The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2547, in the name of Fiona Hyslop, on early years education and child care.

I will attempt to provide a link from the previous debate to this one by complimenting the Executive—I admit that I do not do that very often. This week, at his eight-month check, my baby son received a toothbrush and toothpaste from the health board. I am not sure about access to dental services for all babies who were born last year, but my son also received, in a canvas bag, baby books from the book store initiative, which is supported by the Executive. I therefore acknowledge that universal access to support for an early start in education is already part of policy.

Some children start nursery having never had a book in the home, and having never had the love and nurturing that most children receive. It is not only the child's development that can be supported. Early years policy supports working families and society in general. However, in the Government's policy, there has been too much emphasis on getting single mums back into the workforce. Tackling poverty is crucial, but there is a danger that the Government, in doing that, has lost sight of the primacy of the development of the individual child as the driving force behind policy. Developing motor skills and cognitive understanding is about more than simply improving later results; it is about enhancing the child's ability to understand the world, delivering for the child the magic of discovery and learning, and creating a wonder that will continue to feed interest and to create a hunger for learning to last a lifetime.

What about societal benefits? The abecedarian project in the United States, which offered intensive pre-school education, concentrated on children from low-income, multirisk families. Studies at age 21 of young adults who had attended the project produced impressive results. Those young adults were more likely to have attended tertiary education, and the study results showed a reduction in the number of teenage pregnancies and the use of illegal drugs. The US Perry pre-school project pointed towards a cost-benefit analysis: for every $1 spent on the US abecedarian project, society saved $4, while every $1 spent on the Perry pre-school project saved $8.

Where stands Scotland? I understand that we expect to see the Government's national early years strategy soon, but it was first consulted on in 2003, it was promised by March 2004 and it has been delayed in publication. It is right and proper that, in the absence of such a strategy, the Parliament should state its views on what it can expect.

In the meantime, the issue of the recognition of the work of nursery nurses still awaits long-term resolution. Scotland is ahead of England in many respects in early years education, and all that Labour in England is promising at the forthcoming election is 15 hours a week of education by 2010. In Scotland, if the Executive heeds the Scottish National Party call, we could increase provision to 3.25 hours a day for 38 weeks, starting now. That would mean an extra 200 hours of early years education this year for more than 100,000 children. The Government currently provides 12.5 hours a week for only 33 weeks a year, which is equivalent to only 11 hours a week over a normal primary school year of 38 weeks. A move to full half-day provision, as called for by the SNP, could be started this summer, where staff and accommodation capacity exist, rather than by some distant target in 2010.

Our ambition for young Scots does not stop there. The SNP would seek that increase as part of a commitment to move to eventual full-day provision for education and child care. Denmark and Sweden spend 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on early years education and child care, while Scotland spends only 0.5 per cent. Only 8 per cent of five to 10-year-olds in Scotland receive formal out-of-school care; in Sweden, the figure is almost 75 per cent. Schools should become children's centres for the community, and there should be a presumption against the closure of rural schools such as those that are currently under threat in Aberdeenshire; their use should be expanded to provide community child care.

If we want to tackle fundamentally the inequalities and if we want to cultivate the cognitive skills that the future economy will need—as an increasing number of economists, from Nicholas Crafts to Professor Heyman, have said—early years is the place that will make the biggest impact. Until we have the powers over the tax and benefit system that would come with independence, we are restricted here in Scotland in what we can do. We are operating child care policy with one hand tied behind our back.

I am grateful for the credit that Fiona Hyslop gives to the Executive for its work on the issue, but at the end of the day her aspirations would have to be paid for. How, from the point of view of independence—which is what Fiona Hyslop is really proposing—would those aspirations be paid for? How do we raise spending by four times merely by moving to independence?

No Trident; no illegal wars; no identity cards; and by investing in children rather than bombs.

The SNP policy of early education and child care for all would mean a universal, comprehensive system in which there would be a fundamental and radical policy shift; public money from the state would be moved from subsidising the demand side to subsidising the supply side, or child care providers. Instead of operating an expensive, bureaucratic taxation system that subsidises parents' access to expensive, often inaccessible, child care, the Government would subsidise the providers of accessible, quality, affordable child care. For the Tories, that could mean parents. In short, if we are to emulate our Scandinavian cousins, instead of subsidising a few parents for 70 per cent of the 100 per cent of child care costs that they pay, the state would subsidise child care provision so that parents would have to pay only 30 per cent of the cost in the first place. No one would lose out and everyone would benefit. What better way to spend the benefits of an independent Scottish economy, growing at 4 per cent a year? That is real ambition. That is a real smart, successful Scotland.

The power of early years development and education in young children is staggering; the power for damage to be done at such an early age is frightening. If we want a strong, confident nation we need to build firm foundations for our future generations.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the vital role of early years education and the importance of quality, accessible childcare in stimulating children's development and supporting working families in particular and the wider economy and society generally; notes with concern the delay in the publication of the national strategy for early years with provision for a national settlement for nursery nurses from the Scottish Executive; supports the immediate extension of free nursery education for three and four-year-olds to a full half day from the current part-time provision and the extension of "nurture groups" across Scotland for vulnerable young pupils, and recognises, however, that in order for Scotland to be able to shape and deliver comprehensive early education and childcare the Scottish government needs to have powers over tax and benefits in order to provide a universal entitlement to emulate the provision of Scandinavian countries who spend four times the proportion of their GDP in support of children in the early years as Scotland.

Today's debate is a welcome opportunity to say just how much is being invested in early years education and child care. There is a mass of evidence that shows that positive interventions, such as high-quality early education and child care, when a child is very young, can have a significant beneficial impact on that child's whole life and future direction. Fiona Hyslop mentioned a number of such pieces of evidence. As I said in last week's debate on school meals, the Executive's vision is that children are safe, nurtured, healthy, achieving, active, respected, responsible and included. We also want to ensure that children and young people are successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society and at work.

