1. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported comments made by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland that the Scottish Government has “absolutely” failed to deliver for children. (S6T-01375)

I thank Bruce Adamson for all that he has done as

Children and Young People’s Commissioner, but I do not recognise the picture that he paints. This Government introduced the game-changing Scottish child payment to tackle child poverty; we are delivering 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds; we have introduced free bus travel for all under-22s; and we have the most generous provision of free school meals in any part of the United Kingdom.

We are doing all that as a devolved Government, within a fixed budget. Despite that, we will continue to make real progress in delivering for our children in what have been, and continue to be, very challenging times.

The children’s commissioner is hugely respected and has long shown his personal and professional commitment to the rights of children and young people, for which I thank him.

He is fundamentally correct in saying that the Scottish National Party Government has failed to keep its promises to children and young people. It has failed on the attainment gap, free bikes, child poverty, counselling in schools and free school meals—and the list goes on. Does the cabinet secretary accept that it is time for the Government to stop patting itself on the back and to start working to improve the lives of children and young people in Scotland?

I, too, have great respect for Bruce Adamson and, in fact, sat on the panel for his appointment back in 2017, when I was a back bencher.

Pam Duncan-Glancy will appreciate that I have been in this post for just six weeks. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss those matters with the outgoing children’s commissioner, who I understand will demit office from tomorrow. I have asked to meet him to discuss the points that he has raised in the press.

The role of the children’s commissioner is fundamentally about improving the lives of our young people, and I very much look forward to working constructively with the new children’s commissioner, Nicola Killean, when she takes up her post later this year.

I must rebut some of Pam Duncan-Glancy’s suggestions. It is also important to look at the context of the debate. The latest poverty statistics, which were published in March, show that child poverty rates in Scotland remain 6 per cent lower than in the UK as a whole, at 24 per cent compared with 30 per cent in 2021-22. In England, 31 per cent of children live in poverty, as do 28 per cent in Wales and 22 per cent in Northern Ireland respectively. Those statistics cover a period in which the pandemic was having a significant economic impact and also show the devastating impact of the UK Government’s decade of austerity and its welfare cuts for many Scottish families.

I think that I heard a member from the Conservative seats say, “For heaven’s sake!”.

I listened very intently to the children’s commissioner’s interview.

The Presiding Officer:

Please be brief, cabinet secretary.

He mentioned the fact that the United Nations rapporteur Philip Alston has spoken about political choices. It was the UN special rapporteur who spoke about the limits of devolution in mitigating Westminster austerity.

Context matters; although the cabinet secretary has been in post for only six weeks, we have had an SNP Government in Scotland for 16 years.

The commissioner’s defence of human rights has clearly struck a nerve. Does the cabinet secretary agree that this Government has delayed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and has refused immediate commencement when that bill does come back because it is avoiding responsibility for its own shortcomings? That is exactly the bill’s purpose—to ensure that the Government is truly accountable for upholding the rights of children and young people.

I hate to say this to Pam Duncan-Glancy, but the Scottish Government and the SNP are not responsible for Covid, nor are we responsible for the impacts of the cost of living crisis. She might wish to look elsewhere for the source of the challenges that have been presented to this Government by those external factors. If members listen to what the children’s commissioner said, they will note that he acknowledged that there have been external factors in those challenges.

There has been no prevarication in relation to the UNCRC bill. Fixing the bill is really complicated, and we must address the Supreme Court judgment. Back in 2021, when this Parliament voted unanimously for the legislation, the UK Government challenged it. We respect the outcome from the Supreme Court, but it is hugely important to go back to fix the legislation to ensure that we improve the rights of children and young people and that we do so as quickly as possible. There is a responsibility on this Government, and our officials continue to engage on that, but there is also a responsibility for the UK Government. I hope that

Pam Duncan-Glancy will respect and acknowledge that point.

There has been a failure to close the poverty-related attainment gap and to amend the bill incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. There has been a failure to reduce the pupil teacher ratio, with fewer teachers—including maths and English teachers—and fewer classroom assistants in fewer primary, secondary and additional support needs schools. Many school buildings are unsuitable for modern teaching and more than 1,000 schools have not been inspected in the past 10 years.

There has been a failure to reduce class sizes, the number of violent attacks or the exodus of staff from private and voluntary nurseries. There are fewer childminders, and 11,000 childminding places have been lost. The Promise is not being kept. Entries for higher exams in science subjects, English and maths are at a five-year low. Teachers have been sidelined in educational reforms, and key recommendations about the reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority have been rejected. Standards of literacy and numeracy are falling.

The Presiding Officer:

Ms Gallacher!

Curriculum for excellence is an unmitigated failure.

There is clearly not enough time to go through the list of failures by the Scottish National Party Government. Where are the laptops and bicycles? That is the legacy of an SNP-run Scotland. My question is simple: what mess created by her predecessors will the cabinet secretary focus on first?

What a dispiriting question from Meghan Gallacher. I do not really know where to start. [

Interruption

.]

I spend a lot of my time speaking to teachers and others who work with our children and young people. I spent a lot of time on Friday and Saturday speaking to the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association’s conference and at the NASUWT’s conference in Aberdeen. More broadly, it is incumbent on us all to remember that this is about our children and young people and not to politicise the issues, as Meghan Gallacher has sought to do. Reading out a list of policy areas in no way helps to improve children’s lives in Scotland.

Policy failures, actually.

I n my view, talking about failure is not the place to start. [

Interruption

.]

The Presiding Officer:

Members!

Working constructively with Government is the way in which we can improve children’s lives. That is why, later this week, I will meet Ms Gallacher’s colleague and my Opposition counterparts in the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. I will work across party boundaries on the issue, because it is absolutely important that we get it right for Scotland’s children and young people.

Another area on which the outgoing children’s commissioner successfully challenged the Government was the age of criminal responsibility. In 2019, to much fanfare, the Government changed it from the lowest in the world at eight to just 12. During the passage through the Parliament of the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019, as the cabinet secretary will remember, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child uplifted that de minimis position from 12 to 14. We did not even get to the bottom and, still, there was celebration.

Is the cabinet secretary content that we are still behind Russia and China on the age at which we hold children criminally responsible for their actions? When will her Government address that so that we at least come up to the floor of international expectation?

There might be split ministerial responsibility with the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs on that matter. I recall some of the debates during the bill’s passage through the Parliament. I will be more than happy to write to Alex Cole-Hamilton directly on the points that he has raised.

Presiding Officer,

“there should be no doubt Nicola Sturgeon made huge progress putting in place the building blocks needed to end child poverty in Scotland.”

That is the assessment of the director of the Child Poverty Action Group, John Dickie. However, the Scottish Government is working with one hand tied behind its back. What analysis has it carried out into the impact of UK welfare reforms, and how many children could be lifted out of poverty in Scotland if those key policies were reversed?

I go back to my response to Ms Duncan-Glancy. It is important that we have context about the powers that the Government has in this Parliament and the external factors that undoubtedly impact on our children and young people.

Our analysis, which was published in April last year, estimated that reversing key UK Government welfare changes that have taken place just since 2015 could lift an estimated 70,000 people in Scotland, including 30,000 children, out of poverty this year. That is why we have consistently urged the UK Government to match our ambitions in tackling child poverty head on through reversing, for example, its policies such as the benefits cap and the bedroom tax and introducing game-changing benefits similar to our Scottish child payment.

I look forward to working with the UK Government on those issues, recognising that responsibility for some of the powers rests at another Parliament.