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A lot of employers are keen to develop our young people’s skills and some would like a model of trust funding for this kind of outdoor activity—it does not have to be outdoor education; it could be other things. Help could be given to our outdoor centres to provide quality provision through additional funding that employers could make available. Some centres have benefited from being able to upgrade some of their facilities.

There is a new outdoor education centre up in Aberdeenshire, and a lady from there gave evidence not to the Education, Children and Young People Committee but to the cross-party group on outdoor education. She told an inspiring story about the funding for that centre. When outdoor education centres do creative and imaginative things, funding can be found, but you are quite right that we must ensure that that can happen not just in a few cases but across the system.

There are issues about some of the existing outdoor centres needing to update their facilities. However, when it comes to bed space, which is important because that is the issue that determines how many youngsters can go to the centres, there is good capacity. We need to make a distinction between that and the structures that those who represented the outdoor education sector at the Education, Children and Young People Committee mentioned last week when they acknowledged that some of their facilities need to be updated. They are the ones who have to do that, and they are waiting to see what the demand level will be before they make investment decisions on that basis.

Having been a teacher myself, I am slightly biased.

On the same side of that coin, Mr Greer, is the fact that if those centres were to take bookings from non-school attendees and the price shot up, the temptation would then be to have fewer places for young people, because, obviously, there would be displacement and it would be more tempting for a provider to simply offer the space, not to young people, but to those who are able to pay more. I do not think that that will happen—I see no sign of that whatsoever. In fact, it is quite the reverse in the sector. However, that displacement effect could happen if the centres felt that they had to get an awful lot of extra money from somewhere else, because schools would simply not be able to pay those fees. That would reduce the number of spaces that were available for young people.

I am the first to admit that not all youngsters will benefit from residential outdoor education. A small number do not like it at all; they feel quite pressurised by it, and anxious as a result, and we have to be mindful of those young people.

As for the way in which the centres operate now, they are much more understanding of and care more about that type of young person than was perhaps the case in my day, when you just had to get on with it and did not get much opportunity to do anything else. That kind of education is changing for the better with regard to looking after the child’s best interests. I suppose that, if we want to put it into Government speak, it is about getting it right for every child. I think that that is improving a lot.

We absolutely should include other opportunities from different perspectives, because education is a wonderful thing, which people can benefit from in so many different ways.

Quite right.

The Scottish Government—all credit to it for doing so—set up Inspiring Scotland, which is a collaboration involving the Government, the private sector, the charitable sector and the third sector. I have suggested to the Scottish Government that it has a long conversation with Inspiring Scotland, which has been relatively successful and has been a really good thing for Scotland.

Rethink Ireland has raised quite a lot of money from a social perspective, and we can write to the committee about how it operates. There is also the Ernest Cook Trust down south, which has been very good at providing centres with additional support. I think that we can make that work.

Yes. However, in his evidence to the Education, Children and Young People Committee in the first evidence-taking session, Mr Mannion made it clear that some close-to-home experiences that were provided near schools did not cost terribly much and gave as much educational benefit as a residential experience would.

Therefore, we have to see this in the broadest sense. The bill is not about trying to replace other educational experiences; the experiences for which it provides will be complementary to those experiences. Lots of really good things are happening on school campuses and in the world of outdoor learning—as the Scottish Government has promoted it—and the bill should not displace that sort of thing.

As for whether the ability of parents to pay for outdoor education experiences will have an effect on the choices that a school might make, it might do in some circumstances. The bigger issue is transport, because that is where the cost lies. The point was put to me originally that parents cannot afford the kit, the boots and all the things that are needed for outdoor education, but I was really pleased to hear last week that the centres are largely providing those things now. That is a big change from my day when we had outdoor education, when that really was something that stopped people going. These days, a pair of boots, a decent cagoule and so on are very expensive—it costs a good few hundred pounds to get a child kitted out to do such activities—and the fact that centres are now providing that equipment is a big step forward.

That is very helpful.

It is quite important for the overall tax burden in Scotland.