Seòmar agus comataidhean

On a different note, you heard the evidence from the NASUWT last week. It said that if provision were moved on to a statutory footing and taken away from the system of good will that underpins a lot of it—that is, that teachers and support staff are willing to go on these trips—it would want to open up discussions with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers on renegotiating teachers’ terms and conditions. That is obviously not factored into the financial memorandum, and there is a potential there for that to be a not insignificant—and perfectly justifiable—additional cost. How do you respond to that? The system of good will does not factor in the point that, in any other job, people are generally paid additionally if they are required to go away for work or work for longer periods of time. That does not happen here at the moment, but moving the matter on to a statutory footing and potentially formalising it, with it being raised at the SNCT, could raise those costs.

I tend to agree with you that this is not likely to be what pushes teachers out of the profession. However, is there not a fairness argument here? A teacher who was to go away on a trip could potentially face increased childcare costs of their own but not be recompensed for them because the matter is not currently formally acknowledged as part of the pay and conditions agreement for teaching staff.

COSLA and ADES, and perhaps some other organisations that made submissions, were keen on a mechanism for annual review, in particular so that any potential issues to do with costs increasing in ways that were not foreseen can be dealt with. Are you amenable to working in an annual review mechanism?

I agree that the vast majority of centres are run by extremely motivated people and that a lot of them are social enterprises and are not for profit in the first place.

However, there is an issue. You were at the Education, Children and Young People Committee last week when I raised the issue of Blairvadach, which is a Glasgow City Council-run centre near Helensburgh. Part of the challenge there is that every time they have a school trip in, they cannot use the space commercially, and they obviously make far less out of the school trips than they do out of commercial bookings. People want providers to keep the rate as low as possible to make it accessible to schools, but inducing demand from schools potentially increases the challenges to those centres around their commercial viability, because there is simply less space for them to take private bookings.

If passed, the bill will induce quite a lot of demand in the sector. As you point out, there is bed capacity at the moment but there is not a huge surplus, so existing providers would have to expect quite a lot of additional demand. Some of the submissions that came to us raised the possibility that some providers might seize the opportunity to increase their rates, which might take us beyond the cost range set out in the financial memorandum. What is your response to that? There is an opportunity for providers to significantly increase their rates if they know that there is an obligation on the state to provide outdoor learning and that there are not many other places to go.

So you do not think that transport costs, specifically, will result in kids from more deprived urban communities being offered the shorter-distance, lower-cost model and kids from wealthier communities, whose parents can afford to make contributions to transport, getting that additional experience. Again, I am not devaluing the close-to-home, camping-in-a-tent model, but is there a risk of inequality in that respect?

Thank you.

I am grateful for the minister’s support, and I am glad that he is supporting the other amendments in the group, which I think are worth while, too.

I press amendment 70.

Amendment 70 agreed to.

Amendment 71 moved—[Ross Greer]—and agreed to.

Section 29, as amended, agreed to.

After section 29

Amendment 44 moved—[Jamie Hepburn]—and agreed to.

Amendment 54 moved—[Jeremy Balfour]—and agreed to.

Sections 30 to 37 agreed to.

Section 38—Individual culpability where organisation commits an offence

Amendment 45 moved—[Jamie Hepburn]—and agreed to.

Section 38, as amended, agreed to.

Sections 39 and 40 agreed to.

Section 41—Guidance

Good morning, colleagues. You will be glad to know that I will speak only to my two amendments in the group and that I will do so quite briefly.

Amendment 70 is an example of giving examples in legislation. It is often useful to, sparingly, provide examples in legislation to demonstrate clear intentions, particularly for those who will come after us. Amendment 70 includes the classic legislative language of “Without prejudice to” the above, and it states that

“automatic voter registration in educational establishments”,

including schools, universities and colleges, could be one of the activities that could be funded under section 29.

There is a huge amount of evidence on the positive impact of automatic voter registration, which is often far more cost effective than campaigns to encourage people to register individually in their own time. Bluntly, education establishments have a captive audience, so there is plenty of potential in that regard. For example, there is a lot of potential for the automatic voter registration of young people at the point at which they are issued with their Scottish Qualifications Authority candidate number. There is very good work in some American states, with people being automatically registered to vote when they receive their driving licence from the department of motor vehicles.

Amendment 70 is not prescriptive. It does not mandate that that is one of the activities that should be undertaken, but it points to it as an example. It is what I would describe as a nudging amendment—nudging in what I believe to be the intended direction for section 29.

Amendment 71 simply points out that due regard should be given to the Equality Act 2010, in recognition of the fact that some of the groups with the lowest participation rates—or with rates that are lower than the average participation rate—are groups that are defined by protected characteristics under the 2010 act. One of the most obvious ones is age, as there is a lower participation rate among young people, and another covers disabled people, which is relevant to other sections of the bill.

Those are the intentions behind both my amendments.

I move amendment 70.

I should say at the outset that, although I will be moving amendment 72, I will not be pressing it to a vote or moving amendments 73 and 74. I have had some useful engagement with the minister on this matter, and I think that there is potential for at least a partial agreement, although I recognise that there are still points to work through.

I will summarise the purpose of these amendments. I believe that it is desirable for the public to have a clear understanding of the electoral boundaries that they sit within. Obviously, where there is a change in those boundaries, it takes time to communicate that. At a very practical level, the successful functioning of our democracy in our elections depends on political parties being able to function well, and they need a reasonable degree of notice of any boundary changes, for the purposes of selecting candidates and doing any internal reorganisation that might be required.

The intention of the amendments, therefore, is quite simply to set an 18-month deadline before an election for the completion of the relevant boundary review, so that the public and the parties participating in an election have the notice that they require in order to be fully informed and prepared.

I move amendment 72.