So what investment is the Executive making in early years education and child care? I want to devote a few moments to underline just how much resource the Executive has already committed and will commit. Scottish Executive child care strategy funding this year is £30 million, rising to £43 million in 2005-06. Sure start Scotland funding for our youngest and most vulnerable children is £35 million this year, rising to £53 million next year. We also have more than £1 million for 2004-06 from the Department for Work and Pensions for two extended schools child care pilots, providing child care for lone parents who are on income support. We have provided £20 million from 2004-06, under the working for families fund, to provide child care support in the most deprived areas, to help parents to access education, training or employment.

In addition, community regeneration funding can support child care. The Minister for Communities announced on 9 December 2004 that the CRF will amount to £318 million over three years: £104 million in 2005-06; £106 million in 2006-07; and £108 million in 2007-08. Local authorities spent £195 million on pre-primary education in 2002-03, covering services that they provide directly as well as those that they provide in partnership with the private and voluntary sectors. At December 2004, more than 32,000 families in Scotland were benefiting from the child care element of the working tax credit, with an average award of £47 a week. Separately, awards from the big lottery fund child care programme totalled an average of £7.9 million per year for Scotland for the period 2001-03, and £14.5 million is available from its quality child care programme. I mention all that because sometimes we lose sight of how much we invest in child care and early years education. That is a key investment and one that we will continue to achieve.

Not only can child care help children in their growth, development and achievement, but it can support parents who are working or who want to work. We know that work is the best route out of poverty, so good-quality, accessible and affordable child care can help to prevent poverty.

Our Scottish child care strategy—which aims to ensure that good-quality, affordable child care is available for all—has been in place since 1998 and we have made progress. The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care now regulates all child care up to age 16, working jointly with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education on the inspection of pre-school education. There has been an expansion of child care, with 243,000 children—28 per cent of all children aged up to 14 and a 7 per cent increase on the previous year—now receiving formal care. Out-of-school care in particular has benefited from lottery funding programmes, with £29 million going into creating over 48,000 places. There is a pre-school education place for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want one, and we should celebrate the fact that 85 per cent of three-year-olds and 100 per cent of four-year-olds—a total of more than 103,000 children—attended pre-school education in 2004. The workforce is better qualified than ever before; almost three quarters of early education and child care staff hold qualifications.

Of course, in the pre-election period, while the Tories crank up the gramophone to play the worn-out tune of vouchers, the Scottish National Party feels obliged to dream up some ideas for what to say and promise in the full knowledge that it will have to deliver none of them. Despite that luxurious position—the ability to afford anything without the need to develop its proposals—the SNP still cannot offer much. It says nothing about quality of provision or flexibility and choice for parents and it deals with only one dimension of current provision. As the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have said in recent weeks, we have ambition to expand provision even further and, when we do, we will not take the SNP's one-dimensional approach; we will show real ambition for parents and children and the quality of provision to which they aspire.

I move amendment S2M-2547.1, to leave out from "notes" to end and insert:

"supports the Scottish Executive's aim to provide more flexible and available childcare to all; acknowledges the significant successes already achieved through the Scottish Childcare Strategy, including making available free part-time pre-school education for every three and four-year-old, establishing a coherent regulatory framework under the Care Commission and expanding childcare provision across all sectors, and endorses the Executive's commitment to universal early education and childcare services with specific support to disadvantaged groups, including those for whom lack of childcare is a barrier to employment, education or training."

In the absence of our education spokesman—who will, I hope, be playing his part in a Government defeat in another place—I will speak to and move the Conservative amendment.

The debate is one of those in which we all agree on the ultimate goal—we all wish young children to be given the best possible start in life and consider pre-school education to be an essential part of that—but differ on how that may be achieved. The Conservatives' watchword in that respect is flexibility. I say to the minister that that is not the gramophone being cranked up, but a state-of-the-art CD player, which indicates our modern approach to education, as to everything else. That approach is based on the belief that families, not Governments, should decide how to run their family life. As Ms Hyslop will confirm, no one knows better than parents how children should be brought up. For some families, it might be better for the children to use a breakfast club or after-school club; for others, it might not. However, it is essential that parents should be given that choice.

Choice means services being available. It is not possible to have choice if there are no services, and the state can help to provide the services.

Exactly; that is why I take issue with some of the SNP's policies on early years provision, which will result in many of the services not being available. Despite her able put-down of Mr Brown, Ms Hyslop has not explained satisfactorily how the proposals that the SNP has in mind would be costed. Indeed, some of the SNP's policies are likely to have the opposite effect to the one that she seeks. For example, the SNP's dogmatic approach to the private finance initiative would result in our simply not having new nursery or primary school buildings. That is the bottom line.

I return to choice, which is important. I am sure that we all agree that class sizes should be the minimum possible that is compatible with educational accountability. The smaller the class, the more likely the child is to succeed, but if parents were to put class sizes before school reputations, they would select schools with half-empty classes rather than schools that are full to overflowing because of their performance and reputation. Of course we want smaller class sizes, but that is not a top priority for parents, who want quality of education, which must be the priority.

I fully acknowledge that more money has gone into the system, but despite that fact, the Executive's stance has not exactly been inspiring. One need only read the evidence of the Scottish Independent Nurseries Association to see how political dogma stands in the way of the provision of a more imaginative and flexible service than that which local authorities provide.

