every local authority has cut spending and almost every council has had to cut teacher numbers. This is a Government that came to power promising to cut primary 1 to 3 class sizes to 18 or less, yet today just 1 in 8 are in classes under 18, and 1 in 4 of our 5 to 7-year-olds are being taught in classes of more than 25. Yet the SNP just keep on cutting more cuts to childcare, £130 million less for education in the current budget and hundreds of millions of pounds more of cuts to the local authorities that run our local schools. Enough. Today we put forward a simple proposition before Parliament, no more cuts to education. We ask MSPs of all parties to vote to support one principle in one sentence. The education spending should be protected in real terms over the next five years. That might make a bit more progress, Mr MacDonald. That sentence means one thing, Presiding Officer. We will not cut education. There is no party politics in our motion, no judgment on other parties' education proposals, their record or their plans. Just that simple statement. Those who will oppose this today leave only one conclusion, that their plans include cutting education further. I thank the member for giving way. Given that her plans for income tax do not meet the cost of the proposals that are laid out in her motion today, can she tell us where the remainder will be found from, please, and does she intend to amend the budget so to explain? I will come on to the detail of that in a second. We do not just have one progressive tax policy to invest in education in the future of public services. We have four progressive tax policies to invest in the future of public services, and we have yet to see a single one from the SNP benches. However, it is simple that our motion today is not an unreasonable request, because every party in this chamber has made spending promises reaching into the next Parliament. None of us have any problem offering the good news to voters, but as a debate on income tax in the past few days has exposed, when it comes to telling voters the truth about the harder choices that we have to make, most folk run for cover. Let us take a look at the SNP's plans. They have promised to protect spending on the NHS in real terms over the next five years. They have promised to protect spending on the police in real terms over the next five years. They have promised to protect the small business bonus scheme over the next five years. They have no problem in making long-term spending commitments, so will they make the same commitment to protect education spending in real terms over the next five years? Can she confirm whether the three policy areas that she has highlighted where we have committed to protect for the next five years, if she agrees with all those commitments and if those are commitments that the Labour Party will also sign up to? I posed a question there, Presiding Officer. I was hoping that Mark McDonald might attempt to answer it, but that was much to the illusion. Of course we support those goals, but I mentioned them today to draw the contrast. If the member and the member's party can focus their spending on the NHS, on the police and the small business scheme, what is it about education and investing our young people's future that so offends them? The truth is that the SNP can do one of three things in order to rectify their position when it comes to education. It can cut areas that are protected under their current plans. It can make even bigger cuts to an even smaller number of unprotected areas such as transport, culture or justice, or it can, as we have, be honest. Be honest about the need to find new resources. The choice that we have made on those benches is not an easy choice, but we cannot go on in Scotland with a Government that pretends to stand on the left but when it comes to the crunch stands for nothing. That is why Scottish Labour has made a very clear commitment to protect education spending in real terms over the next five years. We are able to do that honestly because we have set out how we will use the powers that we have and the powers that will come. A 50p top rate to invest in closing the gap in our schools so that your chances in life do not depend on how much your parents earn. Setting the Scottish rate of income tax one pence higher to protect schools and local services from cuts, half a billion pounds more of investment in our future. That is our choice. That is the Labour choice. When people reflect on it, when they realise the scale of the cuts coming to their communities, they will know that the truth cannot be avoided. There is a choice. Some of us can pay a little more or we can all get a lot less. Make no mistake, those cuts are so severe that we will all be affected by them. They will eat into the very fabric of our society, that social contract that binds us all together. Those cuts are not just to our schools, they are cuts to the future prosperity of our nation. If you believe, as I do, that the greatest natural resource that this country has is its people, we have to invest in their future. We are faced with a global race for skills and knowledge, and the only way that Scotland can compete in that race is by investing in its people, in all of our people. SNP ministers say that they have no choice but to cut funding for schools and nurseries, yet the reality is that we have no alternative but to invest in the future. We simply cannot afford not to. Time and time again, I have heard the First Minister say that education is her number one priority, so forgive me for saying that the £100 million worth of cuts to schools and other public services is a funny way of showing it. A new analysis by economists in the Scottish Parliament shows that, under the SNP's plans, more than £2.2 billion could be stripped from Scotland's public services in the next five years from areas that it refused to protect. That is a 16 per cent cut to schools—not Labour's figures, but Spice's figures—a 16 per cent cut to schools. We cannot afford to cut our schools and our nurseries in that way. If we want to close the gap between the richest and the rest, and if we want to give every young person the skills that they need to grow our economy and succeed, we need to invest in our schools. That is why we have to use the powers that we have and the powers that are coming to protect education spending. Faced with the choice between using the powers and making cuts to our children's future, the only responsible choice is to use those powers. Who on earth can so many other areas be priorities for protecting spending but our schools, our colleges and our universities are not? That is a massive contradiction at the heart of this SNP Government. If education is a personal priority, a political priority, a policy priority, then it should be a budget priority. So I say to the SNP front bench, if you want to show you value education, don't deliver a speech that promises that you mean it, deliver a budget that proves that you really mean it. I vote today to commit to protecting education spending in real terms over the next Parliament. Our commitment to protect schools and other services by setting income tax at one pence higher than the rate set by George Osborne has now been looked at by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, the IPPR, the University of Stirling, the Resolution Foundation and the House of Commons library. All have concluded that, contrary to the First Minister's claim that this is regressive, it is progressive. It is fair and it is the only viable alternative to cutting education now, and yet the SNP still oppose it. Almost every single argument that they have mustered against it can be debunked by the facts. There is now a litany of evidence to prove that it is fair and abundance of voices saying that it is workable. However, there is one argument that they offer, which cannot be broken down by facts, because it is about the way that the SNP feel, who they really are. I have heard SNP minister after SNP minister denounced Labour's plans as a punitive tax rise. As recently as last night, the finance secretary was decrying our policy as a tax grab. Their candidate in Edinburgh West calls it Labour's tax bombshell. All this pejorative language, despite the fact that it has been warned by the STUC and countless trade unions that that is the language of the right-wing press and of the Tory party. I know that the SNP believe that they can cynically exploit our commitment to ending austerity, but let me say this. They will pay a political price, too. If they choose cuts to education over using the powers that we have now to invest in our children's future. The First Minister told the people of Scotland that the only party with the unity and the conviction to stand strong against austerity was the SNP. Today, the SNP is united in opposing the only alternative to austerity put forward in this Parliament. What happened to that strength? What happened to that conviction? I hope that they will vote to protect education today and I hope that tomorrow they will vote to provide the means to do that by rejecting John Swinney's do nothing budget. That is the choice today and for the future. Use the powers that we have to protect education or accept cuts to our future. Labour has chosen not to cut into our future. Where do the other parties stand? I move the motion in the name of Ian Gray. Thank you. I now call Angela Constance to speak to you on move amendment 15588.3. Cabinet Secretary, 10 minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This Government wants to create a world-class education system that is founded on both excellence and equity. That is why we are investing around 7.2 billion in education in the current year, helping our education system to perform well. Under this Government, our children and young people's achievements are something that we can all be proud of. Last year, our young people achieved record results in exams and qualifications and record numbers of young people left school for positive destinations. We have seen the highest ever level of students obtain HE qualifications at college and last week's UK statistics show that record numbers of Scottish domicile students are applying to go to university in Scotland this year. Perhaps later, we are also making progress in closing the attainment gaps, Presiding Officer, with an increase in the number of school leavers from the 20 per cent most deprived communities achieving three or more A's at higher at no. I am going to make some progress first, thank you. We have also seen a decline in the number leaving without qualifications of at least level 3 or better. This year, UCAS figures showed a 50 per cent increase in university applications from 18-year-olds in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland since 2006. Perhaps later, others have acknowledged that progress. The improvement service found that all the available measures of educational outcomes have improved, including the performance of children from the most deprived areas of Scotland. The OECD review identified that there are clear upward trends in the attainments and positive destinations. Sadly, you would never know any of that if you only ever listened to Scottish Labour. I will later, but there is more to do, my prerogative. We are also investing in specific priorities to improve all children's literacy and numeracy skills while also closing the attainment gap between children from the most and least deprived communities. Perhaps later, the Read, Write, Count campaign for all families with children in primary 1 to primary 3 is a great example. Since launching the campaign last August, with £1.5 million of funding, all primary 1 children have been given additional counting and writing materials. Packs have been given to every library in Scotland and our national social marketing campaign has achieved a remarkable 100,000 webpage views. Perhaps Scottish Labour should pay more attention to the Read, Write, Count campaign or even the Make Maths campaign, because they clearly are having a little problem and need to do a little bit more work on their numeracy. How else do you explain the fiction concocted by Labour about a 16 per cent cut in education spending over the next four years? That suggestion is based on a false premise. We haven't set any tax or spending plans beyond next year, so there is nothing to substantiate their claims about a cut to education spending gladly. Ian Gray. The cabinet secretary has inadvertently come to the core of the question of today's debate. We are asking her to set those plans and to protect education spending. Will she do that now? Cabinet secretary, and I can give you your time back. I do have a bit of time. In case Mr Gray had it noticed, there is something called an election to be held soon, and the Government will of course set out our proposals in our manifesto and indeed let the people of Scotland judge. What we won't be doing is forcing folk already on a low income to pay for Tory austerity, not once but twice. Ms Dugdale says that she's the parents, her parents were teachers, while I'm the daughter of low paid workers, and I won't be standing aside and allowing the low paid to be punished even further. Kezia Dugdale. I thought for a second that this policy would punish low income earners. I wouldn't be proposing it, but I've got the IPPR, the Resolution Foundation, the University of Stirling, David Bell, David Dinsart, the House of Commons library, and Spice. At least six veritable sources there all saying that 40 per cent of the lowest-paid Scots won't just be worse off, they'll be better off as a consequence of Labour's policy, with six sources of evidence like that. Why can't the education secretary accept it? Cabinet secretary. For a moment, I thought that Ms Dugdale was going to tell us all about her detailed plans about how she intended to pay for her £5 billion wish list. The only idea that they have come up with today is to shift the burden of Tory austerity further on to the low paid. It's all very well making promises now, promises that they find well know that they will never get the chance to deliver. In my book, Presiding Officer, this is the gesture politics of the very worst kind. But we're still, Presiding Officer, we have a misunderstanding of Labour who don't even understand technical budget adjudgments. We're still a technical budget adjudgment has been mistaken for a real cash thumb that simply doesn't exist. There is no actual cut of £126 million to the front-line higher education budget. Excluding this rab-charge adjudgment, funding for education has, in fact, increased by over 1 per cent in cash terms. Further, the latest figures suggest that far from falling education spending by councils is set to increase by 3.3 per cent this year. Perhaps Labour can explain its list of ever-ending spending commitments, and perhaps it can explain how an education loan that has now exceeded £0.5 billion or that its funding plan wouldn't raise enough, as Dr Allan says, to make the real-terms increase in education funding that the motion