Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Official Report 793KB pdf

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Further Education Pay

The final item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-12540, in the name of Richard Leonard, on supporting the further education workforce. The debate will be concluded without any question being put. I invite members who wish to participate to press their request-to-speak buttons.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament recognises that members of the EIS-FELA, including those in the Central Scotland region, have been engaged in industrial action in pursuit of a fair pay settlement; understands that this began with action short of a strike, but that it has escalated to taking strike action in the face of a pay offer from College Employers Scotland that is reportedly below the current rate of inflation, and therefore a real-terms pay reduction; further understands that the pay offer is below the Scottish Government’s public sector pay policy; regrets reports that Scotland’s further education lecturers last received a pay uplift in August 2021, and that they should have received a pay rise in August 2022, but are still waiting for an acceptable offer from college employers a year and a half later; believes that management in some colleges have taken draconian action, outwith the spirit of the Fair Work Framework, including pay deductions for action short of strike, and notes the calls for the Scottish Government to intervene, as it has in other public sector pay disputes, to ensure that workers in the further education sector receive a fair pay settlement that properly reflects what it sees as the invaluable work that they do.

16:09  

I begin by thanking members from across all parties for supporting tonight’s motion, and I welcome Educational Institute of Scotland members to the public gallery.

The EIS has just finished its rolling programme of one-day strikes, but it has not finished its dispute. In fact, industrial action is going to escalate, go national and move to two days, to three days, to four days. When I speak to EIS members on the picket line or when they come through to Edinburgh to lobby this Parliament, they tell me to ask the minister, “Why is there a flat cash settlement for further education, leading to cuts in courses, cuts in student places, cuts in lecturer numbers?”

It is no good the minister telling us to use the gross domestic product deflator rather than the consumer prices index to calculate the huge real-terms financial deficit that our colleges face at the hands of this Government. Whichever way he defines it, however he cuts it, it represents a clear drop in resources and a massive rise in the deficit. It is no good, either, the minister asking us where we would make the cuts instead. We are not in the business of making cuts—although I would cut all public funds to all Scotland’s arms manufacturers who are selling to the Israeli Government to bomb the people of Gaza.

The Government is in charge of a £50 billion budget. There is Covid money in the system, still unaccounted for. There was a half-a-billion-pound underspend last year. It is no good the minister asking, “Where will the money come from?” He is the Government minister in a Government that can find money when it wants to. It does not have a fixed budget—it can raise revenue.

Beyond all of this, education is, in any case, an investment. So, to the Government, we say that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Those EIS members I speak to also say, “Ask him why the employers are not negotiating,” and they say, “Ask him why he will not step in to resolve the impasse and so resolve the dispute. Ask him why it is that college principals cannot attend a meeting to end the pay dispute but can turn up in numbers to attend a meeting to discuss deeming.”

In his resignation speech, just last week, the former First Minister warned that

“it is often the most marginalised in ... society who bear the brunt”,

and he is right. But let me tell the new First Minister and the Minister for Higher and Further Education and Minister for Veterans that these cuts to further education funding will mean cuts to student places—and they will be cuts to student places for the most disaffected, for the most disengaged, for the most marginalised in society. For some of those students, it will mean the difference between engagement with the education system and being driven to social disengagement and isolation at home. For others again, it will mean the difference between engagement with the education system and engagement with the criminal justice system. That is the difference it will make.

People do not live individually in a market. We all live in a society, in a community, where we look out for each other. Further education colleges provide huge community benefit. They are part of our social infrastructure as well as our economic future. I firmly believe in the idea that, in the words of Eugene Debs,

“Full opportunity for full development is the unalienable right of all.”

That is what this debate is about. It is about whether people get the chance or not, whether further education expands or contracts, and whether opportunities expand or contract, and it is about whether we value the people who make those opportunities possible.

I thank my friend for giving way. He is making a typically powerful speech. Does he agree that this spiral of decline is most tragic because our industries in Scotland are crying out for the skills, yet the colleges are not being given the investment to respond to that need from our industries?

Absolutely. In my view, we need lifelong learning so that everyone can realise their full potential—economically but also socially, personally and even spiritually.

One of the problems that we face is that, too often, our education system is built on the premise that, if at first you don’t succeed, you don’t succeed. People deserve a second chance, and that is what further education and training is about. So, I say to the minister that there is nothing more corrupting in politics than remaining inactive and feigning impotence. What the Government is doing on this lecturers’ pay dispute is not even second rate—it is non-existent.

