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Okay, I accept all the pandemic stuff. I do not know whether I am going to get anywhere with this, but I am genuinely puzzled that the Government has embarked on a 10-year programme of education reform without really being able to explain why.

There was a kind of panic in 2016, and we set bold ambitions to close the poverty-related attainment gap, whether completely or substantially. At that point, there was an ambition to respond to get us further up the PISA tables, whatever you think of their validity. Nicola Sturgeon said that closing that gap was her “defining mission”. Now, we have moved on from all of that and are saying that it is all about the pandemic. Surely we have to recognise that something was wrong. My view is that you had a ragtag bunch of reforms that did not really come together because you did not understand what the problem was. Is that not right?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It is your promise—your issue, which you promised to resolve. It is not my issue but yours, so do not put it back on me.

Various nurseries have come to me and said that they have advertised posts at £12 an hour, but their local council is advertising exactly the same type of post for £16 an hour. How are they supposed to close that gap? They are charities. Where do they find that £4 an hour? They have serious problems if you cannot provide funding that is more equivalent to council nursery funding.

Okay.

I have two quick questions. First, the Hayward review has two elements: changing the curriculum and changing the qualifications system. There is more in it than that, but those are central. Are you rejecting the extra columns of personal achievement and project work? Are they now gone?

Nobody is watching.

You never do.

Convener, I note—I do not expect an answer to this—that Nicola Sturgeon, the former First Minister, asked the question of the current First Minister last week and did not really get an answer, and I note that we have not really had an answer today. I hope that the cabinet secretary will ask the Deputy First Minister to respond on whether the money will be committed in full by the end of the session.

Why did it happen, then?

No. Why did the education system allow the poverty-related attainment gap to get so wide—much wider than in other countries of a similar type?

No.

No, I accept that, but what was recognised in 2016? Nobody has explained it. Why have we embarked on education reform if there is nothing wrong?