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Are there any other examples?

Miles Briggs has a further question.

I will bring in Ms Fallon first—everyone is keen to get in.

We heard from Andrew Bradshaw that, because of the current situation, 40 per cent of primary school pupils do not get any outdoor education. If we simply put more money into what we are doing at the moment, there will still be a chunk of pupils who do not get any residential outdoor education.

I am asking what would improve education and attainment more generally. Given that you all agree, and last week’s witnesses agreed, that the provision of residential outdoor education is a good thing, if we do not pursue the bill and make it a priority to combine the opportunity to provide outdoor education and improve attainment, what else is there?

Good morning and welcome to the 29th meeting in 2024 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee.

I welcome Jackie Dunbar, who joins the committee this morning. She replaces our colleague Stephanie Callaghan. On behalf of the committee, I thank Stephanie for her work while she was a member of the committee during session 6.

Our first item of business is to choose a new deputy convener. The Parliament has agreed that only members of the Scottish National Party are eligible for nomination as deputy convener. I understand that Jackie Dunbar is the Scottish National Party’s nominee. Do we agree to the nomination of Jackie Dunbar?

Jackie Dunbar was chosen as deputy convener.

Item 2 is an evidence session on the Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill at stage 1. This is a member’s bill, which was introduced by Liz Smith MSP.

We will hear from two panels of witnesses today. I welcome our first panel. Andrew Bradshaw is wider achievement manager, outdoor learning and adventure education, at the City of Edinburgh Council. Andrew is also representing the Scottish Advisory Panel for Outdoor Education and joins us virtually. Matthew Sweeney is policy manager, children and young people, at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. Tara Lillis is a policy official at the NASUWT. Welcome to you all.

We have an awful lot of questions to get through. Some members may direct their questions to individual witnesses. If you hear someone say something that you were going to say, there is no need to repeat it—we will have to rattle through things, given that we have two panels today.

I will start by asking you all—but maybe Matthew Sweeney can give COSLA’s point of view first—to give us an overview of the current provision of outdoor residential education across Scotland and the variances that you see within the 32 local authorities across the country.

Welcome back, members, and welcome to our second panel of witnesses. We have Phil Thompson, the development manager at Ardroy Outdoor Education Centre; Nick March from the Association of Heads of Outdoor Education Centres Scotland; Freda Fallon, the development manager for Scotland at the Outward Bound Trust; and Jamie Miller, the chief executive at Scottish Outdoor Education Centres. I welcome you all to the committee. As you know, this is part of our stage 1 deliberations on Liz Smith’s bill.

I understand that you were all watching the earlier evidence session. Do you have any thoughts on what you heard from some of the representatives in relation to the teaching profession and local authorities? Also, can you tell us about your own individual organisations and the importance of the work that you are doing across Scotland?

We are keen to hear the views of the young people you work with. The union representative in the previous session portrayed this period as quite a difficult time for teachers in general, which I think that we all agree with, but we heard phrases such as, “This could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” and so on, in terms of pay negotiations, for example. What do you hear back from teachers? Mr March has just read out a helpful comment from one teacher. More generally, what do the teachers say when they are with you, when they are preparing to be with you and afterwards? What is the feedback that you get from teachers in particular?

Thank you. With a panel of four witnesses, we will have to keep things moving. I think that covers that area very well, so we will move on now.