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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 8 August 2025
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Displaying 1423 contributions

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Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 30 April 2025

Miles Briggs

The rationale for including that in the wording of the amendment is that it would be the headteacher who would sign off on providing the support rather than such evidence being provided by each teacher. The minister will come in at some point and, if there is wording in the amendment that needs to be simplified or corrected, I will be happy to take that forward.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 30 April 2025

Miles Briggs

Welcome back, everybody. I welcome the cabinet secretary’s amendments that we discussed this morning in relation to BSL. That is something that we have raised on a cross-party basis.

I lodged amendment 131 in relation to additional support needs. The recent Audit Scotland report in February pointed to the need for a fundamental review of needs and planning and resourcing for additional support for learning. The amendment comes from a number of discussions with teachers, parents and pupils on the bureaucracy that surrounds additional support for learning. I hope that it will present an opportunity to simplify things for those who need additional support.

Currently, each teacher is asked to provide evidence of additional support needs. The amendment would simplify that to just be one teacher—the headteacher. I hope that that would make a real difference to the guidance going forward and that it would be a helpful reform. There will potentially be additional improvements that can be brought forward ahead of stage 3, as I am sure that members will have other learnings that they would want to bring to the bill ahead of stage 3 proceedings.

I move amendment 131.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 23 April 2025

Miles Briggs

I accept that, cabinet secretary, because I think that we need to move this forward. All members who have been part of this committee—not just those of us who have joined quite recently, but those who have served in the Parliament for decades—have wanted to see this reform achieved. I am looking at Willie Rennie when I say that. [Laughter.] As I have said, I accept what the cabinet secretary has said.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 23 April 2025

Miles Briggs

I am grateful to the member for lodging her amendments. It is important that the issue is included in the bill.

Each institution that I have met has a very different set of supports available. For example, at the University of Edinburgh, which has a large international student intake, some of its duty of care is related to language barriers. Other institutions have been providing useful support in relation to mental health, which the member has mentioned. They may also provide access to food banks or more holistic support while someone is going through their studies. Is that what the member envisages being created through the bill, or is she just pointing towards what should be a wider package of duty of care? I would hope that the Government would be quite open to such a package being part of the bill and to working on a set of principles around what that could look like.

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 23 April 2025

Miles Briggs

To get back to the heart of the issue, my concern is that the Government has not said what model it wants and a review is not acceptable. To go back to Liz Smith’s point and to Stephen Kerr’s helpful pointing out of other models in different parts of the UK, we need to see that decision as part of the bill, not a review.

Given the extensive conversation that we have had this morning, would the cabinet secretary and other members be mindful of not moving the amendments to this part of the bill, so that we can go away and look at it again, perhaps including with Ken Muir? He would be a useful person to look at the founding principles that he wanted to see in the bill; at the best model that can be brought at stage 3; and at whether there is consensus on that. If not, as Ross Greer has outlined, the majority in Parliament will take the least bad option, and that will not help to deliver the foundations of what we want these two institutions to do. Is the cabinet secretary mindful of that, so that we can move this meeting forward a bit?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 2 April 2025

Miles Briggs

Willie Rennie pursued some of the questions that I had about the University of Dundee, cabinet secretary. However, because we have you here, I have to ask, as an Edinburgh MSP, about the University of Edinburgh. I have received hundreds of emails from concerned students and staff there because it is proposing to make ÂŁ140 million in cuts. What engagement and communications have you and other ministers had with the University of Edinburgh specifically to look at the similar pattern that is now unfolding for members of staff at that university?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland

Meeting date: 2 April 2025

Miles Briggs

Have you undertaken a piece of work specifically on mainstreaming? The subject of mainstreaming and the different needs of children was raised yesterday in Parliament. You have touched on additional support for learning—Audit Scotland’s recent report on that was pretty damning. Are you likely to do a piece of work to look at the different models of different councils and how they are providing different outcomes?

11:45  

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland

Meeting date: 2 April 2025

Miles Briggs

Ahead of your coming to the committee, I looked back at the November 2023 report that you commissioned into children in Scotland who are homeless—specifically, at some of the recommendations. Do you think that the Scottish Government has taken any of those forward?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland

Meeting date: 2 April 2025

Miles Briggs

That may be something to return to, specifically in relation to educational outcomes. Given the direction of travel of those numbers and the Scottish Government’s lack of progress, there should be standards for what those children should be able to realise, especially when it comes to education.

As you touched on in your opening statement, the commissioner has called for

“a coherent statutory framework on restraint and seclusion across all settings in which children are under the care and/or supervision of the State”.

What is the commissioner’s view on the Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill? You pointed to support for that; however, it covers practice only in schools. This question returns to my previous one, about considering the other areas and environments in which children are, in Scotland.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Subordinate Legislation

Meeting date: 2 April 2025

Miles Briggs

I know that staff are asking for that transparency and are not receiving it. Has there been a financial ask from the University of Edinburgh? If there is only ÂŁ5 million left in the pot, will that be the total that is available for other institutions? The University of Edinburgh is not the only institution expressing financial concerns, as you have mentioned.