We are sent here to represent the aspirations of the people who elect us. Change will not come about by waiting around. It demands vigour, ingenuity and determination, and we see none of that from this Government. All we see instead is obstinacy, complacency and mediocrity. When the Government speaks, we hear the voice of a Scottish National Party minister but the ideology of a fiscal conservative. What about our educational tradition? What about our democratic tradition? What about our radical tradition?

We cannot have another year of unrest in our colleges. The minister has the duty and he has the power to get it sorted out. This would not be about surrendering his authority; it would be about exercising his authority. This requires Government intervention, it demands renewed political leadership, and that is what all sides of this Parliament are urging the Government to show us this afternoon.

16:16  

I thank Richard Leonard for bringing the debate to the chamber. My interest in speaking in the debate is driven mainly by a constituency interest. Over the years, I have had a lot of contact from constituents on this issue.

I put on the record my thanks to union officials such as Eileen Imlah and Angela McCormick, in my constituency, for the work that they have done on the matter. I know that Richard Leonard has had regular contact with them. In fact, we have a bit of a joke about the fact that they come to see me at a constituency surgery every year, as such issues come up again and again. I also take the opportunity to thank them for the recent event that they held in the Parliament, which many members across the chamber went to.

As I said, such issues come up every year. Almost every year since I was elected, in 2016, Eileen, Angela and others have come to my constituency office to talk about issues around pay. It strikes me that there has been a real breakdown somewhere in communication between the workers, the lecturers, the unions as a whole and those who run colleges. I do not fully agree with Richard Leonard that it is for the Government to come in to sort things out—I would not go quite that far—but surely something must be done to improve communication between colleges and lecturers.

Fulton MacGregor has been very generous to constituents and FE workers with his time, but does he agree that this is not a communication problem but a political problem? Governments make political choices, and they are making the wrong ones. Can we not all work together to get the minister to finally do something today? Eight years is a very long time.

I can give you the time back, Mr MacGregor.

I do not disagree with Monica Lennon’s premise—we could say that everything is a political problem. I have already said that some intervention is required to bring about some sort of solution, but I do not think that it is the Government’s job to negotiate the pay element. The Scottish Funding Council and others should be doing that.

Something has definitely broken down, because people are coming to see their MSPs and other representatives about the issue every year, so something needs to be sorted out. If the minister does not mind my saying so, I agree with Monica Lennon that the Scottish Government could possibly be more involved in trying to identify where the issues are and in bringing the matter to some sort of solution, because the same issues are there every year.

We have joked about people coming to surgeries at constituency offices every year, but that is not a joke. There are strikes every year as well. I have been to the picket lines, too—I know that Monica Lennon and Richard Leonard have been to them and that other colleagues from the SNP have attended them. We do not want to be in that position every year—that is absolutely clear.

In the motion, Richard Leonard mentions a tactic that has been reported to me. I am not sure of the full ins and outs of it, but Eileen and Angela have reported to me that some colleges are threatening not to pay because of action that is short of strike action from lecturers. I do not believe that that is acceptable, if I understand it from the way that it has been put to me, because I fully believe in the rights of all workers in all organisations to strike. They should not have that threat hanging over them.

I believe that colleges across Scotland and their lecturers do an absolutely excellent job. I cover Coatbridge and Chryston, and I am proud that the Coatbridge campus of New College Lanarkshire is in my constituency. That is an absolutely fantastic facility, which I have visited on numerous occasions to hear about some of the great and innovative work that it is doing. That could not happen without the lecturers who give it their full commitment. My constituency is a particularly impoverished part of the country and it is very important that people—particularly young people—have the opportunity to go to further education on the Coatbridge campus as well as on other New College Lanarkshire campuses.

I know that the issue is very complicated, and I do not envy the minister’s position at all. It is very difficult, but the Government has probably taken the approach that it is for other people to sort out.

You need to conclude.

Perhaps what is being asked today is whether the Government could somehow be involved even in trying to bring people together to sort the issue out and find some sort of solution.

16:22  

I thank my colleague and friend Richard Leonard for bringing this important debate to the chamber.