has called for. We already know that raising income tax by a penny would hit low-income households, including those with children, the hardest. First of all, those households would feel the pain of that tax rise, and it wouldn't even raise enough to meet the £560 million that is required to apply a five-year real-terms increase. While Labour indulges in fantasy economics, that Government will get on with the real investment. For example, the £2.9 billion in 2016-17 to prioritise early years and early intervention to close the attainment gap, to support the next phase of curriculum for excellence, to continue supporting reform in Scotland's colleges, and to maintain free access to higher education. I can't quite understand her argument when she says that she complains about Tory austerity and then says that she's got record amounts of investment in education. The two don't go together. Will she just not accept that we need to have a progressive policy of a penny on income tax for education? That's the way to invest in our children. I was nearly pointing out that, once she excluded the RAB charge, surely all the finance spokespeople will have some indication of what that's about. It's not real money, it's a ring-fenced and it's a technical adjustment. Surely I'm entitled to point out that, overall, our portfolio has increased by 1 per cent because we have made choices about our priorities for this budget this year. No, thanks. I've been more than generous with my time, Mr Gray. Undoubtedly, we must maintain high levels of investment in education and we will always do what we can to prioritise education funding, as we always have. The public sector, maybe Mr Rennie will know something about this since he was complicit with the Tories, but the public sector in Scotland faces significant challenges. We have Westminster's continued fixation with austerity that has reduced Scotland's finances, forcing us, yes indeed, to make difficult budget decisions, and we have to be sure that we maximise that impact from every penny, not a concept that the Liberal Democrats or Scottish Labour are overly familiar with. When people compare our record to theirs, Labour's years in power between 2003 and 2007 were a complete missed opportunity. They squandered the relative plenty that they had and failed to improve standards in education. The PISA scores on reading and writing, which we are making progress on restoring, fell sharply under Labour. In accordance with our manifesto commitment, teacher numbers have been broadly maintained since 2011. Thank you very much. However, when we look at Labour, when they failed to meet their many, many targets for education, they simply replaced them. Classic Labour, exclusions were up, our standing in PISA was down and they did nothing to close the attainment gap, and it has taken this Government to halt the decline in education. Labour was not credible in Government then. It is incredible in opposition now, and it seems increasingly incredible that it will ever find itself in Government again. Its approach ignores the reality for all the devolved administrations in these straight-in-times. Scotland is not the only country managing poor financial settlement for Westminster. Labour criticised the local government funding settlement here in Scotland, but, of course, it is silent on the 2 per cent cut that Labour and Wales has applied to its funding for councils. They conveniently ignored that we have maintained over £1 billion investment in higher education for the fifth successive year and start contrast to the 32 per cent funding cut that has been applied to universities in Wales this year. I have given way three times their 10-minute speech, so no thank you. I want to finish by making this offer to Scottish Labour. They should join us in common cause on behalf of the Scottish people against a UK Government determined to do real and lasting harm to all of our public services, not least education. The alternative is that they can stay carping from the sidelines, presenting half-baked ideas to raise tax, ignoring who hurts the most when costs go up, but they do not. Until they decide—Mr Bibby, Ms Campbell, Audra, please—until Labour decides, we will keep focused on the job at hand, making less work better, delivering real investments and tangible improvements for all our children, maintaining teacher numbers so that our children get a high-quality learning experience, replacing a quarter of all schools so that more children learn in decent environments, and giving every three-and-four-year-old six hundred hours of free early learning in childcare and every child in primary one to three a free school meal so that they can get a better start in life. That is the kind of success that a competent Government delivers, the kind delivered on promises that are meant to be kept rather than pledges made in the cheap. I will put on the record that I would like to commend Kezia Dugdale on her commitment to education. The reason I do that is that I happen to know Kezia's father, who was a headmaster at Elgin academy. I know what his commitment was, and I know locally the respect that that man was held in. On that note, it is worth putting on the record that I commend each and every single teacher and every subject in every classroom across Scotland for the work that they do every single day. I am very pleased that education is a battleground for May's elections, but having listened to the cabinet secretary, I am even more pleased that I am retiring. I will not have to—it is like the rerun of the referendum again. In the time that I have been in this Parliament, the one area of education—I say this across party—where I think that this Parliament has made the most progress, along with the rest of the UK, is in early years. Given that there can be 13 months of difference in the development of a child, including vocabulary by the age of five, the extension of free childcare to 30 hours a week to mirror the UK Government's commitment is welcome. However, I also want to put on the record that despite the improved training and qualifications for this workforce, registration for the Scottish Social Services Council and an inspection regime that is thorough and reflects the development of every child, most of this workforce is still paid the minimum wage. And successive Governments have asked more and more of them, but still do not place a value on that workforce. So, while we are all battling it out about education and pay for teachers and pay for lecturers, can we not forget those who are educating, training and supporting the under fives? And the Scottish Government does have a role here, because it is through our local authorities that nurseries are paid the minimal rates, which is reflected in staff pay. I ask the Scottish Government going forward if that—no, our manifesto is not absolutely complete, but I do ask it going forward if that is something that it would take on for consideration. And talking of local government, I have never, ever known the relationship between the Scottish Executive or the Scottish Government and local authorities to be so badly divided. And nobody benefits from that. No one. The arrogant and bullying approach by the Scottish Government leaves little decision making and discretion in our local authorities. Today's Scots win—never thought I would read it—Mr Swinney is described as using Chicago gangster tactics. I actually think that the Godfather himself could learn a few lessons from the approach in Scotland today from the Government. Given the reported £2.2 billion cuts to local authorities, which will impact on education, I can fully appreciate the principle behind Labour's motion. As I said, we are at the stage of finalising manifesto commitments and costings, and this principle is essentially ring fencing, and it does require a much wider debate and consideration, particularly given that we are opposed to an increase in tax. But rather than micromanaging local government, the reduction of the attainment gap could be better managed by head teachers being given more autonomy and more respect to run their own schools. It is teachers who know best which pupils need the help and support and when they need it. As Audit Scotland stated, deprivation is not the only factor when it comes to low attainment. As we are talking about gangster tactics, when the Highland Council found out about the Government imposing a 25-hour week on primaries 1 to 3 four days before the vote at stage 2, with no consultation whatsoever, even the SNP councillors were embarrassed but they kept their heads down and remained loyal, as they were expected to do. No consultation is not only disrespectful to local authorities who we expect to implement our education policy, but it also usurps local democracy. I only wish that pupils in Scotland will again be at the heart of the education system, rather than the constant battles between the Scottish Government, local authorities and the EIS. But as a lecturer in further and higher education for over two decades before coming here in 1999, I know more than most just how further education transforms lives. It transformed mine. I left school at 15, worked a full-time job, went to night classes, returned as a single parent with two children to get enough hires to get into university, then became a lecturer in economics and the rest is history. So I know how it transforms lives, not only mine, but over the years I watched students who slipped through the net at school, but they got a second chance in further education. So the Scottish Government has not only cut the places for part-time students by 152,000, but it has cut 74,000 places for students over 25, and yet I was one of them. In 2014, almost 20,000 school students attended further education colleges a fall of 70 per cent or, to be more precise, a fall of 48,000. Even the 20 to 24 group has fallen by 9 per cent to 2014. So when Audit Scotland states correctly that the merger process has had a minimal negative impact on students, what they are talking about are those who are still students. It is an absolute negative impact on the 152,000 part-time places cut, the 74,000 places for over 25s cut, the 48,000 places for school pupils under 16 cut, and the 9 per cent cut for 20 to 24s. So further education, Presiding Officer, is no longer a second chance for around 300,000 people, is no chance with the SNP for so many people across Scotland who deserve better. The Scottish Nationalist Government is very proud of its record, further and higher education and widening access, so I give it the opportunity today to explain to this chamber why it is in England of the most deprived 20 per cent of young people, 18 per cent were accepted to university in 2015, and yet in Scotland of the most deprived 20 per cent only 10 per cent go to university. Why is that? Why does England get it so right and we get it so long? I am closing as well, so I will finish my speech when I return back. Thank you very much. I now call in Liam McArthur to speak to remove amendment 15588.1. Seven minutes, please, Mr McArthur. I welcome this further debate on education. It reflects many of the issues that we considered when I led a similar debate, a fortnight or so ago, and I thank Kezia Dugdale and Ian Gray and their colleagues for enabling this to happen. Scottish Liberal Democrats agree with Labour that education spending must, as a minimum, be protected over the next five years. This is not an undue focus on so-called inputs, rather it is an entirely appropriate response to the considerable challenges facing Scottish education at the moment—a hundred and fifty two thousand college places lost since 2007—a failure to deliver on early learning ambitions with just seven per cent of two-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds accessing free provision, a quarter of the number promised by ministers. Our education system is slipping down the international standings, and in this context a commitment from each party to maintain education spending would be a welcome start. However, there is a risk that persevering with the current approach will simply embed some of the failures that the SNP has presided over over recent years. It will not deliver the transformation in education that Scottish Liberal Democrats want to see. It may not even be enough to reverse some of those worrying trends, but, as I said, in the context of the impending cuts that the Scottish Government has chosen to impose, it would at least be a start. Those cuts are real, and those cuts are savage. £500 million from those local authorities tasked with delivering up schools and childcare. Bizarrely, in highlighting those concerns, I have incurred the wrath of nationalists locally in Orkney accusing me of scaremongering, yet the convener of the local council condemned the cuts as totally unacceptable. Councils across Scotland have not been mincing their words. They told the finance secretary in no uncertain terms that his cuts will hurt front-line services and, quote, prove very bad for the most vulnerable in our communities. Mr Swinney's response was to increase the fines for those daring to disobey. Some councils have already started to spell out where the cuts will fall when half of what councils do is education. Minister should be in no doubt that those cuts will be felt most severely by our children and in our classrooms. That is why Scottish Liberal Democrats have proposed a penny for education—£475 million—that will enable us to make the biggest investment in education since devolution. It will enable us to deliver transformation in Scottish education from the early years right through to further education. It will enable investment in a pupil premium, in early learning, in our colleges and in our schools. That investment in education will get Scotland fit for the future. It will help to propel our education system back up the international tables. It will help the one-in-five businesses that presently cannot find people with the skills that they need. Crucially, that investment would ensure that every child and young person has the opportunity to get on in life. That is a progressive alternative to the cuts that are imposed or proposed by SNP ministers. Cuts to schools that are anything but progressive. The cabinet secretary did not just take my word for it, as Kezia Dugdale indicated earlier. The IPPR this week said that, for Scotland, matching the UK Government's tax plans would reduce tax for the rich but not the poor. The proposals of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and Scottish Labour to raise income tax by a penny would increase tax on the rich but not on the poor. The resolution foundation think tank concluded that the policy would reduce the impact of cuts and that it, quote, would be progressive. Thanks to the big increases in the personal allowance secured by the Liberal Democrats and the previous Government. For all their voodoo maths, SNP ministers cannot escape the fact that someone on £100,000 would pay 30 times as much as someone on £21,000. Under our plans, someone would have to earn more than £19,000 to pay more tax next year compared to this year. The way that the Liberal Democrats would spend the penny for education would be similarly progressive. We would reverse the cuts to education, focus on creating opportunity where there is none or where it is presently curtailed, focus on giving children and young people and particularly those from the poorest backgrounds, the best possible start in life. Ministers tired excuses no longer apply. The Scottish Government's income is no longer fixed. We have the powers and there are costed alternative proposals, tax proposals on the table. We don't need to wait yet ministers are happy to talk left and walk right. John Swinney has chosen to impose the kind of budget he has previously condemned. As my amendment notes, there are many examples of world class teaching and learning experience from early learning through to further and higher education. Ministers are right to state that Scottish education has the potential to lead the world. However, they once again overlook that under their leadership, our international standing is headed in the wrong direction. For all the positives, the OECD report made clear that this is now slipping. Implementing savage cuts to education is a destructive response that will do nothing to reverse a trend that should seriously worry members in this chamber. It is certainly worrying parents, businesses that can't get the skilled workforce that they need and those who care about nurturing the talents of each and every individual in our country. Liberal Democrats aren't prepared to stand by for the SNP, happy to demand powers but not use them, happy to blame Westminster rather than take responsibility, happy to slash council budgets rather than invest in the future of our children and young people. That is why we will be supporting the Labour motion this evening and I move the amendment in my name. Many thanks. That brings us to the open debate speeches of six minutes with a little bit of time in hand for interventions. I call on George Adam to be followed by Joanne Lamont. