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I will direct my questions to Carolyn Fox McKay. First, I say well done to Girlguiding Scotland, for doing the survey of 500 young women aged between seven and 21. It is very good to have that information. It certainly shines a light on harassment and violence in schools.

Will you share your thoughts about what stood out to you and your colleagues when you looked at the results of the survey? Could you also tell us a bit more about the negative factors that you mentioned earlier when Marie McNair asked the question about the positive work that is being done? What have you come up against?

I want to ask about early years provision. Laura Tomson has said that quite a bit of information is being collected on young people, because they are a captive audience, and I am quite interested in hearing about what we are doing with the youngest children in nursery and early years education. There is, for example, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s pants rule, which is all about privacy, consent and speaking up at a really young age and making it clear that both girls and boys are core to prevention in that respect.

What kind of work is going on around early years with regard to helping children speak up and challenge language through, for example, role play and practice? Are we, for example, treating gender-based violence as being unacceptable in the same way that racism is, but going back a few steps to address the language that underlies it in the early years?

I am not quite sure exactly who to direct that question to—I am happy for anyone to come in on it.

That is fine, you have covered it. Thank you very much, indeed. That was very helpful.

Certainly, that feeling that their experiences are being invalidated and that they are not being believed or respected comes through. The quote from one of your young people, a 16 year-old, about how normal and accepted sexual harassment is in schools should be quite shocking and devastating.

Moving on from that, I know you have called upon the Scottish Government to ensure that all schools have a legal duty to prevent and tackle sexual harassment. Could you tell us more about why you think that is so important and what difference it could make?

Good morning. I picked up the same point as Emma Harper, which is that affordability relates directly to consumption, which relates directly to harm. That is an important point.

We have heard quite a lot of figures; clearly, the pandemic has created an issue around evidence. That said, I ask Lucie Giles this: how effective has the minimum unit pricing policy been in addressing alcohol harms and how strong is the case for continuing it beyond the five-year period?

Thank you. It was great to hear Alison Douglas talk about the longer-term effects of the policy over 20 years or so, as well as all the ripples from it, such as the impact on children and their lifestyles.

I have a question on data for Lucie Giles. Will we have a strong enough evidence base for the policy? Will it be difficult to ascribe improvements to minimum unit pricing because of everything that has happened, or are you expecting that levels of hospitalisation and the number of deaths next year will support the policy?

I have a question for Jim Wallace. I had a look at the planning and monitoring paperwork that you use to move young people forward. That work is quite similar to work that I have done in the past in co-ordinating education initiative projects. Will you tell us a wee bit more about co-production—about the impact of giving the young person power and control over their learning, how well that is helping you to start to measure things, and how that can be improved?

That is great. I have no more questions but I will make a point. The pandemic has shown that the rug can be ripped from under the feet of any of us at any time and that we should not blame people but should hold out our hand to help them.

Thank you, convener, and I thank all the witnesses for being here this morning. I have three questions to ask, but, before I start, I want to say that it is important to be clear that our teachers are trained as educators to work within large classrooms full of pupils, which I hope remains their priority. However, third sector organisations get children who are struggling to a point at which they are ready to learn, and it is really good to be hearing about that today.

It is also great to see that tackling poverty is being put front and centre in the work; we call it the poverty-related attainment gap for a very good reason. The impact of poverty on our children and their families is devastating.

The first of my three question is for Sara Spencer, on parental mental health. How important is parental mental wellbeing, and how big an impact does the practical and financial support that families get have on children’s learning? I know that it can be quite difficult to measure that impact; it is not always easy to work it out. Have you seen a substantial improvement in children’s learning, progress, behaviour and so on?

It would be good if you could keep us posted on that.

That brings me to my next question, which is about wider support. In previous evidence sessions we have been told that the wider wraparound support from third sector organisations and from health, social work, youth work, autism and justice services is absolutely crucial to ensuring that children achieve their potential and do as well as possible.

We also have the early years work. There has been a huge investment in early years education and in work on things such as attachment—I know that Barnardo’s does quite a lot of work on that.

How important is it to have wraparound care and interagency work? How can that work better? For example, could there be funding for joint teams, or something like that? Do you have any innovative ideas that have worked?