I have no doubt that members noted with interest a piece in the Edinburgh Evening News a couple of weeks ago reporting the concern—indeed, the anger—of Edinburgh parents at the City of Edinburgh Council's plans to close four nurseries and replace them with one supernursery. It seems that child factories are to join granny farms as the way forward. The Conservatives would allow the funds to follow the child, and the parents would decide which centres remained open. Parents would be given the choice and there can be no doubt that, on that issue—like everything else in life—if the individual is given choice, matters will improve. That is a fundamental truth in education in particular.

The debate is short, and I would have liked to raise other issues, such as the ability of schools, working with the voluntary sector, to do a great deal for young children's physical fitness. To be frank, the Executive is obstructing that at the moment.

What?

Yes; the schools' ability to do that is being obstructed by the Executive's attitude towards the voluntary sector. The Executive seems to think that local authorities should do everything and that acts as a positive disincentive to those who are willing to give their time to provide children's services that the local authorities manifestly do not provide.

I move amendment S2M-2547.2, to leave out from "working families" to end and insert:

"parents who choose to work; notes that both the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament's Education Committee are currently reviewing early years provision, including issues of recruitment and retention of staff and pay and conditions, and believes that parents must have the flexibility to choose the form of nursery education best suited to their family circumstances and that a nursery voucher that can be topped up represents the best way to achieve this."

Good-quality child care and early years education are crucial to the well-being and development of the youngest in our society. Many parents and children are trapped in a life of poverty because of the lack of affordable child care. Provision of nursery places for all three and four-year-olds is to be welcomed, but it does not solve the problem for working families, who require flexible arrangements for the care of their children. We need available places in after-school clubs and breakfast clubs, as well as day care for the very young. Private nurseries are expensive and beyond the budgets of many parents, which is why we need publicly funded child care provision.

The Scottish Socialist Party welcomes nursery provision for all three and four-year-olds, but we would like that provision to be extended. We should value investment for children, because, after all, they are the future of Scotland. Therefore, we should value the professionals who work with them. Nursery nurses took industrial action a year ago to secure an improvement in their pay and conditions and the recognition that they are key education professionals. What did they get in return? Local agreements with different wage settlements—nursery nurses remain poorly paid and undervalued. Talk is cheap, but it takes money to provide a professional service. Nursery nurses deserve that money, and so do our children.

Given the months of industrial action and the promises that were made, it is unacceptable that the Executive has delayed the publication of the national strategy for early years education, and I hope that the minister will give some indication of when the strategy will be published.

The Scottish Socialist Party believes that all child care should be state funded at the point of need and that flexibility to accommodate families' needs should be the norm. There should be a mixture of high-quality care and education for all children from birth to school age; child care that is provided by trained and valued staff; provision that suits the working lives of families; and early intervention to ensure the best possible start for all.

It is vital that the lasting benefits of early intervention be recognised, because a sound foundation in the early years is key to future learning and development. Early identification of special educational needs or social, emotional and behavioural difficulties reduces the long-term risk of underachievement and disaffection. Nursery nurses are the professionals at the front line of that issue and, alongside health workers, have a crucial role to play. Unfortunately, like many teachers, nursery nurses are frustrated by a lack of joined-up services and a shortage of educational psychologists, clinical psychologists, speech and language therapists and social workers; such shortages lead to gaps in provision and poor transitions because the resources to support the nursery nurses are not provided. In one case that I dealt with recently, a child with Asperger's syndrome ended up by suffering part-time education for the whole of primary 1 despite the fact that a pre-school community assessment had been undertaken.

The same thing happens with those children who display early signs of behavioural difficulties. Nursery nurses who taught children who I received in transition from primary to secondary school have asked me, "How's wee Jimmy doing?" and I have replied, "He's been excluded for setting fire to the toilets." The nursery nurses then say, "That wee boy had real problems from day one. We tried to get support for him and his family, but the intensive help they needed was not available." We reap the benefits of indiscipline in our schools later because we do not deal with those issues early and we do not put the resources into sorting out young people and supporting parents. We do not help people with parenting skills or with getting support from the nursery nurses, who are the professionals and who can provide support at an early stage. We make those mistakes over and over again and many nursery nurses, primary teachers and secondary teachers are frustrated by the situation.

Putting children into smaller classes in primary school would make a significant difference. Having classes of 20 or fewer would allow for individual support and, crucially, for the teacher to interact with the children in a smaller setting. That, along with the provision of support staff, would make an immediate difference to meeting the needs of all our children.

We need a fundamental shift in what we do at the early stages of child development. I ask the Executive to look at the Danish system, whereby playing, singing, role playing, going out into the woods and making the best use of nature provides three and four-year-olds—who are at a crucial stage—with the best start in life socially and in every other way. We should consider adopting that approach instead of keeping the formal curriculum that we have at the moment.

I move amendment S2M-2547.3, to leave out from "in particular" to end and insert:

"; calls for a recognition of the professionalism of nursery nurses and the immediate establishment of national pay and conditions commensurate with that professionalism; further calls for an immediate response from the Minister for Education and Young People regarding the delay in the publication of the national strategy for early years; demands a system of accessible childcare and nursery education publicly-funded and free at the point of need for all families; supports the wisdom of early intervention in the early stages of education and the implementation of developmental needs provision rather than formal learning, and calls for appropriate support for children with special educational needs and social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and also appropriate support for parents and carers of these children."

In the previous debate, Carolyn Leckie said that she was a wee girl in the heyday of the welfare state. Given that Ms Leckie and I are roughly the same age, I assume that she meant the 1960s. In that period, I attended Carleton nursery in Glenrothes, which was run by the local authority. Let us be honest: in the 1960s, it was rare for any four-year-old to have a nursery place, even in Fife. Fife County Council, then Fife Regional Council and eventually Fife Council were well ahead of the national game in pre-school education. I am glad that it was a Labour initiative that ensured that all four-year-olds, and now all three-year-olds, whose parents desire it, have a nursery place, so that young people will have the same advantages and start in life that I was fortunate to have in 1966. I, more than most members in the chamber, know the benefits that a good-quality pre-school education can have for achievements at school, which I have mentioned in previous debates.

