Seòmar agus comataidhean

I nominate Stephen Kerr.

Since the legacy report was produced, there has been a major and highly critical intervention from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Its report details 10 years of botched reform and bureaucracy that has put teachers under pressure and failed young people. I do not know about other committee members, but I certainly found it embarrassing to read the 150-page document, especially given that many of the OECD’s suggestions were recommended by the Education and Skills Committee in the previous session. Those suggestions were resisted and ridiculed by the SNP Government for years.

Opposition members on the committee in the previous session were accused of politicking, of making baseless criticisms and of talking Scotland down, but we now know that those concerns were, in fact, true and that the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney, was putting his political future ahead of our young people. It is no wonder that the SNP was so keen to keep the report secret ahead of the election.

The material change in circumstances, to borrow a phrase, reframes many of the discussions that we had in the previous session and demands a different approach from the Government. It is therefore vital that we explore in detail the concerns that the OECD has highlighted before we revisit the legacy paper in its totality. I am content to leave that discussion to the work programme agenda item, which will be in private, but I wanted to make those points in the public session.