It was revealed this week that 40 per cent of pupils in Scotland have additional support needs, which is a new record. At the same time, the number of ASN teachers has fallen by 400 on the Scottish National Party’s watch. The National Parent Forum of Scotland has said that

“many parents”

are

“left feeling that their children are being failed by our current system”.

Education was supposed to be this Government’s top priority, but it is clear that John Swinney and the SNP have failed, so does he accept that we need a change of direction from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and from this SNP Government?

What we must do is listen carefully to the views and contributions of educators and families to ensure that children’s needs are being met. That is exactly what the education secretary has done and it is exactly why the Government’s draft budget has set out an additional £29 million of investment for additional support needs, along with increased resources to support teacher employment within our schools. If my memory serves me right, there is an additional £40 million of expenditure to support teacher numbers and make sure that resources are in place. That comes on top of a real-terms increase in the core grant for local authorities to ensure that they are able to invest more in education, should they choose to do so.

What the Government has done in the budget will provide local authorities with the tools to address the very issues that Mr Sarwar puts to me and I look forward to the Labour party supporting the Government’s budget when the time comes.

John Swinney has been passing budgets for 17 years and things in Scotland keep getting worse, so he needs to wake up to the reality faced by Scotland’s pupils.

Educators, families and charities are saying that this Government is failing Scotland’s children. I said that 40 per cent of children in Scotland have additional support needs, but many do not get the support that they need, and a third of children are also regularly absent from school. However, that is the best answer that we can expect from a former education secretary.

The fact of the matter is that children across Scotland are not getting the support that they need, and that will impact on their whole lives. Education is meant to be the great leveller in our country, which allows every child to thrive, but, under this SNP Government, Scotland’s young people are not being given the opportunities that they deserve. Children are absent from school and miss out on the education that they need; pupils with ASN are not being supported, which holds back their potential; and thousands of children are crying out for help but being rejected by mental health services. I ask John Swinney, why is this SNP Government failing Scotland’s children?

I do not accept what Mr Sarwar has set out. The measures that the Government is taking are having a positive impact on the attainment of children and young people in our education system.

Let me return to the data that I went through with Mr Findlay, which needs to be repeated because Mr Sarwar has obviously not been able to adjust his questions following the answers that I gave to Mr Findlay. [ Interruption. ]

Let us hear one another.

The first point I will make—[Interruption.] I am answering the question, Mr Bibby; I do not need any prompting. [Interruption.] I do not—

First Minister, if I may. Members, let us conduct ourselves in a courteous and orderly manner.

The first point that I will make is that figures published this week show that record levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy have been achieved in our schools and that the attainment gap in literacy has reduced to its lowest level ever. The attainment gap in positive destinations has reduced by 60 per cent since 2009-10, with 92.8 per cent of school leavers being in positive destinations nine months after leaving school in 2022-23. Figures published just today show that, when young people leave school, more Scottish students than ever before are securing places at university, including record numbers of students from our most deprived communities.

In addition, the Government has secured agreement with local authorities on an increase in teacher numbers. We have also secured agreement about reducing teacher contact time to give teachers and professionals the opportunity to develop their practice, and we are putting in place resources to improve the levels of attendance in our schools, which are lower as a consequence of the Covid pandemic. We need to work hard with individual pupils to rebuild their attendance at school. That is the set of actions of a Government that is determined to strengthen Scottish education and deliver for the people of Scotland.

I asked about ASN levels, pupil absence and children not being able to access mental health services, but John Swinney could not think of a different answer from the one that he rehearsed before he came to the Parliament.

The failure in our schools is on John Swinney. Let us not forget that he was the education secretary who downgraded the results of working-class kids during the pandemic, and now, as First Minister, he is overseeing the erosion of our public services. Just this week, it has been revealed that there are record levels of ASN pupils, that one in three children are absent from school, that there are falling teacher numbers, that crimes of domestic abuse are up by 11 per cent, that general practitioner numbers are falling, that accident and emergency waits are the worst since January and that 100 times more people are waiting for more than two years for treatment compared with people in England. On every measure, this Government has lost its way, and it is Scots who are paying the price. Why can John Swinney not see what the rest of Scotland can see—that it is time for a new direction?

This Parliament will face a set of decisions in the course of the next few months that are all about whether we are prepared to invest in strengthening the public services of Scotland.

Mr Sarwar suggested that the issues that he raised were not addressed. I addressed the issue about attendance, the issues about attainment and the issues about positive destinations, and I note that we are reducing the child and adolescent mental health service waiting times very significantly for children and young people.

There are of course challenges in the national health service. I want the best for Scotland and the best for the national health service, which is why there is £21 billion of investment in the Scottish Government’s budget that can be deployed to support the national health service. It is why I want to make sure that the substantial resources that the education secretary has secured to invest in education are able to be deployed. However, that will happen only if this Parliament passes a budget in February, and that is when the Labour Party comes into play.

I am interested in the Labour Party’s tactics here. Last night, most of the Labour Party members voted in favour of a motion that welcomed the steps in the budget to lift the two-child benefit cap and restore winter fuel payments to pensioners and looked forward to further discussions with the Government about the budget. I know that those discussions took place this morning with Mr Marra, and I welcome that. There was only one member who did not vote for that motion last night, and that was Anas Sarwar. It is not that he did not vote for it once; he managed not to vote for it twice. [ Interruption .]

Do continue, First Minister.

All that I can say to Mr Sarwar is this: if the one thing that he has got to do in a day is turn up and vote the right way—and, most important, vote against an odious motion from the Tories—he should at least be competent enough to do it on that occasion.