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Another week and another education debate, but that's okay because I've said during these many debates that we've had how important education is to us all across the chamber and to the Scottish Government in particular. It's with the work and attainment that the Scottish Government has really put this at the top of the agenda. It's the SNP Government who has said that a child born today is one of our poorer areas shall have the same opportunity in education as one born in one of our wealthier areas. That is what the ongoing debates in educational attainment have been all about. It's been one of the debates that I've enjoyed because we've looked to the future and how we can actually deliver for all the young people in Scotland. Educational in Scotland is a success and thanks goes to the many members of our societies who are committed to delivering that, plus the focus by the Scottish Government on education has to be taken into account. Making education one of its key priorities and principles for government has ensured that progress is continually made. Our progress is recognised internationally and you only have to look at the recent OECD reports with their list of positive developments when it states levels of academic achievement are above international averages. They add achievement levels are spread relatively equally and that there are clear upwards trends in attainment in positive destinations. That shows that there is obviously scope for the future, but there is a basis of what they are to move on from. Of course, that is a complete opposite from the narrative that the Opposition members wish to create. That is not an education system in decline, but one that strives to do better and remains ambitious about for our children, young people and for their future. School education in Scotland is getting better with record exam results and a record number of school leavers in work, education or training. The number of higher passes in 2015 was up 5.5 per cent to 156,000 from 147,899 in 2014. The number of advanced high-ups at A&C in August also increased by 4 per cent to a record of 18,899 in 2015. 43,901 qualifications, specifically recognised skills for life and work, were gained last year as well. That shows that a Government who is building for the future in education can learn effectively in crumbling buildings. I remember the days when I was young. It was a long time ago, but I remember what it was like being in Victorian-built buildings and masonry flying all about us as we tried, tumbling from the ceiling as we tried to learn. However, this Scottish Government, during these very challenging times, has made sure that that has been consigned to the past. A record number of children are learning in high-quality school buildings between 2007 and 2015. Under this Government, 607 schools have been rebuilt or refurbished over 250 more than the previous administration. The proportion of schools in good or satisfactory condition has increased from 61 per cent in April 2007 to 84 per cent in April 2015. Incidentally, none of that has been done with a tax hike that would hit the pockets of the poorest working in Scotland. It is not good enough for Opposition parties in desperation to degenerate the good work of those involved in education, and it is not good enough to tax working poor people either. Around 2.2 million basic tax rate taxpayers, including half a million pensioners, would be hit by Labour's tax grab. At a time when families are struggling due to Westminster austerity, Labour plans to pick the pockets of the working poor. According to Spice, that is provided, as the cabinet secretary mentioned, to provide real-terms protection to the total education and lifelong learning budget, it would need £561.9 million over the period. What happens in future years? Do they continue to increase tax while Westminster slashes the Scottish Government? What would Labour cut also to raise the types of money that they are looking for? Education in our schools is delivered by local authorities, and as I said during last week's budget debate, despite the debate, local government, in my opinion, has received a challenging but fair financial settlement. Local government must also be ambitious. It must lead from the front and look at ways to integrate services and deliver for our communities. I have always believed that there are solutions to even the most challenging of problems. We must find innovative new ways to work. That is why local government must do that. When I asked the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, when they came to the education committee, if they had any evidence of how they worked together, how they would deliver education either with schools working on their own or grouping schools and education authorities together, they said that they had not done any work on anything like that. They must be looking at innovative new ideas. I believe that I have set out the case for the Scottish Government's continued ambition for education. It is a key priority for this Government and, as always, we can strive to do better. Over the coming months, we will continue to have this debate. It is one that I believe that this Scottish Government and the SNP are continuing to deliver for the people of Scotland. I declare an interest as a member of the EIS, a former schoolteacher, but more importantly, somebody who believes passionately in the power of education, not just to liberate our children but also to create a stronger economy. I know that George Adam does not see himself as a Tory, but I think that he might want to reflect on the speeches that he has just given, which has used the language that Tories have used through generations to argue against fair taxation. I cannot say that the cabinet secretary's speech was much of an advert for the power of education and rational argument and debate. Again, the Government needs to reflect again on the way in which it presents its case. I have been dismayed by the response of the Scottish Government to our very simple proposal. There is a lot of noise and a lot of shouting and the total absence of any reflection in the argument behaviour that a schoolchild would be ashamed of. It is simple. Any schoolchild could tell you this, too—what you say, you believe in and what you do should match each other. I thank the member for giving way and she calls for rational debate and questions. I ask her quite rationally, therefore, when she suggests that the argument that the Government has been making around the Labour tax proposals has, in some way, echoed that of the Tories. Can she explain what it is that is Tory about the First Minister pointing out that Labour's tax proposals would mean a 2 per cent tax increase for the First Minister, but a 5 per cent tax increase for someone on low pay? It is the kind of misleading use of statistics that a math teacher would throw out day one in any argument, and it should be ashamed of herself that she would present it in that kind of way. It seems self-evident that, in these tough times, we do require a mature debate. I have to say that the quality of the argument deployed by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, if presented in my classroom, would have been returned liberally scattered with red pen marks and a comment, try harder and keep it real. If we are going to close the gap between rhetoric and reality, I believe that we should support the protection of the education budget and do it with real money. Why? First of all, the Scottish rate of income tax is progressive. John Swinney said so, John Mason said so, and any number of experts agree with him. I have to say that there is something unbelievably distasteful, at the very least, to encourage people of modest means and modest income to oppose proposals that would benefit them and that argument being deployed by people who themselves would save most from those proposals being defeated. That, in my view, is a disgrace. False claims about the impact of this choice and using low-paid people as some kind of human shield to oppose tax rises that would affect the most worst. The figures that are there, those on lowest incomes would not suffer and those at the top might pay something more than £1,000 more. The next argument is that there is no harm in targeting local government that, as Humza Yousaf has described in the Scottish Daily Mail, as he commended on his approach as a Scottish Eric Pickles, it is all about waste. It is not, but it does mean—this approach does mean—the waste of children's potential right across the country to their detriment and to the economy as a whole. Anyone with children who cares about their education also knows that it is not just about teachers and buildings, it is the critical support staff who support young people overcoming the barriers that they face in order to achieve a good education. That is about equality and closing the attainment gap. Why should we pay for Tory austerity twice? I have to say that that might be an argument that you can sustain in Twitter. It does not survive for one moment in the real world, because we are already paying for the Tory austerity approach. The approach of this Government is to leave the poorest and most vulnerable to pay more, making choices that amplify the inequality that the Tories are promoting rather than tackling it. I cannot understand why SNP-backed ventures would take that kind of approach. While SNP tried to prove that SRIT is not progressive, it does not apply any such test to a cut in the air passenger duty that would benefit the better of and leave untouched, unanalyzed, untested their own priorities on the grounds of their belief in universalism. I have to tell you that universalism has to be matched by fair taxation if it is not simply to benefit the best of. The greatest puzzle to me is this. Why has SNP moved so quickly to rubbish the proposal, instead of perhaps using Government resources in the best traditions of Scottish education to test the proposition with a rational argument? They have refused to do that because they know that this is a proposal that would stand that kind of scrutiny. It led me to reflect on the biggest political argument that we have lost, and I mean that all of us collectively have lost in my lifetime, and that is the benefit of fair taxation and fair spending. As a young school teacher, I was blessed to get a permanent job right away, and even in the toughest times in the 80s worked for a council that was able to direct resources to deprived areas in order to address inequality. In 1979, when I started teaching, the basic rate of income tax was 30 pence. In the height of thaturism, it was 29 pence. When I left to come here in 1999, it was 23 pence in the pound, and I do not say that to advocate mega tax hikes, but to put the one P rise that we are proposing in context. I can understand that all political parties, all stripes, have been frightened to raise taxation in case other parties attacked them for being reckless on tax and seeking electoral advantage. However, why is the Scottish Government being so timid? It wants to be attacked by the main parties in this chamber for such a bold proposal. It will be celebrated for it. It will be the Tories who will attack them, but the case for rational progressive taxation will be supported by those chambers. That is not making an electoral calculation, it is having the confidence that you would be able to do that with the support in making the case in the country. Why are they being so timid? All I can say to you is this, support the motion, stop the scaremongering on the benefits of fair taxation, because we continue to prosecute the case that any tax rise is a tax grab, it's a price that we will all pay and our children in the future will pay to support the motion at decision time. I now call on Joan McAlpine to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm. Six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'd like to look at education in its wider social and economic context. Kezia Dugdale said that the best way to reduce wage inequality is through education. I wouldn't diminish education in any way, but I think that the best way to reduce wage inequality is to raise wages. The EIS supports that. Written evidence to the education committee earlier this year said that it supported and promoted initiatives that redress the imbalance in achievement and attainment caused by poverty, but we don't believe that educational initiatives alone will sufficiently and permanently close the pernicious and damaging attainment gap. We know that that attainment gap is caused by income inequality, poverty is the greatest cause of underachievement in education, and the levers that we need to address that inequality in society, such as raising the minimum wage to the level of the living wage, stopping trade union legislation that prevents people from organising to improve their pay and conditions, and also control over benefits such as universal