I am glad that when we debate education in general, and pre-school education in particular, there is consensus among all members about the needs of young children. We do not have to argue about that; it is a given. It is a bit unfortunate that the Conservatives have come round to the idea so late, because they had so much opportunity to do something about pre-school education when they were in power, but patently did not.

Bill Aitken made the bold statement that all parents know what is best for their children. I wish that that were the case but, for a small minority, it is not. We would not have child protection investigations into physical abuse and injury, emotional abuse and failure to thrive if parents always knew what was best for their children. The Conservatives should take on board the fact that parents do not always know best and that the state has an important role to play in ensuring that young people's needs are met properly.

Does the member agree that we should be talking about the state giving choice and guidance to parents, who ultimately must make the choice that is in the best interests of their family?

No. I do not accept that, if choice means returning to the old has-been of a voucher system, which gives some people a better start but does not offer the universal provision that I, and I think most members, believe that young people deserve.

The SNP motion highlights Scandinavia, and Fiona Hyslop mentioned Sweden and Denmark in her speech. We might also mention the Netherlands, whose pre-school provision is renowned and which has a compulsory education starting age of 6. We should consider that when we talk about pre-school education and the compulsory school age. Fiona Hyslop did not develop the cost of immediately offering Scandinavian-type provision. It is incumbent on anyone who brings proposals to the chamber to spell out the costs. We cannot have Scandinavian-type provision with Republic of Ireland tax rates. The SNP must answer that fundamental conundrum. If we want the level of public provision and services that exists in Scandinavia, we must also invest the amount of money that is spent there, and the Republic of Ireland does not spend that amount of money. It is said constantly of the Scottish economy that we should follow the Republic of Ireland model. If we do so, it stands to reason that we will have the same level of public services that the Republic of Ireland has, which is nothing like the level enjoyed in Scandinavia.

Rosemary Byrne said that an integrated approach was required in pre-school education. She is absolutely right, but even when such an approach is taken, it is not always the case that youngsters do not fall apart.

Let us not deride the developments that have taken place and the improvements that have been made but build on them.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in support of the motion in the name of my colleague, Fiona Hyslop. On what Scott Barrie just said about investing in our young children, can he answer the question what would be the cost of not investing properly in them? That is the question that should be asked, not how much this or that cost. Those are genuine and relevant questions, but the fundamental question is what the outcome will be if we do not invest in the education and care of pre-school children. We see the outcome in some of the problems in our society today.

One of the most important things that the Parliament could do for families is to provide at least a full half-day's child care for three and four-year-olds, which is readily accessible to all parents, which means preferably within walking distance. That is not what we have at the moment, no matter what the minister might try to pretend.

By way of example, I cite my experience of trying to deal with child care arrangements for a pre-school child. The current arrangements are far from perfect. When it was time for my daughter to attend nursery school, we duly completed the local authority form, which included spaces to state whether we wanted mornings or afternoons and which nursery we wanted our child to attend. We asked for mornings and for a place at the nearest nursery, which happened to be located in the primary school that my daughter would be attending the following year. Some time later, the letter from the council arrived informing us of the offer that it was making us. We found that instead of mornings in a nursery within walking distance of our house, we were being offered afternoons in a nursery in a different area that was not within walking distance. Given that there is no direct public transport route between where we live and the nursery and that we did not have access to a car, it was impossible for us to accept the offer.

There is no point in saying that nursery provision is available to all, because that is not the case on the ground. The reality is that many parents cannot take up offers because of accessibility problems. We rejected our offer, because it was completely useless. It is no use having places available if they do not match the needs of parents. Places must match what families need. Therefore, they must be accessible to families and, in particular, to mothers, given that the burden of child care usually falls disproportionately on women. We know that many women do not have regular access to a car. Even if a family owns a car, often the working parent needs it to access their place of work.

Does the member acknowledge that, nevertheless, something like 99.5 per cent of four-year-olds are taking up the opportunity of nursery education? We have to put the situation in perspective.

I accept the figures absolutely and I accept that it is better to have the care than not to have it. However, I am saying that the provision is not good enough at the moment.

Even if a family has a car, it is often not accessible to the parent who is looking after the child. We all know that many of the people who need services most are among the section of the population with the lowest percentage of car ownership. Therefore, they need places close at hand.

The issue should not be regarded as being merely about the needs of young children or of parents. Fundamentally, it is an equal opportunities and women's rights issue as much as it is a children's issue. The problem with the current arrangement is not just accessibility. The main problem is that provision simply does not meet the needs of women who wish to return to employment. Two hours of child care per day is not good enough. Women who want to, and often need to, return to work while their children are young depend on child care provision. The provision of two hours per day completely fails to help, even if a woman wants to take up part-time employment. Perhaps when the minister winds up he will be able to identify a single job that would allow a woman to work for an hour, or an hour and a half at the most, per day. Two hours' child care does not equate to two hours' work when travelling time is taken into account. That is why we must move on and provide a full half-day's child care at the very least. With a full half-day's child care, part-time work becomes possible for the first time.

Will the member take an intervention?

No, I do not have time. Sorry.

Many employers have posts that can be job-shared so that mornings or afternoons can be worked. It is clear from the amount of money that we invest in early years education and child care compared with the amount invested by many small, independent countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, that we are failing properly to address the issue. If we want to make a difference to young children, mothers and families, we need to solve the problem and give them the support that they need to grow, develop and prosper.

This Parliament cannot do everything that is required to sort out the problems that our country, operating with one hand tied behind its back, faces. Only by taking all the necessary powers to deal with the issues can we tackle the core problem.