Colleges are the engines of our future. They sit at the heart of opportunity for all, and they are responsible for skilling Scotland’s young people of today and tomorrow. They are not only key to widening access; they are the embodiment of it. Of this year’s 250,000 college students, more than 40 per cent are over 25, a third come from the most deprived areas of the country, 15 per cent are disabled, 17,000 are black and ethnic minority students, and 3,000 are care experienced.

Colleges are not just the engines of our future; they are the engines of our collective efforts to meet the aims of the Promise and to make Scotland a land of opportunity for all. I see that every day in the great work of colleges throughout the country and in the Glasgow region, which I represent. I thank each and every student and member of staff whom I have met for continuing to do all that they can do to deliver for education and for communities.

I have said this many times before in the chamber, and I will say it again: colleges really are key to breaking the glass, class and stepped ceilings. That is why I am so determined that colleges get the changes that they need.

However, if we want high and rising standards in education, we have to invest in staff: we have to invest in their terms and conditions and in their professionalism. For too long, college staff have felt that the Government has not given them that or the support that they need. In evidence to the Public Audit Committee last year, EIS-FELA said:

“In other areas of the education system, such as schools,”

the need to invest in staff

“seems to be accepted. However, that has never been accepted in the college sector in the same sort of language, which is disappointing.”

For the umpteenth year in a row, college staff have had to take to picket lines across the country because they have seen their colleges struggling, courses being dropped and their pay losing value and themselves facing redundancy. Job losses mean cuts in educational opportunities for students. As the EIS also said in that committee session:

“cuts to provision are happening, and the areas that are cut first are community learning and provision for additional support needs. That is how it works—that is what happens. The most vulnerable people in society are the ones who are losing out as a result of the cuts.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 30 November 2023; c 4, 24.]

Just when we need colleges the most, the Government is delivering less for them and for the most vulnerable people in our country.

I am very grateful to Pam Duncan-Glancy for taking my intervention.

Is it not also right to say that it is the students—those who use the colleges—who are standing behind their lecturers, because they understand the importance of settling the dispute so that they can break the glass ceiling and the stepped ceiling and move on?

I thank my colleague for his intervention. He is, of course, absolutely correct. That is the case: students have rightly stood shoulder to shoulder with their staff on the picket lines, because they know that staff and students together make colleges and communities.

When I tried to raise the gravity of all that with the minister, he demanded that I provide answers. I cannot hide my frustration at that. He is in the Government, and his failure to act demonstrates a complete dereliction of duty. College staff are stuck in perpetual strike action because the minister has failed to take the reins and offer a fair deal. They have been striking for nearly a decade, with more strikes to come, and it seems that there is no end in sight.

Some college staff have felt compelled to stop marking in a desperate attempt to catch the Government’s attention. In response, colleges feel so strongly that students deserve to be graded that they have taken extreme action and have disproportionately docked wages. The Government’s failure to act is tantamount to implementing anti-trade-union rules and minimum service level agreements, for which the Government rightly criticises the Tories.

College principals are struggling in despair, too. Their students might not get their grades, their staff are striking for better pay and conditions, they face rising costs for heating and fixing their buildings and their student support budget is to be slashed. The minister’s inaction has allowed internal college tensions to grow and industrial relations to descend into a war of attrition. If all that is not enough, there are warnings that four colleges might no longer exist at the end of the year. The situation has become so bad that college lecturers are now saying that the minister is the invisible man.

On behalf of college lecturers, I ask the minister today: does he accept staff calls for pay that is in line with public sector pay, and does he accept that colleges need help to deliver that? Will he show leadership and deliver an emergency funding package to help colleges with voluntary redundancy schemes? Will he fix the flawed national machinery that is meant to govern all that? Will the minister step up and step in, take responsibility and stop expecting others to provide him with the answers to the crisis that 17 years of his Government has created?

Students and staff need the Government’s help. Enough is enough. Let us get colleges back on track and support them to be the engine rooms of our future that we all know they can be, spreading opportunity for all.

16:27  

I congratulate Richard Leonard on securing enough support to be able to debate this important issue today. I think that I got him over the line by being the only Conservative to sign his motion, although we are using our parliamentary debating time tomorrow to debate the subject again. It is such a worthy topic.

I have a very good relationship with my local EIS-FELA reps, and have had for a long time. They are representatives of staff at South Lanarkshire College and New College Lanarkshire, and I get to see them regularly—not just once a year. We have liaised on a number of issues, some of which are on-going, but what always comes up is the dire straits that the sector is in.