credit. All those are levers that we could have in this Parliament but which were vetoed by the Labour Party at Westminster. I think that there is a certain element—no, I need to make progress—that there is a certain element of progress on the opposite benches when they try to isolate education and get themselves off the hook in terms of their failure to get powers transferred to this Parliament, which would allow us to close that gap, which is the real cause, ultimately, of educational inequality. On top of that, Labour says that we should use the limited powers that they cooked up incidentally with their pals in the Tory party during the Kalman commission to raise only part of the basic rate of income tax. I would like to know how taxing the poorest workers actually helps to reduce educational inequality, given that we know that poverty is the root cause of it. Johann Lamont talks about fair taxation, but the Kalman deal that he struck with the Tories, I would argue, is unfair taxation. John Lamont also talked about tax under thatcher several years ago. She will be aware of the TUC research a few weeks ago that showed that, in Scotland, since 2008, real wages of workers have fallen by about £1,500 in real terms. How do you sort that out by taxing people earning more than £11,000 a year? Taxing poster workers, taxing nurses, taxing health workers—it does not seem to me to be the way to raise educational attainment. They are already suffering far too many more cuts already. I wanted to look a little bit at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation studies on educational attainment, and he looked at the pressure in the home environment. The learning environment has one of the biggest impacts on educational outcomes. That is why it is important that we look at the budget as a whole, because the budget has protected areas and by protecting people's health, by investing in things such as housing and 50,000 more affordable homes. There is also welfare mitigation, as far as we can, by addressing the very damaging cuts that are coming from the Tories in Westminster. That all helps to address poverty and, obviously, it helps to address educational inequality. To turn to education itself, we have to look at the broader context of the 12.5 per cent cut to Scotland's budget over the 10 years under the Tory Government. We would like to protect every single area of spending—of course, we would like to protect every single area of spending the same way that you protect health, for example—but we can protect every single area when your budget has been cut by 12.5 per cent by 3.9 billion over 10 years. It is interesting that Labour never wanted to talk about that. They would just always rather talk about the SNP, instead of having an honest debate about how you deal with that cut, other than taxing the poorest workers. I am sorry, I want to make progress with quite a lot of what I want to say here. On education itself, we are focusing on raising attainment, as others have said, in key areas, particularly in early years. We know that investment in early years has one of the best outcomes in addressing some of the problems that are caused by poverty. That is why I am very pleased that we have raised it to 600 hours. Incidentally, far higher than anything Labour was able to deliver at a time when it had access to far more income for this Parliament than this Government has with the cuts that have been forced on it by Westminster. I am very pleased that, despite those cuts, we have the aspiration to almost double the number of early years hours on offer by the end of the next Parliament. I would like to close by saying again that, talking about Labour hypocrisy, we have a Labour council in Dumfries and Galloway that was given money for early years last year by the Scottish Government. It has failed to spend its early years money and has put 900K of it into its overall budget, not spending it on early years. When Labour talks about prioritising education, I think that it should look at the behaviour of its own councillors, which are letting down children in many parts of this country. On a point of order, Presiding Officer, I appreciate your guidance in relation to the courtesy that members can expect to receive from other members in this chamber who repeatedly refer to the political arguments of others as hypocrisy and fail even to engage in the simple courtesy of debate. Is it in order for a member to behave in the way that Ms McAlpine has just done repeatedly referring to others as hypocrites and refusing to engage in political debate? Does that enhance debate in this place, in your view, Presiding Officer? I thank you for your point of order, Mr Smith. I am afraid to say that it is not a point of order. It is up to members to decide whether or not to take interventions. However, there is a little time available in this debate for interventions should members wish to take them. I will now call on Malcolm Tism to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. In spite of what my colleague said, it is always a pleasure as last week to follow Joan McAlpine in debate, and she helped to remind us that, of course, the time when public expenditure through the Labour Government was increasing very significantly. Of course, ironically, the SNP was then proposing an increase in income tax when it was not necessary, and now it is opposing such an increase when it manifestly is necessary. However, I will come on to that in a moment. I think that we all agree across the chamber that education is absolutely fundamental, both for realising individual potential, but also, as Kezia Dugdale emphasised, for the growth of the economy. I would have thought that we would all agree that there is no alternative to education when it comes to investing in our future and making sure that Scotland can compete in the world. I would have thought that members who support independence would have actually seen the sense of that very clearly. I accept that the education secretary, for whom I have a high regard, wants to create a world-class education system, but she and her colleagues must simply will the means if that is to happen. I also accept that there have been some successes in education policy, and she mentioned Read, Write, Count and Admirable Scheme, and I am sure that there are others that we would happily acknowledge. However, we also have to face some facts about the past and, even more importantly, look realistically about what is coming down the track. I do not want to dwell too much in the past because this is a debate about the future, but let us just remind ourselves of the improvement service that has released figures showing a big decline in spending per pupil in Scottish schools over the last five years, £561 in primary and £285 in secondary. That is just one fact that we can put beside some of the positive things that the cabinet secretary said. However, let us focus on the future, because that is what we are concerned about now. It is simply impossible to be sceptical about one simple fact. If there are going to be 5.2 per cent real terms cut to local government budgets—a spice and the finance committee—and everybody else agrees, it is not credible to believe that education, which is half of local government expenditure, is not going to be affected by that. Let me make this point that the cabinet secretary does not support and agree with Spice's figure of 16.2 per cent over the next Parliament. However, if she does not, perhaps some of our colleagues would indicate what action the SNP has in mind to make sure that that figure does not come to pass. The Labour leader of Aberdeen City Council has stated that their council has managed to identify £20 million worth of savings without any impact on front-line services and has stated that they believe that they can protect education as part of that package. If Aberdeen City Council can do it, what is stopping other councils from doing so as well? I know Edinburgh Council a bit better than Aberdeen Council. I have looked at the budget for that. There are nearly 2,000 job losses. There are certainly cuts to bits of the education budget and, of course, there is a coalition in Edinburgh and the SNP leader of that coalition, Sandy Howard. It has said that a revenue cut of this scale would be very damaging for jobs and services within Scottish local government generally and in Edinburgh specifically. Everyone will be hit hard by this, so certain SNP members are looking realistically about what is happening. Clearly, the education issue for us has led us to the conclusion that we have to propose a £1 increase in income tax for next year. I am disturbed by some of the language that is coming from the SNP today. That is changing the way in which a critique is being used on this policy. Today, we are getting the language of tax grabs and bombshells, picking the pockets of the working poor and passing on Tory austerity to the working poor or whoever. There is so much to say about that. First of all, Tory austerity is being passed on in terms of the local government cuts, which will affect the poorest most. The fact of the matter is that we have proposed a rebate scheme, but even if there was not a rebate scheme—there are lots of illustrations of that—just to take one, the First Minister would be paying 76 times more in terms of the tax increase than would a low-paid worker. That is irrespective of the rebate. The most disturbing thing—we might as well deal with that head-on because we are going to hear a lot more about it—is the way that SNP, MSP and minister after minister use the issue of the percentage of tax that somebody is paying more. I dealt with this last week and quoted David Isar, who said that the important thing was to look at the change in after tax income, but John Swinney himself was at it, saying that someone on £13,000 would have their tax increase by 5 per cent whereas somebody on £200,000 would have their tax increase by 0.6 per cent. That is completely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that the person on £200,000 would pay 132 times more in extra tax than the person on £13,000. We are going to get used to that for the next few months, but, hopefully, people will eventually see through that particular one. The latest line, of course, is that the cuts for local government are not that bad, really. Marco Biaggio, the local government minister last night said that it was a good settlement. I have quoted Sandy Howe, the leader of Edinburgh Council. It is simply not credible sticking with Edinburgh to have £85 million worth of cuts for next year with 2,000 job losses to believe that that is not going to have a devastating effect on not just jobs but services. As the SNP leader of the SNP group on council said in Edinburgh, everyone will be hit hard by that. Hopefully, over time, we will be able to have a more sensible debate about the 1P tax increases. However, what we are absolutely clear about is that it is necessary in order to protect education, and protecting education is absolutely fundamental for the future of Scotland. Presiding Officer, to state the obvious education matters to us all and to all the people of Scotland. Like others, education has touched my family. My grandfather started teaching in 1881, and when he retired in 1926, he was a fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland. His father was a coal miner, so he did not come from a highly educated family. My mother was the daughter of a ship's rigger and started teaching in 1931. I may say on an annual salary of £36 a year. Today, I have a niece who teaches in England and the nephew who teaches in Denmark, although I do not seem to have any current teachers in my family who live in Scotland. My own pedagogic activity is strictly limited to three years of lecturing to postgraduate students at Herriot-Watt after retiring from my long-term career. I accept that we all have a shared ambition across the Parliament, a belief in the importance of education and, presumably, training as well, because the two can often be linked. We are debating much more about means than we are about ends. The title of the debate refers to Scotland's future prosperity, and education is a key part of making a contribution to that. Of course, there is economic activity associated with the preparation and delivery of education. We employ teachers and others. Of course, we attract students from across the globe to a system that has long been recognised as excellent. There are substantial difficulties in relation to that aspect of our educational system, which was created by the withdrawal of one of Jack McConnell's achievements, which was getting a system of visas for foreign students. I very much regret that that has happened, and I suspect that most people in the chamber will do the same. We also get economic benefit from education by quipping our citizens for future challenges and opportunities. Of course, future challenges are very interesting because we do not know what they will be. Above all else, education is not simply about giving a set of skills into the cerebral cavity of our students. It is about equipping them to make future decisions the nature of which this generation of politicians and of teachers can know nothing. I am a regular visitor, as other members in the chamber will absolutely also be, to schools and, most recently, to North East College in Fraserborough, which is in my constituency. It has had significant investment and there is more building work on their way. Inside the building, there are new computers, because of the pressure and increased demand and increased student numbers, they are stealing some of the public space for new teaching rooms. When they have the building complete, they will get back into the kind of balance that we want. More fundamentally, in that college, which I very much like the whole attitude and approach that they take, we are seeing substantially more students at their graduations coming with certificates and diplomas that are relevant to the employment opportunities in the area, but will endure as a contribution to the wellbeing of those students. We in Scotland, of course, historically have placed an emphasis on rational argument and on personal responsibility, and that partly came from the reformation that brought Calvinism to Scotland, a kind of mixed blessing, we might possibly say, but it put in place a value in education that was delivered by our having an education system available to most of our population long before other countries in Europe. We also were fortunate where others were unfortunate in being one of the early medical training centres in Europe. Because of the bad reason that Edinburgh had very substantial morbidity in the old town, because the buildings were built upwards for safety so that they could be near the castle in dangerous times and that created a hotbed of transfer of infection, which led to the opportunity to create a medical school of international around. I want to be a little bit didactic about one of the subjects that emerged, and that is about technical