Quickly.

In conclusion, if we think that the provision of two hours of child care per day in any way helps families who cannot afford to pay for child care for the rest of the day, we are kidding ourselves. We are doing nothing more than window dressing what is a serious problem for so many families in Scotland.

I urge members to support the motion.

All members so far have emphasised the importance of early years education and early years child care, although I do not think that Stewart Maxwell realises that there is an important difference between education and child care.

I would like a more holistic service for children and families. I agree that we look forward impatiently to the introduction by the Executive of an integrated early years strategy. Of course, such a strategy has implications for the assessment of comparative pay, conditions, qualifications, training needs and career paths between the various sectors of child care and nursery education. Making that assessment is much more of a challenge than just addressing the need for agreed pay and career structures for qualified nursery nurses. I note that, when the matter was debated in June last year, the Executive said that it would have proposals on the table within a year. I hope that we will see them by the summer. Average pay in the child care sector is about £8 per hour compared with the Scottish average of £11 per hour. I hope that the Executive will take the opportunity to show its commitment to equal pay for women.

Universal, free nursery education for four-year-olds was at the heart of Labour's manifesto in the 1997 elections and the Scottish Executive extended such education to three-year-olds. Delivering that was not an easy task for local authorities, particularly for rural local authorities such as Highland Council, which often have to provide for a handful of children in remote and rural communities. Councils try to organise transport to nursery groups through community networks and voluntary organisations, and I have spoken to the minister about those pressures in the past.

Early years provision in rural areas has been helped considerably by the increase in both child care and sure start funding from the Executive. That increase has also allowed funding for family projects in deprived urban areas, which we also have in the Highlands, and the working for families fund has supported parents—mainly single parents—into work in remote areas by providing child care.

Highland Council is to be commended for what it has achieved from almost a standing start in both English-medium and Gaelic-medium nursery and playgroup provision. It has worked in partnership with various voluntary organisations. Bill Aitken gave the impression that such working does not happen, but I will mention some of those organisations and the sterling work that they do. My first example is a project that has been much visited by ministers. NCH's excellent project at Merkinch in Inverness supports young families in one of our most challenging environments.

There are also projects in remote and rural areas, such as the project that is run by Family First in Skye, Wester Ross, Sutherland and Lochaber. Vulnerable young families are supported in their parenting skills through one-to-one encouragement and engagement and they are given help to make contact with peer groups in the community. Home-Start Scotland, which operates throughout Scotland, also offers one-to-one support through home visits. Those two organisations operate with well-trained and dedicated volunteers and they provide a valuable service to our most vulnerable people. It has been shown in Scandinavia that the maximum benefit comes from supporting parents in looking after their children in the early years rather than from nursery education. The Scottish Childminding Association also deserves recognition for its contribution. Often, it cannot access funding for its training needs because it supports people who run businesses.

I mention those various bodies and funding needs to show that supporting children is about a lot more than free nursery education. The money that the SNP would spend on providing all children with an extra three quarters of an hour of nursery per day might be better directed towards the more vulnerable families that need more intensive support. I will not go into the £9 billion black hole, but I ask whether we would have the same levels of child benefit under the SNP. Would we still have the working tax credit, which gives families an average of almost £50 per week for child care? Would we have nursery education at all?

In conclusion, I ask the Executive when its integrated early years strategy will be published. Some councils are already some way down the line; Highland Council no longer has child care partnerships but has a family resource alliance.

Quickly.

I also urge the Executive to consider how important the care of children is to society and to show its appreciation of that when it publishes its recommendations on the salary and career structures of those to whom we entrust our children.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I wonder whether you can do anything about the heat in the chamber this morning, which is excruciating.

Actually, no, I cannot. Members who were present yesterday afternoon will remember that when whatever happens up here happened, it was very noisy and disruptive and it interrupted Ms Hyslop's speech, so perhaps it would be best if the matter was dealt with over the lunch period.

That is perhaps an example of the lack of practical politics in the SNP.

Fiona Hyslop introduced today's debate with a powerful speech, most of which I agreed with. However, her colleague Stewart Maxwell then spoiled matters with his gross exaggeration, building an edifice on a pin-prick of local difficulties. I recognise that such difficulties will exist from time to time, but they are perfectly capable of being dealt with.

Is the member really saying that two hours of child care per day, often in the middle of the day, is sufficient to allow women to go back to work?

No. I am saying that the achievements of the Executive and the Parliament on the matter have been substantial. Fiona Hyslop rightly gave recognition to them, but Mr Maxwell seems to dismiss them out of hand and suggest that they are non-existent to build his local problem of rural access—although that is an important point—into a general theory.

The SNP motion is, to parody Winston Churchill, a platitude wrapped up in an aspiration inside a non sequitur. The platitude is the recognition of the vital role of early years education and accessible child care. I doubt that anyone in the Parliament disagrees with that. Indeed, it is one of the proudest boasts of the Liberal Democrats that, through the partnership agreement with Labour, the Executive has delivered the right to and the reality of free nursery school education for three and four-year-olds. That is a stupendous achievement and it should pay huge dividends in the years to come. While the SNP has dilly-dallied in the highways and byways of constitutional rearrangements and the assorted irrelevancies, the Liberal Democrat and Labour Executive has delivered.

Of course, more could be done. My view, and the view of the Executive, is that a comprehensive, accessible and affordable early years education and child care service is in sight. The Education Committee is to conduct an inquiry into early years learning later in the year to map out where we are and identify what works, what does not, what the priorities are and what changes are needed. Fiona Hyslop's aspiration is pretty similar to the aspirations of most members in the chamber. Many of us have considered or read about nurture groups for vulnerable youngsters and we recognise their value, as does the Executive.