Richard Leonard’s motion focuses on the current pay dispute. I have huge sympathy with EIS-FELA members, who feel compelled to strike every single year. College bosses, who can be fantastically well paid, should be on the same side as their staff, who should not be having to wait for longer than 18 months for what Richard Leonard described as “an acceptable offer”. Those devoted public servants have bills to pay, and they are not paid a king’s ransom.

Richard Leonard and I sit on the Public Audit Committee: we carried out an inquiry into the college sector on the back of a very worrying report from the Auditor General for Scotland. All the issues that we considered are, in fact, linked to the current pay dispute. It all comes down to money, which the sector has been starved of. I say respectfully to Fulton MacGregor that it is not a communications issue: it comes down to lack of resources.

The Herald ran a week-long series about colleges last week. It concluded that, over three years, there has been a funding gap of £464 million. That is the figure with which we are left if we compare what funding would be, if it had kept pace with inflation, to what the sector is given. Graeme Dey might dispute that figure, but he admits that there is a gap and he must admit that there is a problem.

Prior to the Public Audit Committee’s inquiry, I heard that the Scottish Funding Council keeps a list of the colleges that are in the bleakest financial state and was told that there is a colour-coding system in which those colleges are coded black. When Karen Watt, the boss of the Funding Council, appeared before the committee in January, she revealed that four colleges face what she called “significant cash-flow issues”. They were, and are, in dire financial straits. I do not know which colleges they were because she would not tell us, but the fact that they exist should be a badge of shame for the minister and his many predecessors. I hope that he is taking a note of that, as he writes.

The committee repeatedly heard that colleges are having to consider cutting courses, cutting staff and skimping on maintenance. In November, Derek Smeall, the principal of Glasgow Kelvin College, who was representing the college principals group, told us:

“Colleges and the college sector, as they are just now, are certainly not sustainable.”

For his college, he predicted a deficit of £1.3 million for the year 2022-23. He said:

“In 2022-23, I have already released 6.5 per cent of my workforce, and over each of the next two years, I will release a similar amount.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 30 November 2023; c 2-3.]

His story is typical of the sector.

The Herald shone a light on the value of our college sector. Universities get more of the limelight and more of the funding, but we could argue that colleges and their courses have more value. We need to invest in them better.

The minister will close with warm words. He needs to close with action.

16:32  

I thank my colleague Richard Leonard for bringing this important debate to the chamber and pay tribute to members of EIS-FELA, who are fighting passionately for pay and conditions that reflect the work that they do in the further education sector.

Further education lecturers make up a skilled and dedicated workforce and they have my full support and solidarity as we continue to stand with them on the picket lines and stand up for them in the Parliament. It is the responsibility of Opposition and back-bench members to make the point to the minister that it is a fair fight and we should bring it to the Parliament.

I have stood side by side with further education lecturers and other staff at Ayrshire College, and the overwhelming feeling that they expressed is of being undervalued. We can talk about valuing those staff, but the sector needs action. It needs members on these benches and the Government’s back-bench members to talk about the action that the Government can take.

Our further education workforce teaches key skills and sets up people for a life in skilled employment. The members of that workforce are experts in their individual fields and choose to dedicate their lives to improving others’ outcomes. However, Colleges Scotland and the Scottish Government still cannot bring themselves to recognise that value. As the motion states, the offer that is on the table represents a real-terms pay reduction. That means that, while the Scottish Government is underfunding colleges, as we have heard, and cuts are felt across the country, Colleges Scotland is doubling down and making an insulting offer to lecturers.

Further education lecturers have been forced into industrial action. Action short of a strike was not met with an acceptable response. In some cases, the actions of management in colleges have fallen well short of the expectations that are set out in the fair work framework. The minister’s response should reference those matters. It is nothing short of appalling that our lecturers are being treated in this way. They do not deserve to have to go through such a gruelling battle simply to see their pay and conditions reflect the valuable work that they do. They deserve so much better and they will continue to have the support of members on these benches.

I turn briefly to students. I put on the record my thanks to all the students who have come out in support of the action that is being taken by their lecturers. When attempts have been made to pit students against lecturers, it has been truly heartening to see so many students standing with their lecturers, recognising their importance and the importance of the action that they are taking. The sector is so important to ordinary working people, and the students recognise that.

