Cabinet (Meetings)

First Minister's Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:01 pm on 11 May 2006.

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Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party 12:01, 11 May 2006

It is good to be back in the chamber.

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-2280)

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

The next Cabinet meeting will discuss among other matters a report on the current position in Fife for the families affected or potentially affected by E coli. The matter is serious and I am sure that every member will want to wish the children well, express concern for the families and ensure that we support the local agencies that have to get to the bottom of the situation as quickly as possible.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

All our thoughts are with the children and their families in Fife.

I am sure that we all agree that teachers deserved a substantial pay rise when the McCrone agreement was struck back in 2001. Does the First Minister agree that the ultimate objective of any increase in education spending should be to improve the quality of education for children? If so, can he explain why, according to the report that Audit Scotland published this morning, as Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs at the time, he failed to include clear outcome measures defining what the agreement was intended to achieve, which, in Audit Scotland's opinion, made it impossible to assess the overall value for money of the £2 billion spent?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

I start by congratulating Ms Sturgeon. There have been 63 First Minister's question times since I became First Minister in November 2001. On none of those 63 occasions has Ms Sturgeon asked me a question about schools and schoolchildren. I am delighted that she has changed that habit and has suddenly discovered her interest in the subject.

I could list many changes and improvements that have been made to Scottish education, in particular in the past five years. Given that Ms Sturgeon has raised the matter, let us go back to the debates on the McCrone agreement that took place at the time. At no time in 2001, 2002 or 2003 did the Scottish National Party say that we were spending too much money on Scottish teachers, as Ms Hyslop implied yesterday. At no time did SNP members say that there needed to be more monitoring and more bureaucracy; in fact, they said exactly the opposite. After a statement on the agreement, Mike Russell said:

"Would it not be better to reduce bureaucracy ... on schools and young people of assessment, targeting and the publication of league tables?"—[Official Report, 14 February 2001; Vol 10, c 1201.]

The SNP was consistent in its opposition even to the measures that were contained in the agreement and our policies on measuring outputs and on improvements in Scottish education.

Back then, the agreement was about Scotland's children—as it is today. It does not take an accountant to work out that children will benefit from lower pupil teacher ratios and from teachers spending more time in the classroom teaching them. It does not take a genius to work out that those experiences in schools will be enhanced if teachers are happy and well rewarded. I am absolutely determined now—as I was back then—that we will not go back to the days when industrial relations in Scotland's classrooms were a shambles, when Government was not directly involved and when schoolchildren's education was being affected. As a teacher in the 1980s, I knew the cost of that then, and I know today the value of the improvements that we have brought in, with which we will continue.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

There is no doubt that the McCrone agreement has resulted—quite rightly—in better-paid teachers, so it is hardly surprising that it has delivered better industrial relations. According not to me but to the Audit Scotland report that was published this morning, clear evidence that it has also resulted in better-educated children is lacking. I draw the First Minister's attention to the key conclusions of the Audit Scotland report. It states that the agreement contains no clear outcome measures relating to educational attainment and that it is not possible to form any judgment on its overall impact or the value for money achieved. I remind the First Minister that he was the education minister who struck the deal. Does he accept that, when he was agreeing to spend £2 billion of taxpayers' money, he should have paid much more attention to what taxpayers and their children would get in return?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

As I said, it did not take a genius to work out that removing the administrative burden on teachers would improve what happened in the classroom and that increasing the number of teachers and improving their promotion structures, professionalism and skills would improve the teaching of children and their results. It did not take a genius to work out that the industrial relations improvements in the classroom and in schools would result in improvements in Scottish education.

The improvements have been dramatic. The percentage of primary school pupils achieving expected attainment levels has increased by 9 percentage points in the years since devolution.

Attainment among younger pupils in that age group is particularly encouraging. Almost 90 per cent of pupils in primary 3 now achieve the levels that we expect of them in that year. In the years since devolution, the percentage of secondary 2 pupils achieving expected levels has increased from 41 per cent to 59 per cent. Scotland is recognised not by Audit Scotland but by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education—the experts on education who independently assess our education system—as being in the top three performing countries in the world in every important category.

