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I think that, with the experience of coronavirus, the right way to do things has been demonstrated. Regulations should not stay in place for one day longer than they should do, and guidance should not be stricter for one day longer than is needed, but, obviously, we do not want things to change for the sake of it. I cannot for the life of me see why, in the middle of a public health pandemic, a Government would make changes if those changes were not based on advice from the chief medical officer.

We should look to the safeguards in the bill, which states clearly that there needs to be advice from the CMO to allow Government to make regulations that are proportionate to what is happening. The safeguards are in the bill when it comes to why we would make regulations; it is all about the seriousness of a public health emergency.

Changes involving the removal of regulations would, of course, be made to ensure that we could get back to as normal a situation as everybody would want us to be in. The bill sets out that changes would be made to speed things up or make things tighter; it also explains why regulations would be taken away.

One of the key areas that the bill covers is the importance of continuity of education rather than a blanket closure approach. That points to the impact that the pandemic had on children, young people and students across the country. They will all have experienced it differently, depending on their individual circumstances, but, in many cases, their experiences have been exceptionally difficult. We have spoken about that when I have been before the committee previously.

The Government needs to rise to the important challenge of ensuring that we have the powers to enable us to deal with public health emergencies and ensure continuity of education. That has a real primacy in our thinking, because we must do everything that we can to protect students as far as we possibly can.

I would caveat that by saying that students’ experience might be variable because of different requirements in different parts of the country. Indeed, that is what we saw with the coronavirus. Different parts of the education system might require different types of regulation, so we are not taking a blanket approach in which the same thing happens from early years all the way up to the universities. Within that, we are endeavouring to protect students as much as possible and to put that absolutely front and centre in our work.

The bill allows the power to make regulations, which would then go through Parliament. In how the bill is framed at this point, we are ensuring that, instead of directional powers being taken, the powers to make regulations would go through Parliament. That would ensure the ability to have far greater scrutiny over ministerial decisions than we have been able to have under the directional powers that we had previously under the coronavirus legislation.

I think that we have all learned, as we have gone through the pandemic, the importance of quick decision making but also that parliamentary scrutiny must absolutely be included in that process. That is why the safeguards in the bill that require parliamentary approval for regulations are very important.

It is good to see that Mr Mundell is rising to the occasion once again on the issue. I am not going to rise to the political points that Mr Mundell makes. We have the opportunity to come together in the committee and as a Parliament to pass a serious piece of legislation that allows us to deal with future public health emergencies. That is the position that we are currently in.

I completely appreciate that Mr Mundell will be critical of the Government on all the aspects that he has raised, that he does not think that the Government has gone far enough, and that he thinks that we have gone too far on many other occasions. We have in front of us today a bill—

I was just trying to bring things to life a little with an example of how we can have differences.

That is an important point, and I would be interested to hear more about that from the committee. I can give a couple of examples of how we are moving forward with that.

The national improvement framework is one example. We are determined to ensure that spending on the education and skills portfolio has a direct impact on the national improvement framework and the work from that. That is all about improving outcomes for children and young people. The latest version of the framework was published in December. That is one example of the work that we do.

I also point to the work on the Scottish attainment challenge. There will be £1 billion of expenditure during this session of Parliament. It is vital that we know that the money is being spent in the most effective fashion. That is why my announcement to Parliament included the work that we will do with local authorities on stretch aims so that we will know what the money is being spent on and what schools and local authorities think that it will deliver. We will work closely with local authorities. Once we have that information, Education Scotland can ensure support for local authorities to deliver those outcomes, and we will be able to see what is being done to achieve them.

Those are two examples. The committee raises a fair point, and I am keen to see where we can do further work.

Teacher recruitment is absolutely integral to partners moving forward with the reduction in class contact time, which is exactly why the Government has invested so heavily in that. We are aware that there are practical challenges in bringing that in, of which timetabling is one, and that schools continue to be under pressure due to dealing with Covid. We know that there is a lot of pressure on the system, but one of the ways in which we can assist—if we can—is through a reduction in class contact time for teachers. Going back to an earlier point that we discussed, that is important for staff welfare.

You have raised an important point. As funding leaves national Government and moves to local government, it is—absolutely—for local government to determine how that money is spent if it is outside ring-fenced budgets.

It is very important that we all have a close regard to the variation in outcomes in education, which should be a shared concern for us all. The variation of how things are done in education is absolutely to be encouraged, because we should not have a one-size-fits-all policy set from Edinburgh. However, variation in the outcomes for children is something that we are determined to look at. I would point to some of the key aspects in the Scottish attainment challenge funding, which I raised with the convener earlier, that we are determined to move forward with and that look specifically at variation.

In other areas, we will, of course, set outcome frameworks for what we expect from those programmes. There are outcome frameworks for the 1,140 hours policy, so that there is an understanding of what is delivered for the funding that goes in. It is important that not just the Scottish Government but local authorities know what the outcomes of ring-fenced funding are and that they have an awareness of what happens with the funding that leaves national Government and goes to local government.

The overall settlement that has been provided will deliver real-terms growth. It protects core budgets in cash terms, it will allow additional funding to be provided for teachers and support staff, and it contains funding for the 100 days commitments, some of which I mentioned in my introductory remarks. It also contains funding for the free school meals settlements.

If Mr Rennie wishes more money to go into local government or elsewhere, I am sure that he will tell me—or perhaps Ms Forbes later in the budget process—where money should be cut from to allow that to happen.

With the greatest respect, Mr Marra, local authorities have taken the action that they deemed necessary to deal with the challenges. There has been limited action because local authorities have been reassured that what is in place is adequate for what needs to happen. I am not aware of any local authority that has been held back in any action because of a limitation in funds.

I assure Mr Marra that I listen very carefully to what the First Minister says at all times. She and I are absolutely on the same page on this, because there is a recognition that the money can be used for air filters, but, of course, it is a matter for the use of guidance. As with all our reactions to Covid, policy must be based on expert advice. Again, with the greatest respect to Mr Marra, the expert advice—including what comes from SAGE and the Health and Safety Executive—would not suggest or lead to the policy that he wishes to put in place, because it does not equate to what the expert advice says needs to happen.

As a Government, we have ensured an opportunity for local authorities to move forward with remedial action, including, if required, the use of HEPA air-cleaning filters. It is very important that that opportunity is there. It is already within the guidance that that can happen, if local authorities wish, so nothing is stopping it happening at that point.

I am very keen to ensure that we take on concerns. Before Christmas, Mr Marra raised a concern, which I encouraged him to ensure was taken up through official channels. In conjunction with my COSLA colleague, Councillor Stephen McCabe, I have written to all the unions to say that we have a workforce issues group where we continuously ask for specifics, so that the Scottish Government or local authorities can act on specific concerns that teachers have. We have not had any specific concerns that we need to look at but, once again, we have written to all unions to ask them not for general concerns but for specific concerns from specific teachers, which we can deal with in confidence, if required. We take that very seriously, and we have reached out to ensure that that can happen.