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Does the minister agree that the £21.4 million investment, which will be augmented by at least a further £14.25 million this financial year, in addition to the most generous direct support package in the UK, highlights that positive action is being taken to invest in our rural businesses, which is in stark contrast to a UK Labour Government that is turning its back on our food and our farming?

I understand what the member says about time, but things have changed so much in the past six years since Covid. Also, young people just do not know what type of roles and jobs will be available in the future. They might be in school right now, but the jobs that they will be going into do not even exist yet. There are a lot of unknowns out there. We are trying to move at pace and, at the same time, deal with rapid change.

Does the member agree that the two-child benefit cap and a restriction in public service spending would affect the poverty-related attainment gap?

I identified in my opening remarks that we are not saying that the situation is perfect. There are areas that need improvement. The cabinet secretary said that herself. However, it is not blanket failure—absolutely not.

I have lived experience of things that have not gone well, and it is important that we talk about those things. It is not always about money or process. I will focus my comments on additional support needs. Sometimes it can be about attitudes, sometimes it can be about barriers, and sometimes it can be about gatekeeping and misunderstanding getting in the way of a child getting the support that they need. If we are serious about improving ASN delivery, we need to be honest about that and not shy away from it.

I have also seen the flip side, in a personal capacity, with my children and grandchildren, and professionally, with my young constituents. I have seen them thrive when they have an attentive, understanding teacher with them, and I have seen the difference that good practice makes. There are fantastic examples of that across Scotland. This cannot become a debate in which we pull everything down and ignore people who are quietly getting on with it and getting it right every single day.

I remember being in a high-level meeting, when I was a local councillor. I will not risk identifying anyone, but I heard someone say that autism is caused by too much screen time. That told me a lot about why there were so many barriers for my family and for other families around that area. I have also sat in a meeting with one of my own children and heard the words, “You cannot blame your ADHD for that. That was just you.” If anyone wants to say that attitude is not a part of the issue, I tell them plainly, from lived experience, that it is.

No cabinet secretary can control every individual’s attitude in school, and ministers cannot legislate away that type of ignorance. Leadership and culture matter, and there needs to be a shift in understanding in many ways. As Dr Jason Lang put it so well, if a supermarket shelf is too high for half of your customers, you do not build a whole individualised support system around the bad design—you lower the shelf. That is a key point, and I agree that we need to reassess systems.

Issues are arising now, and this is a new and growing challenge. Post-Covid, education is in a very different setting, and we are just beginning to understand that impact. I know that the cabinet secretary has been listening and acting on that point, and it is important to have those constructive conversations. Schools need support, but we also cannot keep expecting schools and teaching staff alone to carry the pressures. We need to change wider systems.

Let us listen to the concerns and be honest about what still needs to improve. However, simply painting Scottish education as a story of failure completely misses the mark. We need a whole-community approach involving families, local services and the third sector. No school should be left carrying the pressures alone. If we are serious about improving outcomes, let us acknowledge the good, be honest about what needs to change and, importantly, be constructive. Let us also stop the silo working, because a lot of this rests not only in the education portfolio. As I have said, it is about a whole-society approach. Let us involve our young people in these discussions, because not including that lived experience risks missing the point.

15:19

This debate cannot be reduced to the idea that Scottish education is simply failing, because that is just not true. Yes, there are pressures; yes, there are areas where improvement is needed; and yes, Opposition parties are right to raise those concerns. However, they should always be honest enough to recognise the good that is being done, too. If everything is framed through a negative lens, all that it does is risk demoralising teachers, support staff, pupils and families who are living the daily reality of school life.

The truth is that the picture is more mixed than that. There is record funding going into education, continued investment to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap, support for additional support needs, and progress in outcomes, too. That does not mean that the job is done; clearly, it is not. As the cabinet secretary said, there is always room for improvement. However, that does not mean that it is a story of blanket failure.

I look at this through my own lens. I have children who have been through the school system, as I am sure that many of us have.

We will now move on to questions from Rhoda Grant, who joins us online.

That is really interesting, and it is great to hear that that work is on-going.

That brings us to the end of the evidence session. I thank our witnesses very much for joining us. I suspend the meeting briefly before we move to our next agenda item.

11:10

Meeting suspended.

11:18

On resuming—

Welcome back. Our third agenda item is consideration of six Scottish statutory instruments under the negative procedure. I refer members to paper 3. Do members have any comments to make about any of the instruments?

Do members agree to write to the Government to ask about that?

Members indicated agreement.

Do any other members wish to comment?