Seòmar agus comataidhean

That goes back to part of the conversation that we have just had. In a local authority area or a public body, decisions are already being made. As an example, Highlands and Islands Enterprise will already make decisions on what role it has with regard to Gaelic. There will already be some expenditure. I know that the committee had representatives from HIE here earlier. It already makes those decisions, precisely because of the economic opportunities that come from Gaelic. Therefore, I think that the bill is doing a number of things. It is refining what those responsibilities are, but we are not in 2004, when, for the first time ever, we were suddenly expecting public bodies to have due regard to Gaelic—they already do.

The same goes for Highland Council, which I am intimately acquainted with. Highland Council has a number of Gaelic-medium units and schools. The elected representatives there will make decisions about how to spend their budget. A number of new schools are currently spending money on expanding provision in Fort William and Inverness.

The Scottish Government is not always calling the shots, as it were, and making demands of those organisations. Those organisations make the decisions right now, off the back of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, and they often go further because they see an economic, social or educational opportunity. The point that I am trying to make is that there is not a massive suite of new requirements and regulations as though those public bodies are not, in many cases, already doing work that is important. It gives it a legal backing. Does that make sense?

I think that legislation is needed. There has been a groundswell of support and there is an appetite for legislation that reinforces the responsibilities that public bodies and the Scottish ministers have. On the key point about communities, the policy for designating areas of linguistic significance does not currently exist. To that end, I think that legislation is required, but I will keep making the point that the legislation has a focused aim—we are not expecting it to do everything.

The primary measure will be what is captured in the census. I do not know whether this exists already, but we might need to think about how to go beyond the idea of skills to survey the depth of language. That would be interesting. The Government should have targets for reversing depopulation in general, which I think would boost Gaelic.

The more concrete aim that I am conscious of is that some of the most critical agencies and organisations have their own targets. I think that the Government should have a target of ensuring that they meet their targets. For example, MG Alba has performance and viewing number targets for BBC Alba, Speak Gaelic has targets for Gaelic learning and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig has targets for student intake. Although it will be a movable feast, we could consider how to formalise the devolved and delegated targets and make them Government targets, because the risk of making targets that sit above all those is that they might undermine the targets that already exist in those organisations. Local authorities should also have targets for Gaelic-medium education in primary schools.

There may be work for us to do in formalising our commitment to support those organisations to meet their targets. If MG Alba meets its viewing targets, if Sabhal Mòr Ostaig meets its intake targets and if Speak Gaelic and local authorities meet their targets, we will be some way towards seeing census figures continue to increase.

—in terms of young people leaving Gaelic-medium education. I am a product of Gaelic-medium education, and I did quite well in my advanced higher Gaelic exam, but I would not count myself as being native fluent in that regard.

For me, an aim and an objective should be to try to ensure that children are excelling. However, that speaks to the bigger challenge, which is that genuine fluency has to happen outside the classroom. It is all about the opportunities that a person has through youth work, fun, family and then on to employment.

As English speakers, we all know that fluency in academic terms alone is not always sufficient to ensure that a young person continues with that fluency throughout the rest of their life, to perhaps pass it on to the next generation. I absolutely agree with CnaG and its aim of 90 per cent functional fluency—although I would like it to be 100 per cent.

It gives a legal recognition. Scots has not had the legal recognition that the bill establishes, and it has not benefited from formal support through legislation. There is a big difference between formal support and formalising that expectation everywhere.

I will answer that question. I keep coming back to the point about choice. I think that it is a teacher’s choice what they wish to do. In terms of—

It is. At the moment, what does the bill do? First, the bill formalises recognition for Scots—it recognises it. Secondly, it standardises our response in terms of schools and creates opportunities that did not exist.

I recall being exposed to Scots in Dingwall academy through literature. I do not think that my teacher was necessarily trained in Scots. It would have been quite interesting if she had been trained in Scots; however, she would still probably have been my English teacher.

I think that there is an element of choice here in what a teacher does. That is very different from the case of Gaelic-medium education. If you apply for a job in Gaelic-medium education, there ain’t no choice in whether you are teaching in English or Gaelic—it is a Gaelic-medium school. When it comes to Scots, it is about working with the schools to identify what demand there is from the young people for teachers who are trained in Scots, and whether a school needs to recruit additional resource for that training. There is a big risk—which you picked up on, Mr Kerr, when you spoke about the standardising away of dialects—of overly formalising what we expect from schools, when they have to tailor their curriculum in that way to local interest and opportunity.

I will bring in Claire Cullen, as she is closer to the development of the bill and how we got to where we are at with it.

Yes, and I take it on board now, as you ask that question. Again, we will engage with those who have made that point. It is a Scottish languages bill, and recognising the diversity and variation within those languages is important.

I apologise, but that is what I meant to say: when I said that parents had a right to access Gaelic-medium education, I missed out “to ask”—they have a right to ask for that.