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Absolutely. That is the situation that disabled people face. I have a quotation from Audit Scotland that speaks to that. In a blog on transitions, it said:

“It’s distressing and frustrating that we repeatedly hear of the barriers that some families fight against to get the right support to help their child to learn. Too often, families are worn down by a prolonged search for the right support, and by having to manage a crisis that could have and should have been avoided.”

It went on to note:

“Councils provide support in different ways, with a wide variation in spending ... This partly reflects the different ways services are provided and the varying costs of supporting individuals—but”—

this point is crucial—

“may also reflect local decisions by councils to prioritise between a wide range of services.”

Therefore, Audit Scotland recognises the position of councils.

I should put on record that councils are in a horrific position right now—I in no way underestimate that. Now is not the time to get into the budget, because I could be here for another three hours if we were to touch on that. However, you hit the nail on the head when you made the point about councils really struggling to meet just their statutory responsibilities. I cannot tell you how often disabled people face the argument that “It’s not an obligation, so we don’t have to do it.” Social care is an example of that. Eligibility criteria get stripped back and stripped back until people are literally doing the only thing that they have to do, which is keep people alive. That is the situation that we are trying to avoid with the bill for transitions for young disabled people.

I have now met twice with COSLA.

I have met with a range of stakeholders and have done engagement on the bill right across Scotland. Members may have seen the roadshows that I did during the summer, which engaged people who work in the field and those who work for the Department for Work and Pensions and for Skills Development Scotland. I also met them separately from that engagement. During those roadshows, I met teachers, young disabled people and their families and carers.

I have carried out extensive engagement and have probably met most of the stakeholders that you would think should be engaged in the process. I am willing to meet anyone who believes that they have a stake in this and to discuss how best to make it work. I hope that this has come across to the committee: I want to make this work; I want to do the right thing; and I want to ensure that, for example, the financial memorandum is accurate. We have done that to the best of our ability. Bill Scott acknowledged that we would be prepared to discuss other numbers. We spent a lot of time coming to our conclusions. Our rationale is there.

That is how I approach stakeholder engagement. If people want to speak to us, I would be more than happy to speak to them, but I have already engaged with a large number of groups, including the Transitions Forum.

I suggest that scrutiny is part of the problem. It goes back to one of my earlier answers on having a minister with special responsibility for transitions, having the strategy lead in Parliament, and having a reporting period so that people know that there will be a point at which they can scrutinise the development of the process.

Right now, we do not have a strategy to address transitions. I know that the Government is producing one, and I welcome that, but we need it in legislation because we cannot just leave it in manifesto commitments that may or may not ever be enacted or that exist only while a certain well-intentioned, passionate member of the Cabinet drives it forward. We need to legislate. That is incredibly important.

There also needs to be an opportunity for people to hold ministers to account on that. That is what the bill would specifically provide. That does not exist in other pieces of legislation.

Forgive me for looking at my notes for this bit so that I get the sections right. Section 1, which is on the national transitions strategy, would provide a clear reference point to local authorities and other agencies. It says that the aims and objectives and outcomes need to be set out—those are important—as well as the actions that authorities will need to take to meet the aims that ministers think will be “necessary to improve transitions”. The effect of having something like that in legislation cannot be overestimated.

Section 4 says that local authorities and other agencies would have a statutory duty when exercising their functions to comply with the strategy. That is another point at which you would be able to scrutinise the way in which the plans were being developed.

Section 6 says that a member of the Government or a minister would be assigned responsibility for the act. We have changed the language in this version of the bill from the previous version to take into account some concerns of previous committees.

Section 9 says:

“A local authority must ensure that each disabled child or young person ... receives the care and support necessary to meet the needs ... in the ... plan.”

Section 14 says:

“The Scottish Ministers may issue guidance”

about transitions, and that local authorities and agencies “must have regard” to it.

Section 15 says:

“The Scottish Ministers may issue general or specific directions about ... plans”,

and section 16 would require ministers to lay before Parliament an annual report on progress.