The minister will not like to hear this, but my colleague mentioned that he is often described as the missing man, and he must do better. I can say to him today that these workers will not stop their fight for better pay and conditions and the trade union movement will not be deterred by a lack of co-operation from the Scottish Government. That will merely intensify efforts, and I urge the minister to get key stakeholders around the table and intervene.

The reality is that the further education lecturers’ ask is not unreasonable. The work that they do is invaluable and the impact that their efforts have on improving skills, supporting employment opportunities, growing the economy and delivering positive outcomes for those in areas that need it most cannot go unnoticed and unrewarded. The minister must act.

16:36  

I thank and congratulate Richard Leonard for bringing the debate to the chamber this afternoon. It has been about 18 months since I led a members’ business debate on the chronic challenges and industrial action that we see in Scotland’s college sector.

The Scottish Greens believe that colleges have a critical role to play in building a fairer, greener Scotland and in delivering the key priorities that we can all agree on, such as the climate action that is required to reach our net zero targets and the eradication of child poverty, which the First Minister has just reaffirmed as his priority for his new Government. Education is both a social and an individual good. It can be genuinely transformational for people’s lives.

We should not pretend that a good education can simply undo all the structural inequalities that we face in society. That places far too much burden on teachers, college and university lecturers. However, it is a key ingredient in a successful society. By “successful society”, I do not mean a society that defines its success by gross domestic product wealth or even by average incomes, although that is an important measure. A successful society is one that is collectively able to meet the needs of every individual and to give every opportunity for a happy, healthy life.

The ability of colleges to play a critical role in doing that has been held back in the past decade by chronic problems in industrial relations. It is a clear example of class inequality that it has gone on for so long, with so little attention relative to the much shorter bouts of industrial action that we have seen in schools and universities, which have garnered far more political and media attention.

What would the Scottish Greens do differently? How do we believe that we can break out of this cycle? For a start, we would apply stricter fair work conditions to the funding of colleges, policies such as the elimination of zero-hours contracts and the implementation of pay ratios to demonstrate, particularly to the lowest-paid college staff and to support staff, that efforts are being made to improve their conditions. We want to see far more enforcement of fair work conditions, whether it be the national conditions that we would like the SFC to set out or local fair work agreements that are reached between college management and unions on an individual college basis. The Funding Council’s evaluation of that element of the outcome agreements seems almost non-existent, frankly. Fair work policies are worthless if they are not being enforced by the body that has the power to do so—the body that controls the purse strings.

I am proud that college boards must now include at least two trade union representatives. That was delivered by the Scottish Greens in our time in government. However, I believe that college governance requires far more strengthening than that. Consideration should be given to the appointment of reserved spaces for local councillors, for example, to ensure that there is a stronger connection between colleges and the communities that they are in, and better co-ordination between colleges and councils, which are two sets of bodies that are obviously key for local economic development.

We also need to address issues that arise where individual boards are not providing sufficient scrutiny. We have clearly seen that with City of Glasgow College, where the proximity of the senior management to the board, in particular the chair, has corroded effective scrutiny and workforce confidence. It is hard for staff to stomach lectures on fiscal constraint from principals who are paid more than the First Minister. We need to see college principals brought into the public sector pay strategy, in particular the chief executive pay framework.

The Scottish Government needs to respond to the recommendations in the Strathesk Resolutions “Lessons Learned” report. If we are to break out of the cycle, we need to ensure that all sides come out of their comfort zone and consider recommendations that may not be their preference but would provide something of a route forward.

I want to see the restoration of the £26 million that was initially allocated by the Greens for transformation in our college sector. I understand why that money was reallocated—it was to fulfil the needs of the teacher pay deal, with which I was involved, so I recognise that—but it absolutely needs to go back into our college sector. It is not good enough for MSPs from parties that voted against increasing tax on the top 5 per cent in order to mitigate cuts to simply demand more money. It is incumbent on all parties in this place, in particular now that we have entered a period of minority government, to come forward with credible tax and spend proposals.

I want to see more funding for our college sector and my party is prepared to detail where we would get that from. For the sake of college staff, students and wider society, it is incumbent on all parties, and all MSPs, to bring forward credible proposals at the upcoming round of budget negotiations so that we can play our part in breaking the cycle.

16:41  

I thank my colleague Richard Leonard for lodging his motion.