So we have a platitude, we have an aspiration and we come to fulfilment. The SNP contention is that the Parliament needs powers over taxes and benefits to increase spending on early years support to four times its current level. That is a non sequitur of a truly impressive kind. Liberal Democrats have always held the view that Scotland should have much stronger fiscal powers, but for good reasons: democratic accountability and transparency and to support the proper federal relationship that should exist between Scotland and the United Kingdom.

Will the member take an intervention?

No.

Since 1999, the Executive's budget has risen from £14 billion to about £22 billion, which is a rise of more than 50 per cent. It is simply not credible for the SNP to claim that it can magic up more funding through independence—indeed, the motion does not ask for independence—and, as far as we understand, by reducing taxes.

The SNP's financial policies make even the Conservatives look like models of financial rectitude and practicality. The SNP should not play financial conjuring tricks with the future of Scotland's children. It should say where it will find four times as much funding for early years care as is provided now—that was not in the debating points of Fiona Hyslop's answer earlier—and say which services it would cut and which taxes it would raise.

The Liberal Democrat vision for Scotland's children does not rest content with current progress, impressive though that is. We believe that nothing is more important than giving every child in Scotland the best start in life and the best opportunity to fulfil his or her potential. Maureen Macmillan made important and useful points about the breadth of approach that we must take. Constant improvement in public resource is needed to bring about that vision.

I have much pleasure in supporting the Executive amendment.

The question in the debate is what we want. We are after access for parents to good-quality child care and a Government guarantee that when a parent puts their young and vulnerable child in the hands of a carer, they will have good early years education. I take Maureen Macmillan's point that child care and early years education are different, but she should accept that, for most families and working mothers, they are tied together, because of the decisions that we must take.

We want professionals to be responsible for our children when we put them into child care and we want the resources to allow children to develop. That is what we want and need, but the reality is that Government policy is fragmented. Robert Brown said in an intervention that 99.5 per cent of four-year-olds have nursery provision. What a scream that is. I agree with Stewart Maxwell that two or three hours of provision a day is a complete waste of time for most part-time working women, never mind full-time working women.

Will the member give way?

No; I want to finish my point.

If a parent accepts that provision, they have more hassle to arrange child care before and after the place that the Executive deigns to give them. Stewart Maxwell's experience is not a pin-prick; it represents what usually happens to most parents—mainly women—who want to take up a nursery place.

Full-time places for three and four-year-olds are few and far between in council, public and partnership nurseries and have a huge waiting list. Parents must fill in a criteria form for a decision on whether they can obtain a place, and 90 per cent of people who want a place do not obtain one.

That is the reality of the option that is available from the Executive.

Early years learning initiatives from the Executive are falling on professionals like confetti. I do not have time to go through the unbelievable number of initiatives that have been produced in the past few years. At some point, the Executive will have to learn that its progress and performance are judged not on the number of bits of paper that it produces, but on how it treats the service and the professionals in it.

The professionals who are on the receiving end of the initiatives—the diktats from the Executive—and who are expected to implement them without resources or recognition of professional status are the nursery nurses who went on strike against the Executive. The situation is not good enough. Maureen Macmillan said that the Executive hoped to have a review within a year. We have not had that and we do not know what the progress has been. Will we achieve equal pay and accept that we want professionals in the sector? Is the Executive prepared to put its money where its mouth is and to back that professional section of the workforce? We have plenty of bits of paper, but no evidence that the Executive will follow them through.

I agree in particular with the part of the SNP motion that calls for the immediate introduction of full-time nursery places in local authorities for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want such a place. Why is that target so hard to hit? Why is that aspiration beyond the Parliament? Why can we not implement that proposal? It is implemented in half of Europe, for goodness' sake. Child care provision goes much further in countries such as Denmark, but we have apologies for ministers who say that the aspiration goes too far. That shows the Executive's poverty of vision. We need the measure and I urge the Executive to support it.

I thank the SNP for the opportunity to debate early years education because Labour in local, Scottish and UK Government has made a huge difference to it in the past 10 years. I thank the SNP for the opportunity to celebrate Labour's success and look forward to what we can achieve in the future.

My children were all born when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister—under a Tory Government, people had to do something to cheer themselves up. At that time, only 25 per cent of pre-school children who lived in Ayrshire—the part of Strathclyde in which we lived—were offered a half-day nursery place in the year before they started school. A parent had to put the child's name into a ballot in the hope that they might get something.

No choice of establishment or time was available and many areas of South Ayrshire had no provision. I probably used up all my lottery luck—I must have, because I have never won in the lottery—by having all three of my children being offered a place through that ballot. As a working mother, I appreciate that problems existed at that time in organising wraparound care, but that provision was still valuable and its extension is still a tremendous success.

Addressing the issue was a key priority for Labour South Ayrshire Council—Murray Tosh will remember its election in 1995, only 10 years ago. At that time, local government had to consider the Tories' voucher scheme, but the council decided not to become involved in it. I hope that the Tories will give us the opportunity before the general election to debate their proposals, because they will find that we are ready for their arguments.

We in South Ayrshire Council established nursery classes in primary schools that had capacity and by building additional classrooms. As convener of education services then, I was extremely proud to open nursery classes in areas that had previously had no nursery provision, such as the class at Kingcase Primary School in Prestwick, which my children attended. Those are among the moments of which I am most proud in my time as a politician.

Of course, things became a great deal better when Labour was elected to power in 1997, because we had the commitment to provision of free half-day nursery places for four-year-olds, and the establishment of child care partnerships that meant that for the first time the public, voluntary and private sectors worked together to provide a service for all families. Bill Aitken talked a load of unsubstantiated tripe about the Executive's attitude to the private and voluntary sectors—valuable partnerships have been established up and down the country.

