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When did you first have sight of those results? They were published on 14 December, and it was trailed in little snippets in various speeches and announcements that you expected the data to be very concerning for us all.

Are you saying that the sight of the emerging evidence about the scale of the impact did not really make much difference to the approach that you took? It has been well recognised by colleagues and trade unions that the Covid recovery plan is a repackaging of previous announcements such as pupil equity funding and attainment challenge funding—although there has been a £20 million cut to that. The amounts of money are the same across a number of years. Does the scale of the challenge not require something of a different proportion to what you were doing three years ago?

That is only because this is an extra year. The funding has been spread across another year, but there is no more money per year than there was in the previous parliamentary session.

As you have acknowledged, the statistics are concerning for all of us—you called them “exceptionally concerning”. It is important that we get more evidence about the impact of the pandemic. What research have you commissioned to inform your policy and decisions about the recovery in education, particularly in relation to secondary schools? You will acknowledge that there is a gap—perhaps an understandable one, in your view—in the data at that level. What other structural research into the impact of the pandemic can the committee expect to be made available to us?

I understand that.

Convener, I think that we have reached a bit of an impasse. The distance between the reality that teachers and pupils are facing on the ground and the cabinet secretary’s response is quite astonishing. The cabinet secretary referred to a case that I raised with her in the chamber, in response to which she told me to ask the teacher who had contacted me to raise the matter with their union representative. The teacher involved is the union rep in their school. People are finding that there is no recourse to get the kind of action on active ventilation that they need. It is clear from what we are hearing now that the funding that has been put in place cannot even be ring fenced for spending on ventilation. To be frank, I am at my wits’ end with the cabinet secretary on this matter. Thank you, convener, for indulging me on the subject.

So, you have not commissioned anything new to address that gap in information relating to secondary schools.

I apologise to colleagues for raising this issue again—they know about my obsession with ventilation issues. The cabinet secretary and I have exchanged letters and many comments in the chamber on the issue. I welcomed the announcement yesterday of some limited resource for active ventilation in schools, but prior to Christmas the cabinet secretary was strident in her rejection of any idea of active ventilation. At what point over the Christmas period did the Government change its mind, and how many air purifying devices does she think the £5 million can provide for Scotland’s schools?

You are only making good on the cuts that you have made since 2007, and, even if we get to that welcome position, there will be no overall increase in teacher numbers. I welcome the funding and the plan to get back to that position, but your Government made those cuts.

Thanks to the panel for the useful and interesting evidence so far. I want to step back to an earlier comment that I think Frank Mitchell made about the particularly high demand for graduate apprenticeships being greater than supply. Could you unpack that a little bit? To my mind, the graduate apprenticeship scheme has been a real success. Do you agree that that is the case?