Once again, it is left to Opposition parties to bring to the chamber for debate the important issues that face our college sector. Ministers are quick to come to the chamber to claim that junior doctors are not on strike in Scotland because of Government intervention, or to say that the teachers’ dispute was resolved because of the actions of ministers. Yet, when it comes to the dispute in our colleges, there has been no meaningful intervention. Ministers have been posted missing.

It was 2021 when our college lecturers last had a pay deal. I have lost count of the number of picket lines that I have stood on since then, listening to college staff. Not one lecturer on those picket lines has wanted to be there, or anywhere other than teaching their students, but they are scunnered. Three years on from that last pay rise, they are tired of being offered a real-terms pay cut; worn out by threats of deeming and compulsory redundancies; and sickened by being told that their pay deals can be funded only by the loss of their colleagues’ jobs.

The minister needs to understand, however, that those lecturers are in absolutely no doubt that they are determined to keep fighting. They will keep standing on those picket lines until they are listened to by the Government—and rightly so, because their demands, as Carol Mochan said, are not unreasonable. Crucially, they are flexible.

The cost of resolving the dispute, getting people back to work and ending the disruption to our students would be a fraction of the cost of resolving those disputes in which the Government has already intervened. The fact that ministers are posted missing tells us all that we need to know about the lack of priority that the SNP and the Greens have given to our colleges.

I listened to what Ross Greer had to say. One would be forgiven for thinking that Green MSPs had not voted for the biggest cuts to colleges since devolution.

Earlier, Mr Smyth’s colleague Richard Leonard said that the Labour Party was not in the business of proposing cuts. Why, then, did every Labour MSP—every one of these socialists—vote against increasing tax on the top 5 per cent so that we could mitigate cuts to public services?

The reality is that Ross Greer did not mitigate the cuts to colleges—he voted for those cuts. That is why we have a dispute going on at the moment. The buck stops with the Green and SNP MSPs—it is Mr Greer’s budget, so he should take responsibility.

Our colleges should be the powerhouse of our economy—something that Ross Greer and the Greens fail to accept. Colleges should be there to deliver the skills at every stage of the learning journey, providing new qualifications for school leavers and upskilling and retraining those in the workplace. Every week, I speak to local businesses about the labour skills shortages that they face. At the same time, however, when I speak to my local colleges, they tell me that they are having to axe apprenticeship places, remove courses and make staff redundant because of the brutal cuts to college budgets year after year, for which Green and SNP MSPs voted. It was bad enough that our colleges saw an 8.5 per cent real-terms cut between 2021 and 2023; it is utterly indefensible that the most recent budget will see a further 8 per cent cut being made this year. That is not because of a lack of demand from students or employers but because of the lack of priority that the SNP-Green Government gives to colleges.

Construction and engineering firms in Dumfries and Galloway tell me that they are crying out for skilled workers in the region, but that a £1 million cut in this year’s local college budget means that there is now a waiting list for courses in those crucial roles. Young people from our most deprived communities are having their chances to get on being cruelly snatched from them because of this Government’s choices. In rural areas, where there is a crisis because of the outward migration of young people, businesses, which often include small firms, are having their opportunities to grow and to create jobs scuppered because of ministers’ short-sightedness. That is the economics of the madhouse.

Now that the music has stopped in the merry-go-round of First Ministers, I make a direct appeal to John Swinney for this failing Government to show some leadership and direction. It should stop hiding behind Colleges Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council, get round the table with our colleges and unions, and find the resources to give our lecturers a fair pay deal. It should end the dispute now and get our lecturers and students back where they want to be, which is in the classrooms.

I call Monica Lennon, who is the final speaker in the open debate.

16:46  

I join other members in thanking my colleague Richard Leonard and congratulating him on securing the debate. I congratulate him, too, on his passionate speech, which, from where I was sitting, sounded like a call to action amid the on-going and escalating industrial action in our vital further education sector.

I say to members here that if they are getting fed up with having to go along to picket lines and listen to members of the EIS-FELA union, they should think what it must be like for that union’s members, who are having to sacrifice pay and sometimes feel as though they are letting their students down. However, as we have heard, the students have their backs. If we are fed up with the situation, we should remember what it must be like for the lecturers.