adjustments to numbers. I do that by illustrating something from our ordinary natural lives. If a year ago, I had a car that I assessed was worth £12,000, in looking at my assets and liabilities, I might have my balance sheet of such, consider that this year it would be worth £10,500, depreciation of £1,500. However, when I go along to John Menzies and look in them quickly while they are not looking in the books and see what the value is, I find that it is worth £11,000. In other words, the depreciation that I put in the balance sheet was £500 more than the reality. That is good news. The assets have grown, but there is not a penny more in my pocket. Perhaps members care to think about the way which some of the numbers that we talk about are exactly that same thing. I commend the Read, Write, Count campaign. I commend the Making Maths count campaigns that the Government has been engaged in. We are in the position where teachers bring perspiration much more than is often commonly recognised to their task. They work longer hours than people often realise to bring inspiration to their students and create a supination. On the matter of how to deal with raising tax, Gordon Brown, 30 April 2008, we did not cover as well as we should that group of low-paid workers and low-income people who did not get the working income tax credit. In other words, the last time, Labour upped the tax for basic rate taxpayers. Gordon Brown acknowledged that it did not work. The evidence is that Labour has not thought it through any more carefully this time. Like Mary Scanlon, I will not be standing again in the coming elections. There are a number of things that Mary Scanlon said that struck a chord with me. No one can doubt Mary Scanlon's commitment to education and her passion, particularly for further education. I thought that she very eloquently described the contribution that further education makes to changing the lives of ordinary people and changing them for the better. To some extent, when I was reflecting on the subject of this debate and what I might say, I thought that it is quite depressing that, after 32 years in elected office when I am standing down, the debate that we are having about education and its role in Scotland is exactly the same type of debate that pertained in the 1980s when I was first elected. It is also, in a way, the same debate that pertained when I was born into an ordinary working-class family in the east end of Glasgow in the 1950s, where children in those communities were unlikely to go to college or university, where they were unlikely to be represented in the professions and only a handful managed to do so. Things did change. Yes, they changed because there was a boom in the world and the British economy, but they also changed because of political decisions that were made in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and the creation and establishment of the welfare state. They also changed because of some of the commitments that were made in the 1960s by the Government that was led by Harold Wilson. I was a very direct beneficiary of that Government, a Government that enabled people like me to be the first in my family to go to university and to go to university with the support of a grant, and I reflect now about that community in the east end of Glasgow and also communities such as the ones that I represent in Johnson and in Linwood and parts of Barhead and parts of Nielsen, where young people in similar circumstances to the ones that I grew up in in the 1950s are just as unlikely to be able to go to university and to get into the professions now as they were then. They are now burdened with poorer grant support than I had when I went to university. They came out with more debt than I had when I went to university. Is this the fulfilment of all my years of activity, which was about trying to make my community and this country a better place that we are still having that type of debate? If I were to accept for a moment that the contribution made by the Cabinet Secretary was the sum fulfilment of all of our ambitions and things were as wonderful as she tried to portray, then I would have to say what a poverty of ambition. Yes, there are good things that have happened in education over the years. Frankly, I believe that the teachers that are now coming out into Scottish education are of a far higher standard and far better prepared than I was when I came out as a teacher. I believe that what our young people are learning in our schools is of a far higher quality. It is different because people sometimes want to reflect back and reminisce about the exams were harder and we learned French better and maths better, but young people now do come out with a broader, more rounded education and able to take up their place in the world. However, there is still that unfairness and that inequality of those from the most deprived backgrounds being able to advance themselves. Yes, there are the exceptions from all of the communities that I mentioned in Barhead, Nilsson and Linwood-Johnson who go on to become doctors or architects or lawyers and so on, but there are too many who are not able, Presiding Officer, to fulfil that potential. Despite the kind of sneering remarks that I have heard about the councils and they could find money and they could do better, the stark reality is that most councillors across Scotland are trying to do their best with a very bad hand being dealt to them. I know in Renfrewshire that the council is trying to protect education and the cuts might not be as bad in Renfrewshire in education as they might be elsewhere, but that is only because other services are being cut and other services will see the direct consequence of less money being delivered. However, even if the cabinet secretary was right in George Adam, John McAlpine and others were correct. I will not go into the arguments about taxation, others have dealt with that far better than me. Do we have no ambition that we could say in this Parliament in 21st century Scotland that, although there might be some good things going on, there is much still to be done? Do we have no ambition that we are not prepared to say to people such as the cabinet secretary and the First Minister that we should put our shoulder to the wheel and that we should contribute more to help those who are not reaching their full potential? Do we have no ambition that, in the current circumstances, we cannot see what extra investment might make to education in this country? If we do not have the ambition, if we do not have the courage to go out and say that we should contribute to something that will change and transform lives for the better, then frankly we do not deserve to be here. Many thanks. Now I call on Stuart McMillan to be followed by Cara Hylton. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I do not doubt for one minute the commitment of any member in the chamber to have a better education system in Scotland. I do not doubt that for one minute, from every single person who stands for election, whether it is to hear, whether it is to local authorities or to the UK Parliament or even to the European Parliament, they certainly want to make a positive difference for their communities. There was quite a lot that Hugh Henry said in his opening remarks that I could agree with and I do not usually agree with Mr Henry and vice versa, but he gave an example of people from poorer backgrounds and accessing university. It struck me that it took me back to when I was at university and I was the first person in my family to attend university. It took me back to one of the times when I went home for the weekend and I was speaking to a taxi from the town up to the house. I was speaking to the taxi driver and he was asking me where I was and where I came from, so I told him that I was going home for the weekend. Straight away, his attitude towards university was appalling because I suggested to him about asking the question about his family. Straight away, he said, my daughter is not doing that, she is not doing that rubbish. That is not for people like us. I certainly come back to Mr Henry's comments. I accept that there are challenges, but I think that one of the biggest challenges that we will have to face are individuals—maybe some of them are parents, certainly of the past—who maybe do not really see university as something for them or for their family and there is that barrier, that understanding that we have really got to try to work on as well. I come back to some other comments. Kezia Dugdale and Malcolm Chisholm, unfortunately, left the chamber. They spoke about some of the language that has been used and Kezia Dugdale used the phasor of pejorative language. I am sure that she will agree with me that using the language of considering children as human shields falls into that category. I am sure that I would like to think that Kezia Dugdale would reflect on that, as one of her colleagues mentioned in her contribution. Certainly, the Scottish Government is committed to delivering both excellence and equity in equal measure for all children in Scotland. Almost £5 billion is invested through local authorities to deliver education each year, with the additional £100 million attainment Scotland fund now benefiting more than 300 primary schools, including the six of them in the area where I live, having invested £51 million specifically to be in teacher numbers this year. The Scottish National Party Government is committed, and it has committed £88 million to protect teacher numbers and places for new teachers across Scotland next year. What we heard earlier regarding the Read-Write campaign, the national improvement framework, has been introduced to education Scotland inspections to focus on raising attainment and literacy and numeracy and making a mass count programme, as well as the national and local numeracy hubs. I am enjoying the member's speech, but I wonder if I could ask him directly. Does he think that he pays enough tax and, if not, would he be prepared to pay a bit more in order to invest in education in his community agreement? I am happy to pay a bit more tax. I have got no issue with that whatsoever, but the thing that I am not prepared to do is ask people who are on lower incomes to pay more tax and to pay a higher percentage of their income on tax as compared to others. I certainly do not think that it is fair for someone who is earning less than £20,000 or less to pay a higher percentage of additional monies as compared to the First Minister, which will be 2.7 per cent. I have already taken one intervention and I have only got a short time to go now. As we know, Labour really has not outlined the cost of protecting the education budget in new terms over the next five years or how it has been funded. The figures that were produced by SPICE show that Labour's plan would entail more than £561 million over the course of the next session of Parliament, taking its total spending commitments to almost £5 billion. Despite the issue's spending commitments, Labour has thus far only brought forward plans to raise an additional £400 million by shifting the burden of Tory austerity on to low earners in Scotland through the 1P tax hike on working people. I certainly would like to know—hopefully someone can answer this in the closing—what would Labour want to cut in addition to this 1P tax to raise the fund of money? Do they want to remove money from the NHS budget or from which other budget? I really do not know. Labour also highlighted the issue of the £100 cash back from local authority coffers to compensate low income earners for their losses. Yet, last week, Jackie Baillie provided an extraordinary spectacle in the chamber of highlighting that there was only a matter of some mere detail of how compensation would be achieved. We should be concentrating on the principle, but frankly the detail is everything. There are real questions—I really do not have time now, I am sorry—there are real questions as to whether the rebate would even be legal, whether the powers would only become available after the Scotland Bill comes into force next year and whether Labour wanted to implement it this year. That cannot be a tax rebate, as Labour's Alex Rowley has called it last week, nor can it be a social security payment because those powers are not yet devolved. Even then, that proposed refund will be riddled with complexity and how will it be administered, how much will it cost and whether its new income will be taxable, and how will it impact on other benefits such as tax credits? I generally believe that, in the broader context, we have to examine all proposals if there is going to be any tax increase. To conclude, I think that it is very clear that the situation that we currently have, education under the Scottish Government, is progressing. It is moving forward, and clearly Labour's sums do not add up and they never will in that issue. Thank you very much. I am pleased to have the chance to speak in today's debate in support of Scottish Labour's call to protect Scotland's education budget. As Kezia Dugdale said earlier, education is everything. Our nurseries, schools, colleges and universities are the stairways out of disadvantage. As a nation, the best investment that we can make is in our children and ensuring that every child gets a very best start in life and acting to ensure that every child has the support that they need to reach their true potential. It can never be right that a child's postcode has got more influence on what they achieve in life than their talents, their efforts or their hard work. We are only going to achieve a fairer, more equal Scotland if we act now to ensure that life is fairer and more equal for every child. We have had many debates in this chamber over recent weeks and months on the attainment gap, and rightly so, but the SNP Government has been in power now for nine years, and it is time for the ambitious goals and the aspirations and the warm words to be backed up with concrete policies, secure funding and real results. I want to see education policies that do not just scratch the surface but which transform the opportunities for our children, policies that have at their heart closing the cycle of disadvantages and advantage, policies that harness the new powers on the way to our Scottish Parliament, such as Labour's fair start fund, which would deliver real investment to support every poorer child in every school and every nursery in every community. In my confirmant constituency, just two schools receive money from the Scottish Government's attainment fund. Under Scottish Labour plans, an additional £1 million would be invested in my constituency every single year to support measures to tackle the gap. But bold ambitions are little good. In the budgets that fund our schools, our nurseries and our early years programmes are slashed, and research by the Scottish Parliament's information centre has revealed that if the SNP proceeds with its current plans, real-term spending on education could be cut by a staggering 16 per cent by 2020. In Fife, just over half of the