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This is what happens when you interrupt people in the normal course of the committee’s business.

Is it possible—I will let you answer fully without interrupting—that you could say one or two things about the strictures that you are observing in relation to ethical appointments? What is the rationale for your doing so? There seems to be a gap in the committee’s knowledge of what the requirements are in relation to ethical appointments.

We all have our own subjective experiences. On Monday this week, I went to a secondary school—Lornshill academy in Alloa—where three young men with remarkable innovative ideas were putting together an engineering project for a competition. That afternoon, I went to Abercromby primary school. Both schools are in areas of very high deprivation, but what struck me was that almost every child in the class asked me a question. I have been doing this for 18 years and that is not the norm. On Friday, I will go to Strathdevon primary school, where the pupils are doing a Scottish Opera production. So, intuitively, it seems to me that things have developed.

However, I want to ask about setting the target in the first place. You mentioned that we are moving towards 2026, which is an election year, and all the parties will want to make commitments. Is there something inherently flawed about setting a target when the Scottish Government—any Scottish Government—cannot guarantee the outcome? There will be external factors, such as austerity, Liz Truss’s budget or a pandemic. We would probably not have thought of a pandemic, but we know that there will always be certain levers that are not at the Scottish Government’s disposal. This is a cross-Government issue. Is it sensible to set targets when you are not in control of whether or not you will achieve them?

Accountability is surely an issue because, if what I have said is the case, it becomes much more difficult for the public to ascribe responsibility to anyone for a failure to achieve a target.

Cabinet secretary, I will take you back to the point that Willie Rennie made about the initial progress that was made up to 2016, whereby the attainment gap was reduced to 7 per cent, but there was only a 3 per cent improvement once the attainment challenge was established.

You mentioned the pandemic, although that came towards the end of the period in question, and you also mentioned austerity. I suppose that reducing welfare and other budgets will have a grinding effect over the years, and I accept that that might have increased in the latter period. However, is it the case—I genuinely do not know the answer to this—that the more progress you make, the more difficult it is to make further progress? Is the fact that you have harder yards to make to reach people in deprived areas another part of the reason for the reduction in the rate of improvement?

All of that is an argument for all parties to provide a more nuanced description of what they promise before an election. We have heard some very positive comments from previous witnesses about achievements in relation to the attainment target. The progress that has been made has been mentioned a number of times, as has the fact that progress has gone slightly backwards. However, there is now a real expectation that things will improve further again. In many respects, what has happened is quite remarkable. Very often, you would not think that from the committee’s deliberations, but there has been a remarkable change over that period, which is looked upon with some envy by other parts of the UK.

However—this is not a trite point; it is quite a serious point—as well as learning lessons from the challenges, including about the things that you still have to do, if you learn lessons from what has succeeded, that includes things that have succeeded unintentionally, if you follow my drift. The Government has achieved certain things and wants to go further, and the committee has discussed how we can better measure what it has achieved, for example, through free school meals. Has the Government done work to learn from what has succeeded, so that you can do more or tweak it? If progress is going to become more and more difficult, because of the numbers that are left to bring up to the required level, what has the Government learned from what has gone well?

Good morning. I should say that I am quite new to the committee, and I am not that keen on being lumped in if statements are made along the lines of, “The committee believes this,” when I have not had a chance to take evidence and make up my mind in relation to the matter. I find the questioning bizarre. I will make a series of observations, and then perhaps you can tell me if any of them are wrong, cabinet secretary.

From the public’s point of view, the situation will be very hard to understand, unless you are an adherent of the idea of the multiverse, where there is an infinite number of universes that you should plan contingencies for. It might make sense in that regard. It seems that you are doing a straightforward thing of ensuring that appointments to a public body—the principle of which was agreed at stage 1 of the Education (Scotland) Bill, I think—are done in an ethical way and are overseen by the relevant regulatory bodies, which is very important in public appointments. That is not something that most people would object to; they will probably be surprised at some of the questioning around it.

The Government has been accused of having an agenda and a direction. I would certainly hope that the Government has an agenda and a direction. Perhaps it is because there are other agendas that we are hearing some of the questioning. What is being done seems to be eminently sensible and not unusual.

On the idea that something might happen at stage 2, I would say that this committee does not make legislation; it is part of the legislative process. It is the Parliament that decides on these things. Of course the Government will have to listen to that.

It seems to be eminently sensible to make provisions now so that you do not lose time. I do not know why anybody would not want to support the proposal; it is very odd to me. The convener seems to be suggesting that the committee might not want to support it, but I would certainly want to support it. I am happy to—

I know you interrupt people all the time, convener.

Are we not allowed to make statements when we ask questions?

What statement have I made that is factually incorrect?

I never said that you instructed the committee. I never said that.