Many of us have been out on those picket lines, and continue to go there. In my case, recently, the picket lines have been on the Motherwell campus of New College Lanarkshire, and up in East Kilbride for South Lanarkshire College. I see the same faces when I do regular visits. Recently, when I was at a graduation ceremony for South Lanarkshire College, in the setting of the Town House in Hamilton, where I was on the stage and could see everything that was happening, I could really witness the relationships, the connection and the love among the lecturers and FE staff and their students.

As other members have said, further education is not just about giving people their first chance, or even their second one; it is about giving them the lifelong opportunities that they need if they are to lead happy and fulfilled lives. It is also absolutely about our economy and skills, and about ensuring that we function and progress as a society. I am, therefore, not surprised when I hear that employers in my region of Central Scotland champion our local colleges. That is why I was pleased to sponsor a recent event in the garden lobby to shine a light on apprenticeship week and to hear from employers, apprentices and everyone in our community who sees the value in apprenticeships.

In the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, which I sit on and attend every week, I hear about the importance of skills and training, and about the need to have proper community wealth building and to achieve a just transition. Everything comes back to further education and skills.

I want to mention some of the people behind the issues that we are debating. I am grateful to Fulton MacGregor for reminding us how long these debates and disputes have been going on for. When I was at New College Lanarkshire just a couple of weeks ago, I was able to catch up with Gabriel, who is one of the lecturers there. He has been out on the picket line for eight years and, for about seven of those years, his young son, Julio, has been on the picket line with him. They have recently made a video. I am not sure whether EIS-FELA members have put that online yet, but, if so, I appeal to everyone to watch it, because you watch a wee boy in the video whose childhood is passing by—yet here we are.

We hear colleagues suggest that the issue is perhaps just too complex. If there are ministers or people in positions of power who are finding it too hard, I would say to them that, given that there might be a reshuffle tomorrow, they should offer their resignation. To whoever is in charge of this situation, I say, “Do not walk on by, do not walk away and do not shut your door”. A couple of weeks ago, EIS-FELA members were in the Parliament in a room off of the garden lobby, and I regret to say that I witnessed the minister walk on by, even though those people had turned up to say, “Come and chat to us—we are here to find solutions”. Whether we are a minister or a back-bench MSP, we all have a duty to find those solutions.

I am glad that we are having this debate today, and there will be another debate tomorrow, but the time for talking must surely come to an end. We need action.

16:51  

I thank Richard Leonard for securing the debate, and I thank members for their contributions, because the issues that have been raised across the chamber are important. I acknowledge the contribution that is made by all staff who are engaged in Scotland’s college sector, from the lecturers delivering teaching and equipping learners from all backgrounds with the skills that they require to flourish to the staff keeping buildings open and campuses safe. Each and every one of them contributes to the college sector in Scotland. I say that noting that, strangely, the motion makes no mention of support staff, who, for me, are every bit as important in all this as anyone.

In essence, the motion asks the Scottish Government to find—from somewhere in the education or wider Government budget—money to give to colleges to go beyond the present offer and satisfy the expectations of the EIS-FELA. I have every respect for Mr Leonard. He is consistent in his view of trade union pay expectations and the need to meet them. However, I have to say to him that the Government is in no position financially to do that. Just as importantly, the Strathesk Resolutions report was clear that Scottish Government interventions in previous industrial disputes in the sector have not been helpful. It is for college employers and trade unions—[Interruption.] No, I will not give way. I have heard quite a lot from the Labour side of the chamber on this, and I want to put an alternative view, as well as to pick up on some of the legitimate points that members have made.

It is for college employers and trade unions to negotiate a settlement; it is not for the Scottish Government to do that. Our intervention would fundamentally alter the nature of the voluntary national bargaining process. What the Government can do is seek to actively encourage the employers and unions to find a resolution and, more generally, try to facilitate an improvement in the approach to interaction between them. I will return to that point later, because, as Fulton MacGregor highlighted, it is important.

I meet both sides regularly through various forums. In fact, tomorrow I was to meet Colleges Scotland and, separately, the sector chairs. Those engagements would absolutely have touched on the need to seek an outcome to the industrial action in the sector. Unfortunately, the scheduling of Conservative business will prevent that from happening. Throughout such engagement, I continue to make it clear that I expect both sides to work collaboratively to reach a settlement that is affordable and fair. Indeed, it was at my suggestion that they moved on to considering a three-year agreement, in the belief that that might give the sector some respite from the industrial strife of the past decade.

