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My view is that the principle of the importance of containing targets in the strategy can be in the bill, but if we become overly rigid in determining those targets in 2024—they will, inevitably, be only high-level targets—we will be at risk of distorting Gaelic language policy. It would be better to set targets out in the strategy, and to be far more responsive.

We are, in principle, sympathetic with the aims of the amendments, but some changes need to be made to them. We could perhaps work together in advance of stage 3 to address some of the issues through new drafting. Some areas of practice and legislative provisions would make it very difficult for us to support the amendments in their current form, but I want to set out some of the relevant provisions that are already in place or being developed.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority already makes some qualifications available in Gaelic. The Education (Scotland) Bill is proposing to replace the SQA with the new body qualifications Scotland. Section 7 of that bill will place a duty on qualifications Scotland to

“have regard to the needs and interests of persons using its services, including those who are receiving, or wish to receive Gaelic learner education”

or

“Gaelic medium education”.

That cross-cutting duty will apply where qualifications Scotland is exercising all its functions, including devising and awarding qualifications and accreditation.

Yes, absolutely. I envisage us being not just in a position to consider the issue before stage 3 but to support amendments at stage 3 that are, essentially, amendments 61, 75 and 84 with some minor drafting changes.

To be fair, I note that I had not yet turned to amendments 61 and 75—what I was saying was very much in relation to amendment 84.

Our point about amendments 61 and 75 is simple. Education Scotland is an agency of the Scottish Government, so it is not possible to use legislation to put duties on it. Any such duty would be placed on Scottish ministers. If members agree not to press the amendments, we are simply left with a question of drafting. In legislative terms, the burden would not be on Education Scotland; it would be on the Scottish Government.

I do not think that there is any disagreement. It is more the case that, from a legal and drafting perspective, some minor concerns have been highlighted on amendments 61 and 75. John Mason is right to say that the intention of the amendments is fairly straightforward: it is just a question of focusing the duty on Scottish ministers, not on Education Scotland.

On the SQA point, it is a question of the change that is going on in another bill, as well as making sure that we do not take a blanket approach but that, instead, the approach is quite targeted.

I would like to make two quick points. I want to highlight organisations that have not been referenced but do a lot of work to support Gaelic-medium education at the moment, such as Stòrlann Nàiseanta na Gàidhlig and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

That point about cascading was very well made, so we might want to think about how we incorporate that as part of our conversations on drafting of amendments.

Amendments 3, 6 and 7 respond to legitimate concerns that the committee raised. I think that Ruth Maguire, one of the committee’s former members, asked me about the matter that they address when I gave evidence at stage 1.

The aim of areas of linguistic significance is to give improved recognition to Gaelic in certain areas and to give communities a greater say in the development of a Gaelic-language policy that applies to them. That recognises the importance of, and the renewed focus on, communities.

Amendment 3 requires that, if the authority for an area that has 20 per cent of the population with Gaelic-language skills decides not to designate that area, it must make public the decision and its reasons for not proceeding.

Amendments 6 and 7 increase the level of community input into the process, which was a specific ask from the committee. They enable communities to commence the process of designating an area of linguistic significance by making that demand known to Bòrd na Gàidhlig, which must then request that the local authority must consider making a designation.

One criticism that has been made is that, often, Gaelic-language policy is very top down. Amendments 6 and 7 are about ensuring that people at grass-roots level—the community level—are able to make their views known and initiate a process that would give their area the status of an area of linguistic significance. Those amendments also give Bòrd na Gàidhlig a key role in the process and enable and encourage it to be active at a community level and act in line with community representation. That is to ensure that a third party can manage the process, and Bòrd na Gàidhlig is well placed to do that.

In principle, I am very supportive of amendments 4 and 5, in the name of Pam Duncan-Glancy. I would be interested in progressing work with her in advance of stage 3. The provisions in the bill already allow consultation with community councils when those councils wish to engage. There is a broad consultation provision that refers to

“such other persons as the authority considers it appropriate”

to consult. Where there is an active and engaged community council, it would want to respond to any consultation for its area. However, it is possible—we all know this from doing work in our areas—that a community council might be inactive or fail to respond. It could therefore become quite difficult for the local authority to be sure that it had complied with the duty created by amendment 5 if a community council was not currently operational. There are also some small technical issues with the drafting.

I consider it important to give effect to the principle that Pam Duncan-Glancy is seeking to implement through the bill. I would be happy to support her amendments 4 and 5, but I ask her to work with me before stage 3 to ensure that the drafting of the provisions reflects those challenges and reflects more generally the diverse situation in communities where there is no operational community council.

My understanding is that that is correct. When it comes to the 2005 act, we are aware that data gathering has been a challenge and that we need to do more on that. The committee, too, flagged a criticism about the robustness of the data that we gather. That was a frequent refrain from the committee, so amendment 55 highlights our commitment on that.

