Skip to main content
Loading…

Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

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 4 May 2021
  6. Current session: 13 May 2021 to 4 February 2026
Select which types of business to include


Select level of detail in results

Displaying 1016 contributions

|

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 12 November 2025

George Adam

Good morning, Mr Johnson. You said that you understood the difficulties and challenges that teachers deal with in a classroom environment. However, many of them have been asking when seclusion becomes seclusion after a child has been disruptive in class and, I dare say, needs classroom management. Teachers have said that your bill would not make a difference as it does not make the definition of seclusion clear to them. The environment is challenging, and things happen in the classroom in the moment. How can your bill make teachers feel better about that?

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Historic Environment Scotland

Meeting date: 6 November 2025

George Adam

I will pick up on the meetings and who you met and when. With your officials engaging as regularly as they do, you have a note on what the officials have attended and what has happened at the meetings. Have I picked you up correctly that the whistleblower was the only reason you heard of the allegations and that they never came through the engagement from the Scottish Government?

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Historic Environment Scotland

Meeting date: 6 November 2025

George Adam

I will focus on the governance issues in particular. We are all aware of how important Historic Environment Scotland is to the Scottish economy and what it contributes. With Sir Mark Jones now in place, you have already hinted at various support that you will give him. What will you be giving him to make sure that he does exactly what he wants to do, which he said to me when I asked him questions last week, and exactly what you need him to do?

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Historic Environment Scotland

Meeting date: 6 November 2025

George Adam

When answering one of Mr Bibby’s questions, Mr Hogg said that there is not a widespread issue and that the problems are not happening in other parts of the cultural sector. What is the Government learning from what has happened in HES to ensure that that is the case and that we do not end up in a similar situation with other parts of the cultural sector that the Government supports?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 5 November 2025

George Adam

Good morning. Paul McLennan brought up the main issue in his usual very quiet and dignified way, which is the fact that children and young people are the most important people with regard to this bill. Various people have told us that the bill is a starting point and that it is not the main delivery mechanism, because local authorities and other areas do a lot of the work. As the bill is just now and with the work in partnership with other authorities and organisations to deliver the Promise, do you believe that the bill will be the starting point—the jumping-off point—to ensure that we deliver it?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 5 November 2025

George Adam

That is me.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 5 November 2025

George Adam

I am thinking about some of the examples that we have been given. I come from a pretty chaotic background family-wise and never had that type of support. In what is deemed a normal family upbringing, you always have mum and dad to go to; the whole purpose of the bill is to use organisations and ourselves to put an arm around the person who is going through all that difficulty and say, “We’re here for you and we’re gonnae support you”.

It backs up something that Willie Rennie said about North Yorkshire Council’s idea of simplifying the process. Local authorities are already doing that—you and I will know that, minister, from our similar background in Renfrewshire Council. When they do housing, they take into account the needs of young people who are going through the process. It is a case of ensuring that local authorities continue to do that work, because, as you have rightly said, there are areas in which things are going really well and some in which they are not going as well. We have heard the evidence on that. How do we balance that out?

How do we provide encouragement for local authority areas such as ours that have been doing various social housing prospects where they include housing for young people in those situations among everyone else, as well as ensuring that the support is there for the young people as well? That support is the important thing—it is not just about flinging them a set of keys and saying, “There you go. Pay your rent, do your thing and get on wi it”.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 5 November 2025

George Adam

That brings me on to another thing, which both of us will know from our local Government backgrounds. Corporate parenting is mentioned quite a lot when you are a local councillor. Although I do not think that it is looked on as an important thing if you are outwith a local authority—and a lot of people do not like the phrase “corporate parenting”—I believe that it is quite an important issue when you are trying to look at how we as an authority or local authorities deal with it. Some people told us in evidence that they are very positive about the idea, which they see it as a form of support and help, but others told us that they see it as a piece of state intervention. How do you feel about that, and how do we ensure that we pitch it as an idea to help someone?

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Sporting Events of National Interest

Meeting date: 30 October 2025

George Adam

I understand that the biggest broadcaster in Scotland is slowly but surely becoming YouTube.

I was surprised when you mentioned that some of the money goes to referee training and recruitment. It will be interesting to see how that works.

We are now in a position where we have the best of both worlds. The BBC is showing it free to air and it has managed to get the rights. There is a multimillion-pound deal with ITV in England. Do you think that, if it comes to bidding for rights again, the BBC as an organisation should look at it not just as BBC Scotland but as the BBC for the whole of the United Kingdom, and make a bid as such an organisation, to try to make it free to air? BBC Scotland’s budget is much like your organisation’s budget—it is a small fish in a big ocean.

Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee [Draft]

Historic Environment Scotland

Meeting date: 30 October 2025

George Adam

Good morning, everyone, and apologies for being a wee bit later. I might have been as well not coming, however, because there seems to be more that we cannot ask you than we can ask you. You can understand how concerning and frustrating it is for us—as I suspect it is for you—that you are not able to give us straight answers. Sir Mark, when you got this role and you first had to deal with these issues, your first public statement was:

“My priorities as chairman will be to ensure the organisation can build on its recent successes and retain the trust of the public and our partners”.

Without going into individual things, how are you going to do that, in light of how public all the allegations are that have been made regarding the organisation? How are you going to regain trust after everything that has happened very publicly?