Seòmar agus comataidhean

I started by talking about marginal improvement in the performance; Kaukab Stewart said that it could be better, which is maybe a fairer way of presenting it. We have a slow process of reform, and we are uncertain about what will happen after the Hayward review. Children who started school when Nicola Sturgeon made that promise in 2016 will have left by the time that we see any potential real benefit. That cannot be satisfactory. Does that really give hope to young people that the Government is on their side?

I have one final question.

It is not really a question—

But the success is not a result of the reforms. The reforms were established because of a crisis, and we have not really seen them happen, so you cannot really claim credit for those areas of improvement. I recognise that there are improvements, but we set up those reforms in response to a critical report and nothing much has happened. That is not good enough, is it?

I have one final question, which is about research. Scotland used to punch well above its weight in that area, and we still do, but not as much as we used to. We used to get 15 per cent of the UK research councils’ funding each year, but that amount has now dropped to 12.5 per cent. Why has that happened?

The minister cannot be happy that we pay workers two different pay rates for doing exactly the same job. Workers who happen to be in the unfortunate position of working in a private sector nursery are paid much less than those in council nurseries. That cannot be right, can it?

What does “substantially eliminate” mean?

I am just trying to get a definition of what “substantially eliminate” means. We all thought before that you were going to abolish the gap completely, but now we understand that the position has been refined. We could argue about how that developed, but I am still unclear about how we know whether the gap has been substantially eliminated. Is there a number? Are you expecting the gap to reach a certain level, which you would call “substantially eliminating” it? If so, what is it?

It is important, however. The attainment gap is massive—enormous—and we were slipping down the international rankings. That is why the OECD report was commissioned, so there was a crisis, and I have to say that the way in which the cabinet secretary presented it sounded incredibly complacent.

It is not that hypothetical.