council's budget is spent in education, and thanks to the investment in early intervention to end the cycle of disadvantage, we have bucked the trend in Fife and we have started to close the attainment gap in our schools, yet thanks to the cuts on their way, £38 million this year and £91 million over the next three years, that progress is going to be undermined and put at risk. On local authorities across Scotland, COSLA has said that the additional cuts announced by John Swinney could have potential devastating consequences for local budgets for schools and nurseries. That is on top of the cuts and spending per pupils since the SNP came to power, down by £560 in primary schools and up to £300 in primary and preschool and in high schools. Those are cuts that will undermine the education and the life chances of our children, and they are cuts that will hit the children who need the most support the hardest. They are cuts that will undermine our ambitions of making Scotland the best place to grow up. They are cuts, too, that will undermine the SNP's own policy pledges, such as 30-hours free childcare, with a cut of 57 per cent in the budget allocated to build new nurseries. At a time when the fair funding for our kids campaign estimate that we need 650 new nurseries to deliver this election pledge. Parents waited seven years for the SNP to deliver 15 hours a week, and if those cuts go ahead, the wait for 30 hours could be indefinite. We cannot cut the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms if we cut the budgets for our schools, for our nurseries and for early intervention. Today, Kezia Dugdale has challenged the First Minister and challenged the SNP to back our pledge to protect education spending, to back our call for a penny in income tax, to protect education and local services. Nicola Sturgeon has said that education is her priority, yet those are cuts that will shortchange our children's future. Addied to the cuts to our schools and our colleges over the past few years, is it any wonder that our education system is no longer at the envy of the world? Is it any surprise that the attainment gap is growing, that 1 in 4 P1 to 3 children are now in classes of over 25, despite the pledge that no child would be in a class of over 18, that every year thousands of children leave primary school unable to read or write properly? The choice is clear. We can choose to pay a little more to protect education, to stop the cuts, to protect the education budget in real terms every year, as the Scottish Labour motion calls for today, or we can choose to accept the cuts to the education budget under the SNP and accept that our children and our young people will pay the price of austerity. Last week in the chamber, Tory members proudly stated that they were happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the SNP against Scottish Labour's plans to stop the cuts. I am disappointed that Murdo Fraser is not here to hear the debate today. The SNP often says that what it wants is the power in our own hands to create a fairer Scotland. Right now, we have the power, but there is no sign of any political will to create a fairer Scotland. The reality is that, despite the rhetoric that we hear all too often, the SNP is embarking on cuts that will make George Osborne proud. They are not just standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tories, they are leading by example. Implementing damaging regressive cuts that will hit our vital public services, that will hit our communities, cuts to our schools, cuts to our nurseries, cuts to our colleges, cuts to our early years programmes. Last May, Nicola Sturgeon promised families in my constituency and families across the country that she would stand up against Tory austerity. However, now the SNP slogan, Stronger for Scotland, can be seen for what it really is, SNP Stronger for austerity. It does not have to be this way, and I do not believe that the majority of SNP voters or SNP supporters want it to be this way either. The SNP Government has got a choice. Faced with the huge cuts to schools and services, or using the powers of this Parliament, they can choose to use the powers that we have in our hands to stop the cuts. In conclusion, I very much hope that the Scottish Government, that the cabinet secretary, will think again and will support Scottish Labour's call today to protect education budgets. Let's show George Osborne that in Scotland we can and we will make different choices, that there is and there must be a better way. Let's reject austerity and let's reject the cuts. Let's use the powers of our Parliament to invest in our children and invest in Scotland's future. Mark McDonald, after which we will move to closing speeches. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. One of the things that I have been struck by in this debate has been an element of double standard in that I hear many calls for those of us on this side of the chamber to temper our language in rhetoric. Yet those members who are making that call themselves engage in hyperbolic narrative and the casting of aspersions against those who they oppose. I simply say to Labour members that if they want to throw stones, they should perhaps step outside of a glass house before doing so. I recognise the importance of education. I was the first person from my family to leave school and go to university. As a parent of two children, education is of vital importance to me, particularly as one of those children has additional educational needs and requires a greater degree of support for learning than in the mainstream environment. I recognise entirely the importance of education and it is not something that is alien to me. If we can perhaps start on that basis and remove ourselves from the casting of aspersions. Let's then look at some of the things that we should be talking about when focusing on this debate. The first thing to say is that I believe that there is a need for us also to remember the focus on the world that exists outside of the school gate. By the time a child arrives at school, many of those formative experiences that that child has play a vital role in terms of that child's future development. The point at which they arrive through the door of the nursery is not the very first point at which their brains can be influenced and that their knowledge and understanding of the world can take place. That is why elements such as, for example, the play-talk read and the wider play strategy are important. It is about encouraging parents to take an active role in the early formative years in encouraging those children and encouraging the inquisitive nature of those children. That, to me, is exceptionally important. It is also about support for other organisations such as family projects, for example the middelfield project and for Sands project and the printfield project in my constituency, which deliver important early years work prior to children arriving at school. I have taken children—perhaps I could develop just ever so slightly first—and I have taken, for example, using the Weed Green Places scheme in Aberdeen. I have taken children from areas of deprivation where they do not have a great deal of outdoor learning opportunity and outdoor space to, for example, the botanic gardens at Aberdeen University and enabled them to gain a wider understanding of nature and of the world around them. That work that is on the face of it does not cost that much in terms of pure monetary value but in terms of the impact on those children is extremely valuable and extremely important. I will happily take an intervention with the member. I absolutely agree with you about the importance of those kinds of projects. Education, particularly for children from difficult backgrounds, is about more than the school, but we do not recognise that local government, if it is targeted for cuts, are precisely the kinds of projects that get stripped out of schools and communities. In the schools that I go into, there is no longer education support, behaviour support, learning support teachers and support staff in the way that there was before. Surely that must be a concern, because it is those soft things that do actually help to close the attainment gap. I addressed that first of all by saying that the projects that I mentioned I am unaware of any proposals that exist on the table at the moment to either reduce or remove those projects in the communities that I represent. I cannot speak for other communities or indeed for the priority-based budgeting approach that other local authorities will take, but I will come back to the point around budgets. The second point is around the environment, the learning environment. I can look at my constituency at a range of improvements that have been made in terms of the learning environment for our children. Whether it is Heathery Byrne and Manor Park schools serving communities of regeneration, which are now fantastic state-of-the-art school buildings, replacing dilapidated structures dating from many years previous, or whether it is the new Bremen school in Aberdeen, which took Buxburn and New Hills from buildings that, again, were not fit for purpose for the modern curriculum and amalgamated them into one campus. The interesting thing about that was that at the time that that was proposed, the Labour Party was vehemently opposed to that being taken forward. Now, with a state-of-the-art school building on site, it is singing its praises. That demonstrates the commitment that we took as an administration in Aberdeen when I was part of that administration, but also through the funding that was provided to the Scottish Government's programme for improving renewing school buildings. If we look further, the point that Johann Lamont raises about support for learning and additional support needs is important. I welcome the fact that the minister has given a commitment that he is going to look at how presumption of mainstreaming is being applied in Scotland. I think that there are discrepancies in terms of the way that it is being applied by individual local authorities, and I welcome the fact that that is going to be reviewed. I think that it might help us to take a more holistic approach to how we deliver education for children with additional support needs. Finally, if I may, on the issue around the call for a rational debate on taxation, allow me to take that opportunity. I am fully signed up to the notion that those with the broadest shoulders should carry the highest burden. The issue that I have and the issue that the finance committee has and why it was a unanimous recommendation at the finance committee to retain the Scottish rate of income tax at £10 is that adding that £1 on is essentially a flat tax, because you add £1 on to all the rates of taxation, regardless of how much those people can pay. I recognise that those of us who are on a higher income should be prepared to pay a higher burden, but the inflexibility of the Scottish rate of income tax means that the £1 would be added to my tax and it would also be added to those on lower incomes. The Labour Party does recognise that, because if it did not, it would not have proposed the rebate scheme. I say to the Labour Party that it really is important for the detail behind the rebate scheme to be laid out. It cannot be enough for a Labour spokesperson when asked about this by a Sunday newspaper to say, I'm sorry, I'm too busy watching the rugby, that's all you are getting, I'm afraid I'm just at the end of my speech, Ms Brennan. You must close please. For that person to say, I'm too busy watching the rugby, that's all you are getting. Thank you very much now, Colin. Liam McArthur, but before I do, I'd invite members who have taken part in this debate to return to the chamber for the closing speeches. Please, Liam McArthur, up to seven minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I think that this has been an excellent debate. There's been a few rebukes for a language that may have been less than parliamentary, but I think that the quality of the contributions this afternoon has been of a very high order indeed. Can I take my lead from Mary Scanlon at the outset of paying credit, not just to Kezia Dugdale's father, not just my mother and a retired head teacher, or indeed my sister, who currently is a modern languages teacher in Glasgow, but actually put me on record my gratitude for the work that teachers across Scotland are doing, as well as the other staff in our schools, and more broadly, that provide the support that our children and young people need? I think that Stuart Stevenson set out not just the value and the purpose of education, but the challenges that it faces in a modern era in order to prepare our young people for life in the modern world. It is, as was said previously, a question of lighting fires rather than filling buckets, and I think that that is very true. There are no doubt any number of examples of where our education system is at the moment genuinely world class in much we can rightly take pride in. I think that Hugh Henry made a valid point about the way in which not only are we preparing our young people, but we are actually preparing our teachers to perform the roles that they need to perform. However, we must also acknowledge the warning signs that are there, too. The OACD report gave us ample evidence of that. It is something that the Scottish Government needs to face up to more honestly. The talk from the cabinet secretary that promises are meant to be kept did sit rather awkwardly with the list of nursery education provision, student debt, class sizes, teacher number, college places, etc. The trends in a number of areas internationally are going the wrong way, and that should set alarm bells ringing. We are seeing literacy rates, particularly for those in most disadvantaged backgrounds, going backwards rather than forwards. The credit to the Government is attached to the highest priority to closing the attainment gap. It is one where universal support is across the chamber. Again, Hugh Henry was candid in suggesting that it is not something that can squarely be laid at the door of the current Scottish Government. It is something that successive Administrations of all different political huts have had to wrestle with and has proved to be stubbornly resistant to a range of different measures. The problem that I have is that aspects of the Scottish Government's response look deficient. The criticisms that I have made on many occasions in relation to the attainment fund—welcome, though it is—is that it is an area-based approach that ignores or overlooks or downplays the extent to which poverty and need is reflected in communities right across the country. The confidence that appears to be being invested in a move back towards national testing in primary schools is one that is misplaced and will be regretted. In part of the debate about how we tackle the attainment gap, there were repeated calls from SNP members for more powers. There was no sense of irony in Joan McAlpine's comment at all that the levers to address that are