We know the improvements that we have made. Ms Sturgeon and the SNP may have moved back to the days when another party was in Government and may know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, but we understand the value of good education and are determined to continue with the improvements to which I have referred and to support Scotland's teachers who are in the front line of bringing them about.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

In all his ranting and raving, the First Minister has failed to answer one question: why does Audit Scotland say that there is no evidence of better education or value for money? Is it not the case that the report is not a one-off, but just further evidence of the sloppiness at the heart of the Government? Today we hear that £2 billion was spent on education with no evidence of value for money. Two months ago, Audit Scotland reported a fourfold overspend on the consultants contract, with no evidence of the benefits to patients. Is it not the case that the First Minister and the Government are very good at making promises and spending money, but very, very bad at making real improvements in the delivery of public services?

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

I accept Ms Sturgeon's definition of the Government as very good. I will not quote back to her the statistics that I have just outlined, because there are so many more that I can use. The number of youngsters in Scotland who are achieving the desired level at standard grade is going up. The number of youngsters who are achieving higher level grades in Scotland is going up. The number of teachers in our schools is going up. Class sizes in our schools are coming down. The number of new schools and the number of refurbished schools in Scotland are both going up. As a result of the McCrone agreement, the amount of bureaucracy in which teachers are involved is coming down, allowing them to teach in the classroom as they wanted to do when they chose teaching as a career.

The SNP should read the report, not the newspapers. The report says:

"Good early progress has been made in implementing the Agreement".

It also states that

"The early evidence suggests that good progress is being made," and that

"All but one of the milestones set for completion by August 2004 were met".

It was a good agreement that has delivered for Scottish education.

The SNP should accept that, as it did at the time. A parliamentary motion in the name of Brian Adam began:

"That the Parliament notes with concern the shortage of social workers throughout Scotland and considers that the Scottish Executive should initiate a McCrone-type review".

In its manifesto for the 2003 elections, the SNP said:

"An SNP administration will honour the McCrone agreement on teachers' pay and conditions in full" because that is the way to guarantee

"the period of stability and co-operation that the agreement was meant to achieve."

The SNP should be consistent. It should support Scottish teachers and Scottish education and—most important of all—it should support Scottish schoolchildren and give them the best chance in life.

Photo of Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Sturgeon Scottish National Party

I confirm to the First Minister that the SNP would honour the McCrone agreement. However, unlike his Government, we would ensure that it was properly implemented.

We have heard a lot in the past couple of weeks about how the First Minister wants to distance himself from Tony Blair. A source close to the First Minister told The Sun:

"Jack is going to spend the next year making himself different".

On today's evidence, I would have thought that making himself competent would be a better ambition.

A poll last month showed that just 28 per cent of Scots backed Jack McConnell as First Minister. Will he accept that it is his Government, and not only Tony Blair's, that people are sick fed up with? Although many of his back benchers want to see the back of Tony Blair, more and more people in Scotland want to see the back of Jack McConnell and his Government.

Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour

I hope that my partners in the Liberal Democrats will allow me to say one thing about the Prime Minister. He has won almost as many general elections as Ms Sturgeon has managed to lose constituency elections. He is the most successful leader of my party ever, and her party has been rejected consistently by the voters since 1929. In fact, in just over 20 years' time, the SNP will be celebrating a century of uninterrupted defeat.

What happens in this chamber is important for next year's elections because of the record of this devolved Government and this partnership in Scotland. Waiting times are down and survival rates for cancer, heart disease and stroke are up; class sizes in our schools are down and school results are up; crimes in Scotland are coming down and drug seizures and the use of antisocial behaviour orders are up; unemployment is down and the number of jobs and economic growth are up; the number of graduates leaving the country is down and our population is going up; and the number of children in poverty is down and the number of qualified people helping Scotland to compete in the 21st century is going up.

The things that are down most in Scotland over the past seven years are the number of people who vote for the SNP and the number of members the party has in the chamber. The things that are going up include the number of teachers, the number of doctors, the number of nurses, the number of operations, the number of new schools, and—just in this past month—the number of grannies using our buses, too.