I turn to the other amendments. Amendment 47, from my reading of it, would essentially create a requirement to report on the number of Gaelic speakers, at the level at which the census reports, every two years. While we would not argue with the desire to have far more frequent reporting on progress among Gaelic speakers, our sense is that, considering that it takes quite a long time to do the census, the strict schedules in amendment 47 would require a significant amount of resources and staffing. Again, the risk is that that would distract from the urgent need for action by focusing resources on reporting rather than delivery. There are also deeper questions around the methodology that would be involved in such reporting, which would have to be settled before making it a requirement on ministers. The reason why we lodged amendment 55 was to address that issue. In a way, it is less onerous and will, we hope, provide a greater depth of information.

Amendment 67 concerns a desire for more information and would require reporting on particular issues. The Gaelic language strategy and standards are the way for us to assess the issues that affect the language and its communities. There is a concern that the requirements in this amendment would, again, require a significant resource investment that would focus efforts away from the delivery of the bill’s measures. Again, we have lodged amendment 55 to try to address the issue.

I have previously stated that the challenges facing Gaelic require action across a range of issues relating to social and economic matters as much as to the themes of education, institutional planning and community development that will be the main focus of the bill. Interventions are under way that indicate the Government’s recognition of the need to provide a comprehensive approach to the language.

That is a compelling argument for why I believe that this reporting should be done on an intensely localised basis. It is key to monitor progress within local communities. Even if you were to take a single island, the island of Skye, and look at the figures across that island, that would not tell you much about the health of the communities where the population is highly dense, in the north of the island.

Where we might want to move further is on how to report regularly to the Parliament on progress in the areas of linguistic significance, according to the plans that will have been established in those intensely local areas and on whether they are proving to be successful or not. That is where I whole-heartedly agree with the member and where I think that doing it purely on a national basis does not meet the aims and the ambitions.

Michael Marra’s amendment 67 requires us to look at the extent to which certain issues have been addressed by the bill’s provisions and at what other issues exist in relation to Gaelic communities and the use of the Gaelic language. Those are very laudable aims, but they are most relevant when applied to traditional Gaelic-speaking communities, so I think that that reporting should be done with regard to those areas. At the moment, the position would be that, if an area were designated as an area of linguistic significance, with a plan in place, that plan should then be monitored after consultation with local stakeholders.

On amendment 47, I take Michael Marra’s point that it does not have to be census methodology, but if there is a requirement to publish a report on the number of Gaelic language speakers in Scotland every two years, we may actually see very little fluctuation in those figures. We may see, for example, that more children are learning Gaelic, but the process is very resource intensive for getting quite a high-level view. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there might be merit in looking at how we include more parliamentary scrutiny in the reporting, without going down the route of national high-level census figures every two years.

On amendment 67, which is about reporting on the specific issues that the bill seeks to address, that sort of thing is done at an intensely local level. If the Gaelic community plan for a particular locality says, “The three priorities here are X, Y and Z,” the question is how the Parliament scrutinises whether any of those plans are successful. There could be an amendment to that effect as part of the areas of linguistic significance requirements.

Amendments 51 and 52, which would provide a mechanism for ensuring that Bòrd na Gàidhlig recommendations are carried out with the support of Scottish ministers, respond to the wishes of Gaelic interests for Scottish public authorities to implement the commitments in their Gaelic language plans. I am happy to support those amendments.

Amendment 53 would remove from section 9 a direction-making power that Scottish ministers were proposing to take but which the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee had asked to be reconsidered. The Scottish Government agrees that the objectives of that power could be achieved by other means—particularly the power to set standards, which authorities will have to follow, and the power to give guidance. I therefore propose to remove that power from the bill.

I apologise that the financial resolution came—to use the member’s term—later in the day. There has been a lot of movement with amendments, and we wanted to ensure that the position was as accurate as possible. The financial position must reflect the amendments. The reason for having a revised financial memorandum will be to reflect how we intend to amend the bill.

One tension with the bill is that members and external stakeholders have—rightly—been asking and pressing for the bill to mean more. I think that the word that was used is that the bill needs to be “strengthened” in order for areas of linguistic significance to really mean something. In many cases, that points to making a number of community interventions, which we can probably do independently of the bill. However, because of the criticism—which is quite right—and the calls to strengthen the bill by setting out what activities and interventions are required, we have sought to strengthen the bill. Therefore, in the bill, we will be able to point to things that we can actively do without waiting for the standards or the strategy.

There is already a range of grant-making powers that are designed for culture, education and heritage, but what was perhaps missing was economic activity. At the end of the day, jobs and businesses are the cornerstone of any community. This enables us to highlight and point to specific interventions that could be made and which could probably have been made already, but we are strengthening the bill to make a series of more active interventions in areas of linguistic significance, if that makes sense.