To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is regarding whether teachers are essential to raising educational attainment and closing the poverty-related attainment gap. (S6F-03413)

Scotland’s teachers are vital to driving improvements in our schools, raising attainment and closing the poverty-related attainment gap. That is the reason why we are providing local authorities with £145.5 million in this year’s budget to protect teacher numbers and why the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and I are committed to working with our local authority partners to ensure the best possible education for every child in Scotland.

The First Minister will know that not a single local authority has agreed to receive that funding. The First Minister says that he believes that teachers are essential, and his education secretary says that she cannot raise attainment with fewer teachers, yet 450 of them in Glasgow have begun to lose their jobs. As the First Minister himself just said, those jobs are essential. Teachers are working 11 hours extra unpaid every week, on average, and new teachers cannot get jobs on the present Government’s watch.

Enough is surely enough, and Parliament therefore voted for my motion for the Government to intervene, save jobs and produce a proper plan. Once again, however, the Government has ignored the will of the Parliament. I therefore ask the First Minister today: when will teachers have the stability that they deserve?

The teaching profession is fundamental to our education system in Scotland. I saw that first hand when I was education secretary, and I reiterate what I have put on the record today, which is that teachers play a critical role in the achievement of the Government’s objectives on education. It is for that reason that we are making available the resources to protect teacher numbers. Pam Duncan-Glancy has said to me that local authorities have not yet agreed to accept that money. A way of stabilising the teaching profession would be for local authorities to agree to accept the money that the Government has put on the table. That would be the simplest way to take things forward. I think that it would help local authority financing to have certainty from the Government about investment in the teaching profession, which has always been our priority.

I am very pleased that we have reached a situation in which the teaching profession has accepted the pay offer that has been made through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers. That provides further stability for the teaching profession, and it means that teachers in Scotland continue to be the best paid in the United Kingdom.

Time and again, Labour members come to the chamber to demand more spending, while at the same time standing behind Keir Starmer’s and Rachel Reeves’s austerity agenda. Does the First Minister agree that it is vital that the United Kingdom budget commits to investment rather than austerity and that it is for all parties to join the Scottish National Party in making that case to the UK Government?

I am not entirely clear that that question relates to the substantive question on the paper. Therefore, I will call Liam Kerr.

Instability with teaching jobs extends to supply teacher posts. Recent figures from the Scottish teachers for permanence campaign suggest that 80 per cent of supply teachers have had little or no supply work this year and, in some councils, more than 60 per cent of those teachers have had less than a month’s work. Taken with Pam Duncan-Glancy’s statistics, that paints a picture of job insecurity, negative impact on pupil experience, financial uncertainty and little encouragement for those who are seeking to join the profession. Can the First Minister provide the Parliament with a published strategy to address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, or is his Government making it up as it goes along?

As Mr Kerr will know, teachers are employed by individual local authorities. [ Interruption .] If we have got to the point that Conservative Party members groan when statements of fact are put on the record, the Conservative Party is in a pretty dismal position. [ Interruption .]

Let us hear one another.

Local authorities employ teachers, and the Government works with local authorities on workforce planning. All those factors are taken into account when admission levels for initial teacher education are set, which is a collaboration between the Government and local authorities. That is the point that I was going to make before the groaning started from Conservative members. Workforce planning is undertaken in Scotland to ensure that we have a sufficient supply of qualified teachers to contribute to the education profession. I will ask the education secretary to reflect on whether further refinements are required in the light of Mr Kerr’s question. We undertake workforce planning because it informs the admission to initial teacher education, which is critical to ensuring that we have all the skills that are necessary for our teaching profession in Scotland.

We move to constituency and general supplementaries.