Will the member give way?

No. I am sorry; I must press on.

The introduction of child tax credits and working tax credits has assisted families who are on lower incomes. Support has been provided for the first child in a lowest-income family, which will be £60 a week from next month. That is far more than was available under the Tories. We have also introduced a statutory right to paternity leave.

Things have become even better under the Labour-Liberal Scottish Executive. We have the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000, which placed a duty on local authorities to secure a pre-school education place for every three and four-year-old whose parents want one. Other members have mentioned the sure start programme, which operates on both sides of the border. This year, £23 million will be spent on the programme and £50 million will be spent in 2006. We also have the review of the early years and child care workforce. I agree with Maureen Macmillan and Rosemary Byrne that the review needs to address a number of complex workforce issues.

More will come if Labour is re-elected at Westminster this year. We will see extension of the entitlement to statutory maternity pay to nine months by 2007 and to 12 months by the end of the next Parliament. There will be increasing flexibility to allow both parents to share maternity leave entitlement or to take leave when the child is older. We also have a commitment on both sides of the border to expand both the right to nursery education and opportunities for early learning to all young children and their families. I thank the SNP for giving me a chance to run through just a few of the achievements of the UK Government and the Scottish Executive in serving Scotland's young families.

As many other members, including Scott Barrie and Robert Brown have said, the SNP motion is full of worthy aspirations, but there is no cost analysis of how they would be achieved. I reject totally the constitutional guff at the end of the motion.

Labour and Liberal Democrat members will continue to make progress to secure the best possible learning opportunities for our youngest citizens, by working in partnership with Westminster colleagues. I agree strongly with Rosemary Byrne and Maureen Macmillan that we need to address behavioural problems as early as possible, but we are making progress. That progress must not be halted by the election at Westminster this year of a Tory Government, with its stated intention to make £35 billion-worth of cuts.

When Fiona Hyslop opened the debate, I thought that her speech would be very interesting. Speaking as a dedicated mother, she made points with which no one could disagree. In particular, she talked about the development of a child's cognitive skills, the discovery of learning and so on. However, she might also have commented on the development of parents. Children often need extra help because their parents have not been developed sufficiently early to be able to understand the issues. It is important that we do not isolate children from parents.

Fiona Hyslop was the first of a number of speakers to mention the delay in publication of the Scottish Executive's early years strategy. It is pertinent at this point for me to ask the minister to give us when he winds up the exact date at which it will be brought to Parliament. I appreciate that the Education Committee is, as Robert Brown said, conducting an inquiry into the issue, but I do not know whether the Executive wants to delay the announcement of its strategy until it has the benefit of the committee's input or whether it will put the strategy up front for the committee to debate.

The SNP provided no costings whatever—we heard the usual spend, spend, spend. Obviously, the money tree is still flourishing. However, I was surprised by one thing, which was that Fiona Hyslop did not mention staffing, qualifications or the 24 per cent of staff who do not have qualifications. A big chunk of that 24 per cent is not even in training. The Scottish Executive must consider qualifications.

The minister gave us a litany of spending—I presume that he was trying to outbid the SNP. However, there was nothing about quality or the access problems that affect so many parents. As I had in the past, many parents in my area have difficulty accessing convenient care and education for their children. Some people want to have somewhere near their place of work, whereas others want a place near where they live. Choice is distinctly lacking in the system. As Bill Aitken said, we all have the same main aims, but we differ on the routes to achieving them, and we differ most sincerely from the Executive in respect of the system's lack of flexibility and choice for parents.

Rosemary Byrne mentioned affordability and suggested that the private sector is too expensive. I am sorry to say that vouchers allow people to get over that hurdle if the appropriate care for their child is available in the private sector. That represents a way of putting money into the system so that new capacity can be built. The independent sector claims that it does not get the same support that some council systems get and we must somehow address the fact that early years care is a low-pay industry, so that we can attract people to enter the system and to take qualifications. A number of members made that point.

Maureen Macmillan was right to say that we need to consider holistic services for young children. I would go further and say that we must start early years screening literally from birth. I refer to screening for health problems that would hold back a child's learning process, as well as screening for sight, hearing and other difficulties. It is vital that we introduce early tests. They should be part and parcel of the assessment that would help to decide what sort of pre-school education and care a child needs.

It is interesting that the Scottish Executive admitted in its draft budget for 2005-06 that it is failing to meet the targets that it had set. It will be interesting to hear from the minister when he winds up exactly what he expects to deliver, given the comments of the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform in the draft budget.

Many people want to return to work, and Scotland needs them to do so. We must ensure that appropriate choice and help is given to parents so that they can do that. We need many skilled people who have taken career breaks and so on to get back into the workplace. However, at the end of the day the money should follow the child and not be used simply to set up bureaucratic systems under local government control, which would not necessarily provide the support that parents seek and the care that their children definitely need.

This morning's debate has been interesting and useful. It has been about not only children and young people, but parents and families, closing the opportunity gap and achieving everyone's full potential. The debate has touched on a broad expanse of policy areas.

Before I respond to points that members have made, I reiterate that our approach is not—contrary to what Mr Davidson said—one dimensional. We are intent on securing quality and depth in our provision. For that reason, we have published national care standards for child care services. We have introduced a robust inspection regime for child care, run by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care. We have introduced joint inspection of pre-school education provision by the care commission and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education. We have established the Scottish Social Services Council, which from 2006 will regulate the early years and child care workforce. As has been alluded to in the debate, we have established a national review of the early years and child care workforce, in order to secure the workforce that will be required to meet the needs of children and families in the future. I confirm to Maureen Macmillan that the national review will report in the summer, as she suggested.