all at Westminster. That is against the backdrop of the Scottish Government, which is proposing £500 million of cuts to council budgets. Half of what councils do is in the area of education and broader children's services. It is not difficult to see where those cuts are more likely and more heavily to fall. That is a choice that has been made by the SNP Government. The cabinet secretary in her opening remarks called on Labour to join in common cause in fighting the UK Government. It did not appear to be interested in joining in common cause in taking responsibility and using the powers that we have in protecting council budgets that deliver so much in our schools and early learning. That is the area where common cause would be more usefully found. There is no doubt that this is the decision that the Scottish Government has made. It has the option of expanding the budget for the first time properly since devolution. Yet it is opted to take the route of savage cuts and to blame Westminster rather than using those powers and investing in education. Investing in a pupil premium for every child that needs it wherever they may live in Scotland. In delivering childcare and early learning against the promises that were made but have so far failed to be delivered. Using that investment to repair some of the damage done to our college sector, a point that was made by Mary Scanlon and Hugh Henry, with around 150,000 places cut, as well as many of the jobs and support functions in the FE sector. All areas where investment is desperately needed, as well as making up some of the shortfall that will be passed on to councils this year. It is progressive. I think that Johann Lamont made the point probably better than anyone in an excellent contribution. That is what we have argued for the powers of this Parliament to be expanded in order to be able to do. Malcolm Chisholm debunked the statistical chicanery being deployed by the First Minister and most of the SNP speakers earlier on today. It was interesting that I was interested in a contribution made by Lucy Hunter in her blog. The main tactic has been to find any angle at all, which looks at the earning side of the equation. As long as that is the focus of attention, conversation is shut out on what might be done with the £400 million or more of avoided cuts. That is what we have seen in the debate this afternoon. Although it has been contributions that have been excellent around the chamber, in the sense that SNP members solely want to focus on the earning side, despite the fact that the statistical chicanery, as I say, is performing bears little on all scrutiny. Many of us want to focus on what that investment would allow us to do in making good the shortfall in funding and education. George Adam agreed with that, as many have said. He was calling for tax increases when they were not needed, as Malcolm Chisholm indicated. He is now using the language of the right-wing media to denounce progressive tax, as George Adam said, by tax grabs and picking the pockets. I think that SNP members may come to regret that, despite at a local level. I urge the Scottish Government to rethink the use and using the powers that this Parliament has to demonstrate the priority for it, and we all should be attaching to education. Thank you very much. The debate today is focused on who is going to spend more on education and who is going to raise or not raise taxes. I would like to look at a spend-to-save policy. I put it forward as something that I would hope that the SNP might consider for its manifesto and for the next election. It is a policy to help to close the attainment gap. I would like to start by commending someone who probably is rarely mentioned in this chamber, probably the first time. That is the Duchess of Cambridge for speaking out in favour of children's mental health and for counsellors in schools. Helping and supporting a young child at the earliest opportunity through schools counselling can not only increase attainment, increase attendance, improve behaviour, positively impact studying and learning, reduce bullying and lead to higher achievement and more positive destinations for young children as well as reduce referrals to CAMHS. The Labour Government is sitting and laughing there. I have to tell you that such has been the success in the Labour legislation in Wales that it has embedded the policy into legislation. I think that, where Labour leads in Wales, I would like to think that maybe the nationalists could follow in Scotland, but counsellors are available in every school in Northern Ireland. In Wales, such has been the success of school counsellors, the service is now in legislation. At Westminster, school-based counselling programmes are being piloted and rolled out and it is only in Scotland that we have a Government that lacks the commitment to help all troubled children and young people who are experiencing emotional health difficulties. Surely, at least some of the £100 million attainment fund could be used for at least pilot studies in order to gather an evidence base to identify the spend-to-save policy to benefit children, young people and in future our economy. I hope that the minister will refer to that in summing up. In the debate on the pupil premium, the Lib Dem debate, it is worth raising again that it is not only the single pupil premium, but in Scotland we are also deprived of the service personnel premium, which in England £300 is paid to local authorities to cover the changes in the school system experienced by children of service personnel £300 for every child and yet in councils such as Murray they get nothing for the hundreds of children of RAF personnel at Lossymouth and the Royal Engineers at Kinlos. That is also worth considering, given that these children move around different education systems. I just want to move on to higher education and simply because we had the stage 2 debate in committee this week. It states in legislation that we are having a serious debate here and we should also have serious legislation, but we now have a piece of primary legislation that states that universities have to place advertisements on the internet and they have to let people know where they can get an application form. That is in primary legislation. Why those universities have managed for hundreds of years, I do not know, but they must be so pleased that we have now got a Scottish nationalist Government here to tell them how to advertise for a job, how to write a job description and where to get your application form. They must really be breathing a sigh of relief all those learned world-class scholars in Scotland. The bill states that vacancies must be advertised on the institution's website and how the application form can be obtained. When we are having a serious debate on education, I think that this is embarrassing. Our not too ancient universities must be so delighted about this move from the SNP, setting out in legislation how to get an application form and a job description. But not only is the relationship that was a historic concordat with local authorities at an all-time low, but the SNP has managed to have a battle with every single university in the whole of Scotland. That takes something, falling out with one or another now and again. We can all do that, but every single university has an absolute battle with the SNP. My goodness, they know how to create problems. Johann Lamont is an ex-teacher. I did not agree with the taxation points, but she did make a very good speech. I think that we should listen to folk who have been here for a long time. I do not just mean myself, but she said that we should be looking for a more matured debate. There are times during today where people who should know better have spoken in a way that does not make me feel proud of this chamber. We can all do better. I was thinking that if Johann Lamont or any other modern studies teachers were looking in today, I do not think that the Cabinet Secretary would be the recommendation of how to join and participate in a debating society. Johann Lamont asks why the Scottish Government is so timid on taxation. I am sure that she might remember Alex Penney for Scotland in 1999, and as Mike Russell might have said, Michael Giddett did them. Stuart Stevenson, I have to commend dear Stuart. His grandfather was a teacher, and my father was a farm labourer, and I am just as proud of the work that he did. I would like to thank Stuart for his lecture in history, mathematics, Calvinism and economic theory. I just want to thank Hugh Henry, because when the chamber is constantly saying who is the worst enemy of the Tories and who is the best enemy, he had the decency to stand up and to say that he agreed with some of the points that I made. I thank him for his common decency in doing so. I think that today we could have had a debate about the importance of education generally and the consequences of Tory policy for Scotland's budget, and I think that at times we did have a very good debate about those areas. At times the debate has effectively been about the difference between reality and fantasy in some areas, but the reality of education in Scotland is inspiring, and reality is that we have heard about what this Government is doing to raise attainment and to improve standards in education and the very real amounts of money that we are investing to achieve that. We have noted the £2.9 billion investment in 2016-17 to prioritise early years and early intervention, closing the attainment gap, on-going implementation of curriculum for excellence, continued support for Scotland's reformed college sector and maintaining free access to higher education. We have also seen that funding for education has in fact increased by more than 1 per cent in cash terms. Some of our key investments include £100 million in the Scottish attainment fund, £1.8 billion in Scotland's schools for the future programme, £329 million over two years to expand childcare, £530 million in college estates and more than £1 billion for higher education. We can point to things that we are doing that we can be proud of, such as the maintenance of the educational maintenance allowance or the fact that we have ensured that the number of under-25s studying at college has increased by 14 per cent since 2006. We should not forget that councils have indicated—yes? He has listed a range of achievements and I would not decry any of them. He mentioned the attainment fund in particular. He will be aware of the criticism that is not addressing the needs of those living in 11 different council areas. One of the reasons for that is that there are not enough resources. What we are trying to do in this debate is to explain how those resources could be expanded in order to ensure that any child who needs it wherever they live in Scotland would have the support that a very welcome attainment fund is providing for those in other council areas. The commitment that the Government has made on attainment is a very real one. In response to some of the points that the member and others have made about the fact that the initial commitment was to seven local authority areas, it has extended to 57 schools out with those. I think that that is testament to the Government's commitment to the large issue that still remains in our society about closing that equity gap. We should not forget that councils have indicated that they are spending 3.3 per cent more on cash terms on the delivery of education in 2015-16. All of that significant investment is, I believe, delivering real results. For most of our children, education system in Scotland delivers success at all ages and stages. Even when—I acknowledge that—we know that there is still much more to do in terms of closing the attainment gap, there are promising signs of real progress. Does he accept that in our schools, teachers, particularly secondary schools, teachers are under massive pressure? When you have cuts to support services to classroom assistance, that has a major impact on the workloads of your teachers? Certainly, at no point in the introduction of the new qualifications in schools have I sought to diminish or take away from the fact that, yes, there has been a huge workload for Scotland's teachers. That is why I have been involved in sharing the working group on tackling bureaucracy in schools and why I am bringing stakeholders together right now about the issue of looking at the qualifications, looking at the lessons that we can learn from the way that they have been implemented and making sure that teachers in the process are given the time to teach. The OECD recommended that we should be rigorous about the gaps to be closed and pursue relentlessly closing the gap and raising the bar simultaneously. That is indeed our vision for Scottish education. We have been clear in developing the framework that we need better evidence that helps us to understand attainment and the gap between the most and least disadvantaged children. Before starting school and in further and higher education, our policies are also focused on helping those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their potential. I must make some progress—I have taken a couple of interventions already. Turning to some of the points that were made in the debate, I think, for instance, of the contribution from Mary Scanlon, where she rightly pointed to the issue of mental health and, indeed, school councillor. This is a mental health week in schools and I was very glad today to get the chance to visit a school in Edinburgh, which was taking very seriously the need for providing impartial advice to children in primary school about the emotional difficulties they faced developing emotional literacy and, indeed, equipping them for the future. There were other things that Mary Scanlon said that she will forgive me in the course of the debate, which I struggled a bit more with. For instance, I struggled to see how she made her case that the fact that the Government is ensuring that school pupils in the highlands did not have their classroom hours cut below those enjoyed by pupils elsewhere in the country was an act of gangsterism. She also made some of the other points with regard to access to higher education. I thought that Mary Scanlon made a very important point about the right that people have to ensure equity of access to higher education. She did not like to mention, however, that young people from the most deprived areas in Scotland are more likely to participate in higher education by the age of 30 than in 2006. It is up from 35 per cent to 42 per cent. I acknowledge that there is much more to do. I wonder if he would recognise that students from a similar background in England are twice as likely to go to university if they are from a poor background than they are in Scotland. I pointed out that Scotland's record is increasing on that. I cannot, for the life of me, believe that, as some have called for, that the position with regard to equity of access to higher education would be enhanced in any way if we followed the example of others and charged £9,000 for the