I am aware that, at formal meetings of the National Joint Negotiating Committee in March, both sides agreed to continue informal discussions with a view to seeking a resolution to the dispute. I understand that, following those informal discussions, the employers met today and have agreed a revised three-year offer to take to support staff trade unions. The offer includes further proposed wording in regard to job security, and it will be discussed in full at an NJNC meeting in the coming days. I also understand that a date is due to be agreed in the coming days to allow further formal discussions to take place between the EIS-FELA and College Employers Scotland.

I acknowledge the proactive willingness of Unison to find a solution, as well as the efforts of the management negotiating team to bring us to this point. Between them, they have demonstrated that, when the collective will is there, we can have progress. Let us not forget that Unite and the GMB had already reached agreement. I am keen to see a deal concluded that would see some of our least well-off staff in the sector secure a £5,000 boost to their pay packets, with other deals to follow. Let us see the progress that is made with the support staff replicated with the teaching staff.

The minister seems to be saying that other unions have reached agreement but that the EIS-FELA has not. Is he suggesting that the EIS-FELA has been too greedy in all this, on behalf of its members?

I am suggesting that, if we can get a proactive willingness to engage, we can begin to make further progress. That is what I am suggesting needs to happen. To be fair, dialogue has been going on behind the scenes.

The budgetary circumstances that we all find ourselves in are not ideal. The Government’s financial position is the most challenging since devolution, and colleges, as a consequence, are not as well placed financially as I would want them to be. Opposition politicians had the chance, during the budget process, to bring forward alternative proposals, and they sat on their hands. Of course they want more money, not just for colleges but for universities, to pay for student support, apprenticeships and so on, yet they voted against tax increases.

Although I am pleased to hear that the dialogue has continued and the resolution of the support staff dispute seems to be in our sights, I share the concerns of many across the chamber about the impact that continued strike action has on students. Every student in Scotland deserves the qualifications that they have worked hard to achieve, and although colleges need to get back round the table, they also need to put mitigations in place.

On the point that was raised about colleges deducting pay for action short of striking, I expect any employer to consider its position carefully before making such a move. I understand that all colleges have taken individual legal advice that has set out that they are within their rights to consider such action. I also understand that the EIS-FELA has acknowledged that fact in the advice that it has given its members.

It is clear that further industrial action is in no one’s interests—least of all the interests of students. Although I absolutely respect the right of trade unions to take industrial action, I think we would all rather that a settlement was reached without impacts being felt. I hope that the progress that we are seeing in the support staff space can be replicated with the lecturers.

However, I reiterate that any settlement must be affordable for the sector. It is simply unrealistic to suggest that affordability can be discounted or that the Government can magic up additional sums of money. I have acknowledged during previous exchanges in the chamber that the funding settlement creates challenges for colleges, but that is the reality that we, as a Government, are confronted by. We are working hard to be as accommodating as we can be with the sector when it comes to flexibilities that help to stabilise finances.

As members have noted, the Scottish Government recently introduced legislation to add trade union nominees to college boards. That demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the staff voice is reflected in college decision making and secures good college governance. Progress is being made in that area, but I would encourage those who have yet to do so—whether unions or management—to return to actively working together to achieve this important step forward. I genuinely believe that the proposed legislation has the potential not only to improve governance at a local level but to improve understanding and perspectives on campuses.

Turning to lessons learned, I absolutely understand concerns about the frequency of industrial action in the college sector. Pretty much everyone I meet who has been involved in the negotiating process over the past decade would say that it is in no one’s interest for the approach that has come to characterise that process to continue. Frankly, everyone is scunnered with it. I am committed to facilitating tackling the underlying issues. Fundamentally, though, it is for college management and the trade unions to find a way to work more constructively.

A few weeks ago, I hosted a round-table meeting with all parties to look at the important lessons from the report and to explore how we might turn the sentiments that are being expressed into tangible progress. I was heartened to hear of a willingness to explore that, including by potentially appointing an independent facilitator to move the NJNC process into a more constructive space.

None of that is in the Scottish Government’s gift to determine. We certainly cannot impose it; it must be fully explored in partnership with employers and trade unions, to ensure that the national collective bargaining process is not undermined. However, I believe that it is an opportunity to move on from the near inevitability of annual industrial action in the sector.

I will conclude on that positive note and, once again, encourage employers and unions to do their utmost to resolve the current action.

That concludes the debate.

Meeting closed at 16:58.