We have also provided £15.6 million between 2003 and 2006 to increase the qualifications of the early years and child care workforce. More than 6,000 child care qualifications will be awarded during that period.

About 7,200 people—24 per cent of staff—do not currently have qualifications. By what date will all people in the service either be in training or have a qualification?

That will depend on who is in the workforce at any given time. We cannot put a final date on something that depends on the development of the workforce.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 will be implemented by the end of the year. That act places a duty on education authorities and other agencies to meet every child's additional support for learning needs—a point that has not yet been widely recognised. It also places a duty on education authorities to meet the needs—identified by health authorities—of under-threes whom education authorities determine as having additional support for learning needs.

Maureen Macmillan, Rosemary Byrne and David Davidson talked about the early years strategy. Last year we published a baseline study of outcome indicators for early years policies. In the next couple of months, we will publish guidance for practitioners. We will publish the early years strategy when we are ready to do so—we are not ready to do so at the moment.

Scott Barrie was right to allude to the partnership agreement commitment to make primary 1 less formal, which will be taken forward in the curriculum review. Referring to nurseries in Edinburgh, Bill Aitken blamed the Executive for limiting choice. However, he defeated his argument by saying that the council is closing the nurseries. Like Elaine Murray, I did not understand his point.

The Executive is also examining the quality of delivery of provision. We are undertaking a longitudinal study that is similar to the effective provision of pre-school education project in England. That will help us to see over 20 years or more what differences a wide range of early years policies make in practice to the people of Scotland. It will be a long-term evaluation of the work that we are doing.

We already know from evidence of the evaluation of sure start Scotland—the programme that is aimed at vulnerable families with very young children—that there are obvious benefits in early years provision. I remind Parliament that the 2002 report on mapping of sure start Scotland showed that service providers saw the programme as a major impetus for change leading to new and improved services for young children. An update of that mapping is under way, which will give us more detail about the numbers who are benefiting from sure start, the types and levels of services and the planning and partnership working that is taking place.

As I said earlier, the Tories play the worn-out gramophone record about vouchers and in his speech, Robert Brown rightly tried to pin down the costs of SNP policies. In the context of child care and early years provision, their initial policy proposal would cost some £80 million. Not only that, but there was no mention by Fiona Hyslop of the costs of Parliament's taking powers over tax and benefits or of the enormous cost of disaggregating the Scottish component of the benefits system. As always, pinning down the SNP on the cost of its policies is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

The Scottish Executive does not lose sight of the bigger picture. We want extensive provision and quality provision. The whole reason why Government intervenes in people's lives is to make lives better. For the Executive, that means all the people of Scotland.

The defining feature of the Executive is its lack of vision and ambition for Scotland. Nowhere is that more evident than in its policies for children and young people. With problems such as one in three children living in poverty and one in 20 being referred to the children's hearings system for care and protection, we should focus in on the need to nurture our children better, rather than make the flagship policy an attack on antisocial behaviour, which is surely but one symptom of a deeper malaise.

Robert Brown is kidding himself about Liberal Democrat influence on Executive policy; the Executive is content to let policy development in early years education and child care be driven by London, although it may be a question of the Executive's waiting for the parameters to be set by Gordon Brown before it provides its own version of UK policy with minor Scottish variations. Either way, we are unlikely to have the kind of policy objectives that we need to establish in Scotland, let alone the resources to achieve them.

As Fiona Hyslop spelled out, our overriding objective would be to provide universal access to affordable high-quality education and child care services from the early years onwards. To do that effectively, we need to move away from means-tested targeting—through the use of tax credits and the like—to subsidising service providers along the lines of the Scandinavian model. That is not achievable overnight, nor can we deliver it using the paltry powers that are available to Parliament now. However, we can work towards that goal.

I would be grateful for an indication of the SNP view on the appropriate resources for Scotland. Given that the block grant has gone up from £14 billion to £22 billion, how much more would the SNP require to achieve its objectives?

We have been challenged by a number of speakers on what our proposals would cost. Robert Brown should be patient; I will come to that in due course.

We are starting from where we are as regards our goals for child care and education. We are looking for incremental change now, but we need to support initiatives such as nurture groups that seek to help children who have missed out on the early experiences and relationships that provide healthy development. A growing number of very young children are being brought up in socially and emotionally deprived households by drug-misusing parents, for example. Those children have not learned to make trusting relationships with adults or to relate appropriately to other children and they cannot settle in school. The nurture-group approach has been successful where it has been adopted, most notably in Glasgow. It addresses the needs of children who have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, it stimulates cognitive gains and it returns them to their base classes ready, willing and able to participate fully, like their peers. The nurture-group approach shows the clear benefits that are to be gained from high-quality provision, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As the director of the Social Market Foundation pointed out in his January newsletter, the single biggest determinant of quality provision is a highly qualified workforce. That cannot be bought on the cheap and certainly not by people who are in receipt of child care tax credits. To bring quality provision to areas where the cognitive gains to children will be greatest will require significant reductions in parental contributions to costs and increased provider subsidies. If we are to bring children under three into the system, provision will be even more expensive, given the need for much lower staff-to-child ratios.

We recognise that maximising access to high-quality subsidised early education and child care is an expensive policy to pursue. Spending will have to rise from the £320 million that we currently spend to about £1 billion a year. However, the educational, social and economic benefits that would accrue from such a policy would far outweigh the financial costs. The policies would include: attacking child poverty and educational inequalities at their roots; lifting the financial burden of child care from parents; allowing women in particular to increase families' income by participating more fully in the labour force; and not least, reducing the burdens that are imposed by dysfunctional behaviour on our education, health and criminal justice systems.

That is a truly ambitious policy. It is a policy to transform the life prospects of future generations for the better. Surely that is what Parliament should be all about.