privilege of attending university. George Adam described how he, like I, went to school, if not in Victorian times and certainly in the Victorian building. One of the things that has been transformed in our school system in the past few years is, of course, our school estate with 607 new or refurbished schools becoming available. Liam McArthur argued elegantly as ever, but in making the case, as he did for £0.5 billion extra spending, he conveniently forgot to mention his party's role in removing £2.3 billion in real terms from Scotland's budget while his party was in government with the Tories. I began the debate by saying that there was a difference between reality and fantasy that came through in the debate, so if you can bear this, I will look briefly at the sorry fantasy world that Labour seems to inhabit at least partially these days. Suggesting, as it did today, that we have cut education funding by 16 per cent with no evidence offered for any such thing, quoting education budgets for future years in which no such budgets have actually been set, suggesting with the motion that we commit to five years of real-term increases in education, with no indication at all of how that might be paid for, and indeed such a real-terms increase means education spending would increase by 7.7 per cent at the time when the must-acknowledge Scotland's budget will only increase by just over 1 per cent. As John McAlpine pointed out, we heard barely a word today of criticism from the Labour Benches for the Tory cuts to Scotland's budget. We never ever hear it, but the new money that would have to be found would have to be found from somewhere. I believe therefore that looking at Labour's contribution today, it was an example of frenetic spending commitments that showed all the frantic ingenuity of Philius Fogg, as he burned the decks of his vessel when his stokers ran out of coal, except that Labour is now burning down the hull itself to pretty close to the one-saw line. On that, I would say that the voters aren't daft. They will understand that it is this Government which is committing itself to the structure of the education system and doing so with great success. Collin Ian Gray. Mr Gray, you have until five o'clock. Presiding Officer, this has been an occasionally fractious debate, though I think that is only because real and important issues are at stake here. However, I agree with Stuart Stevenson and I think that Stuart McMillan made this point as well that there is one thing that pretty well all speakers agree on and that is the importance of education. For every young person, and indeed some not so young, it is the key to being all that we can be, the surest path out of poverty and the most direct road to a better job and future. However, it is also the critical ingredient of economic success and prosperity for us all. Years ago, when I taught in Mozambique in a rural technical school, young people came from all over the country to that school and lived for years in the most basic of conditions in spite of war and famine just to learn. Why? Because they knew that education was their best chance of a better life. With almost no resources at all, that country made sure that it paid to keep that school and other schools going because they knew as well that the future prosperity of the whole nation depended on lifting educational standards and attainment. How much more then should we, the nation of the invention of culture, of learning, be willing to protect our education system as our very first priority? Are universities on which that reputation was built understand this? Not only are they turning out thousands of high quality graduates every year, but they are also investing in our economy, working with tens of thousands of companies to translate research and development, innovation into new products and processes for business. The jobs and prosperity of our future lie in high-skilled, high-tech, high-knowledge content industries. We must have that because in the 21st century we cannot build prosperity on low-paid, low-skilled work. However, if we agree on all of this and if we truly understand the importance of education, then we have to be prepared to stand up for it. The First Minister has told us again and again that education is indeed her priority and she will be judged by her record on education, but her record tells us that those words are empty. In nine years, this Government has delivered almost four and a half thousand fewer teachers, increased class sizes, a £500 per head per year drop on spend on primary pupils, 152,000 fewer students in colleges, thousands of students gone to university grants cut to PC, student debt doubled, falling literacy and numeracy standards and trailing the rest of the United Kingdom on widening access to university. Iain MacDonald Iain MacDonald highlights teacher numbers. Teacher employment is a matter for local authorities, and this Government then, following calls from the Labour Party, put in place funding, conditional funding for maintaining teacher numbers, and the Labour Party opposed that. What exactly does the member propose? No, we opposed finding local authorities for not being able, in the face of the cuts passed down from the Scottish Government, to maintain teacher numbers. What Mr MacDonald fails to acknowledge is that this is a promise made by this Government and broken by this Government. A year after the First Minister told us that education was her priority, what has she done to turn all that around? An inadequate fund to close the attainment gap, unplanned and misdirected, with 1,500 schools receiving nothing at all. A year on, many of those who are to receive it have still to get any money at all. A budget that cuts colleges in real terms yet again, a budget that cuts funding in real terms to our universities is so important to us. Only this morning we read about Dundee University, who say that they are facing a threat to their financial sustainability. Surely more will follow. Above all, hundreds of millions of pounds have been cut from council budgets. The very budgets that Mr MacDonald has paid for our schools and employment of our teachers. We already see proposals from around the country to cut classroom assistants, to cut music tuition, to cut breakfast clubs completely in some authorities, to abolish school librarians completely in authorities like Argyll, to see schools closed, to see class sizes rise even further. You cannot cut hundreds of millions of pounds from council budgets and not damage schools. That is just the start, because spices figures do indeed show us that this dismal record is about to get worse. Their modelling, not of the past, Mr Allan, but of the future, shows that if the Government carry on in the course that it has set, then education faces a 16 per cent cut over the course of the next Parliament. That is not a plan for investing in our future. Today's debate has been used by some members to raise some important issues, many scandal and counselling in schools. Mr MacDonald himself spoke about the importance of early years family support, and rightly so. Our motion this evening is simple, direct and to the point. It asks that we come together, make common cause, as the cabinet secretary said, and make a promise to the people of Scotland that for the next five years, whoever is in government, we will use the powers of this Parliament to protect our education system. The Government brings forward a meaningless amendment of self-justification and cynical self-history to try and pretend that there are no cuts to education. Of course, we know that the First Minister has explained that there are not cuts just reprofiling. The cabinet secretary told us today that there are just technical adjustments, and John Swinney last night said that it was just changed accounting provisions. So those parents will be relieved to know that the teachers that they thought had disappeared from the schools have just been reprofiled. 152,000 students will be delighted to hear that they have just been technically adjusted out of their college. Dundee University is no doubt just changing its accounting procedures, not cutting research and teaching at all. That nonsense descended into farce when the cabinet secretary told us that none of us could count, and then took on Spice, Resolution, IPPR, David Eisher, Professor Bell and all the rest in a kind of celebrity debate death match, so unequal that one could only watch it through your fingers. John Lamont and Malcolm Chisholm, I think, demonstrated clearly that this argument, that the Scottish rate of income tax is not progressive, is nonsense. But if those benches do not believe any of us, will they believe Mr Swinney who said, I view the Scottish rate of income tax as a progressive power? I know that I am sometimes characterised as doer, but I tell you what, I tell you what, there are some things for which I burn with a passion. One is education. It transformed my life and I have spent my life trying to give that opportunity to the others. I am also passionate about this Parliament. I am old enough to remember the last time Scottish education faced Tory cuts. I had a ringside seat for most of the 80s, but then standing between the Tory Government and our children's futures were regional councils who had no intention of lying down to the Tories, who fought tooth and nail for their workforce's jobs, services and our schools, who resisted, who used every power at their disposal and, frankly, some that were not in order to resist Tory cuts. Out of all that came a ground swell of support for this place, for a Parliament in which we could make our own mind up about what really mattered to us. We have done that. Labour-led Governments made personal care free, protected our citizens from secondary smoking, invested in schools and teachers in early intervention programmes, all of that because it was what important to us. It was for this moment that this place was founded, a Tory Government obsessed with austerity, imposing damaging cuts, threatening education funding and thereby this nation's future. Education was devolved to us so we could say no, and the Scottish rate of income tax was created to allow us the choice to do that. That is what the SNP said they would do, but instead they have doubled the cuts up and passed them on to every council in the land. We can do better than that. When we are asked what should tax rates be, we can do a bit better than Mr Sweeney's answer, which is, whatever George Osborne tells me, it is going to be. When we are asked what are you going to do for the schools of our children and grandchildren, we can do better than hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts. This Parliament was built not to criticise Tory cuts, Mr Allan, but to stand up to them. It was not built for spineless acquiescence and rag rotten experience. Presiding Officer, there may be three or four votes tonight, but there is only one question and one question for each and every one of us, and we should search our conscience. Can I, will I rise to the occasion, rise to this place and vote to protect Scotland's education system for the next five years? We will, will they? Thank you, Mr Gray. That concludes the debate on Scotland's future prosperity. The next item of business is consideration of business motion number 15594, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press a request-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 15594. Thank you, no members, as to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 15594, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of business motion number 15595, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a stage two timetable for the abusive behaviour and sexual harm Scotland Bill. Any member who wishes to speak against this motion should press a request-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 15595. No member has asked to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 15595, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of business motion number 15619, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau on suspension of standing orders. Any member wishes to speak against the motion should press a request-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion number 15619. No member has asked to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 15619, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of four parliamentary bureau motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motions number 15596, on the fair of an SSI, motion number 15597 to 15599, on approval of SSI's on block. The question is in these most. We will put decision time to which we now come. There are six questions to be put as a result of today's business. Can I remind members that, in relation to today's debate, if the amendment in the name of Angela Constance is agreed, the amendment in the name of Mary Scanlon Falls? The first question is amendment number 15588.3, in the name of Angela Constance. We seek to amend motion number 15588, in the name of Ian Gray, on Scotland's future prosperity, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 15588.3, in the name of Angela Constance, is as follows. Yes, 61. No, 59. There was one abstention. The amendment is therefore agreed to and the amendment in the name of Mary Scanlon Falls. The next question is amendment number 15588.1 in the name of Liam McArthur, which seeks to amend motion number 15588, in the name of Ian Gray, on Scotland's future prosperity, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment number 15588.1, in the name of Liam McArthur, is as follows. Yes, 41. No, 80. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is that motion number 15588, in the name of Ian Gray, as amended, on Scotland's future prosperity, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed. We move to vote. Members should cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 15588, in the name of Ian Gray, as amended, as follows. Yes, 61. No, 60. There were no abstentions. The motion, as amended, is therefore agreed to. The next question is that motion number 15596, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on the fair of the local government finance Scotland order 2006, order. The next question is that motion number 15596, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on the fair of the local government finance Scotland order 2016, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. I propose to ask a single question on motions number 15597 to 15599, on approval of SSIs. If any member objects a single question being put, please say so now. No member has objected to a single question being put despite the noise in the chamber. Therefore, I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motions number 15597 to 15599, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on approval of SSIs, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motions are therefore agreed to. That concludes the decision time. We now move to members' business. Members should leave the chamber, should do so quickly and quietly.