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Do you have any concerns about the supply of the kind of teachers whom Mark Logan has been describing—those who are not generalists or fill-ins but are specialists who can teach coding and all the other things that are exciting about computing science that are currently not being covered? Are you confident that there would be a supply of people in your sector who would be willing to commit themselves to a career in teaching if all the other conditions that Mark Logan and you have been describing were met?

To be honest, I am still not clear about that. I hear what you say about the rest of the United Kingdom, but we have a devolution settlement and we can differ in Scotland, as is right on many occasions. Why was the specific age of 25 chosen? I am not sure that I heard an answer to that.

Good morning, and welcome to the 12th meeting in 2021 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee.

We have received apologies from Oliver Mundell, and we welcome back Meghan Gallacher, who is joining us as one of our substitute members. We have also received apologies from Willie Rennie.

The first item on our agenda is evidence on Scottish statutory instrument 2021/379. Oliver Mundell has lodged a motion to annul the instrument. The motion will be moved by Meghan Gallacher.

As is the usual practice in such circumstances, we will first have a brief evidence session with the Minister for Children and Young People, to allow members to ask questions and seek clarification.

I give a warm welcome to Clare Haughey, the Minister for Children and Young People. The minister is accompanied by Lynne McMinn, who is the director of policy, customer engagement and communications at Disclosure Scotland; Rachel McLean, who is the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 implementation manager at Disclosure Scotland; and Rosie MacQueen, who is a solicitor in the Scottish Government legal directorate.

Good morning, Denise, and welcome. Are you also a solicitor from the Scottish Government legal directorate?

You produced the Logan review and you are an authority on the matter. The review suggested that computing science is a boring subject and that the syllabus is not exciting. You said that the teachers tend to be generalists and that there is therefore, in effect—I will use a term that might be objectionable to some people; I am willing to be corrected—a dumbing down in computing science, so that it is less about the more exciting aspects of the subject that require specialist knowledge, and is much more about the general. How do we fix that? What can we do differently?

It is separate from the regulations that we are considering.

Fergus Ewing wants to come in, to be followed by Stephanie Gallacher. I am sorry—I mean Stephanie Callaghan. I am mixing up my Gallachers and my Callaghans.

That would be helpful, because we want to do everything that we can to help and encourage in this area. Girls need to have role models, so you are right to focus on it.

That was a sobering comment on which to end our session, which has been excellent. All of the witnesses have brought a lot to it, and I wish that we could have had longer with you. I hope that we can have you all back again, especially to talk about entrepreneurship in this context, because that was highlighted by the Logan review and it deserves further scrutiny by us.

I thank Professor Mark Logan, Dr Natalie Coull, Karen Meechan and Nicola Taylor for joining us this morning. Your time has been very valuable from your point of view and it has been very well used from our point of view, so thank you for being with us.

The public part of the meeting is now at an end.

We can; that is much clearer. Kaukab, would you like to resume your questioning?