The First Minister:

There is no reason why any teacher should be in that position. Willie Rennie says that that is shifting the blame, but it is just a statement of fact. The Scottish Government does not employ teachers directly—the employers of teachers are local authorities. Any time that a minister in the Government suggests that we take responsibility for things that lie with local government, people like Willie Rennie accuse us of centralisation.

He talks about having more permanent teachers. Since July 2020, we have seen the recruitment of more than 1,400 additional teachers and more than 200 support staff. Those should be permanent additional staff—that is what the funding is there to support. We have a higher number of teachers in our classrooms now than at any time since 2008. That is because we are providing the funding to local authorities to employ more teachers.

I encourage local authorities to give teachers permanent jobs because we are going to need more teachers in our schools for a long time to come as we continue the work of improving education for all.