Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 12 August 2020.
Richard Leonard
Labour
I will go to something else that the First Minister said, which is from August 2015:
“Let me be clear—I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to. It really matters.”
If it really matters, why did neither the First Minister nor her education secretary listen to the voices telling her that the SQA moderation system was not right? She was warned in April; she was warned in May; she was warned in June; and she was warned again in July that this system would not work. In fact, in May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned that the
“SQA have been unable to demonstrate that they have considered any equality issues in their work in this area, or that they have met their legal duties”.
We now know that the results were pre-released to John Swinney five days before the pupils saw them. He could have fixed it then; he could have saved all those young people from all that anguish; he could have saved the First Minister from having to make a grovelling apology—but he did not. Why is his neck not on the line?
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