All those things do not yet exist, but they would add the scrutiny that young disabled people and their families really need. People can come to me and to all of us as parliamentarians and say—we have all heard this—“I am tearing my hair out. My young person is leaving school next week and nothing is in place.” This morning, I heard exactly that story. Somebody with significant support needs is now stuck at home. They have already left school, and nothing is yet in place. They do not have an adult social worker in place.

People come to us, and we say that we will put pressure on. We do what we can—we write letters, we have meetings, and we call people. However, when we look at what duties and responsibilities people have, we see that they are not clear and that they are not as robust as those in the bill are. We need to change that.

That is the question that I am trying to answer with the bill. I point to what Bill Scott has just said in relation to modern apprentices, and I will add to the answer to Willie Rennie’s question, which I thank him for.

Right now, we could say, “This co-ordinated support plan was not put in place”—actually, given the statistics, we would be more likely to say, “There was no co-ordinated support plan.” We are still dealing with one person after another, each in an isolated situation. That means that we are constantly firefighting, and there is nothing that pulls all that work together.

The bill will do two things in that context. First, it will put on a statutory footing the need for a national strategy that looks at how we will address those issues. I have already made a comment about the purpose of and the need to do that. Secondly, it will give individual rights. It will do both things at the same time.

Nobody wants to be associated with not doing what is right for disabled people, and most people who work in that field set out every day to do the right thing and as much as they possibly can, but disabled people are constantly told, “That circumstance was a one-off” or “That happened only in this situation—it does not happen in all situations.” We really need to have a broader focus on that, as well. The strategy part of the bill suggests that.

I will finish on your final question, Stephanie. I am sorry—I am not suggesting that it was your final question. I am not chairing the meeting.

In a number of cases, what we suggest will be accurate. However, I have seen and acknowledge the SCLD’s evidence.

The approach to calculating the hours that will be needed to ascertain what sort of support people will need is based on decades of work with disabled people and their parents, and with disabled people’s organisations, including the SCLD. We have come to the best possible conclusion on the issue. Such things are always open to discussion—that is the purpose of parliamentary scrutiny, which is really important.

Thank you for your question. On your first point, I would expect nothing less than significant scrutiny from the committee, because we are talking about a bill that, I hope, will get on to the statute book at some point. If we put something into statute, we need to be absolutely sure about it. I have learned that—very much so—since becoming a member of the Parliament. I expect scrutiny and have prepared as best I can for your interrogation, which I think is the word that the convener used. Someone said to me earlier, “It will not be interrogation; it will be scrutiny”. Either way, I am here to answer your questions and I undertake to come back to the committee with further detail, particularly on the difference between COSLA’s estimates and ours.

There is no mechanism for us to replace the financial memorandum once it is laid before the Parliament, but we have met COSLA to talk about the financial memorandum.

Under the technical detail in the bill, a lot of that will be down to regulation and guidance, so that local authorities can decide the model that best suits them.

On your point about legislating for relationships, you cannot legislate for relationships but you can legislate to put people in the room and build those relationships, which is what the bill seeks to do. I have been looking at the action plan that the Scottish Government has published, and I know that much work has been done on co-ordinated support plans and the ASL review. From the evidence that the ministers Clare Haughey and Christina McKelvie gave to the committee last week, it seems that the national transitions strategy might, indeed, address some of these questions. That is all really valuable. In fact, work is on-going on the creation of qualifications for teaching support and additional support teachers in schools.

All of that will add to the approach and will be helpful and important, but none of it involves legislating to ensure that people get in the room and that somebody takes control of what is happening. That is the benefit that the bill will bring.

I think that Bill Scott was going to comment.

Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. It is a pleasure to be back in front of you. I want to thank you for all the evidence that you have taken on the bill. It is an incredibly important bill, as I am sure you all agree, so the people that this matters to will be hugely appreciative of the work that you have done.

I also put on record my thanks to Johann Lamont for lodging the previous bill, in session 5. I want to thank her for all the work that she did on her bill then, which has allowed me to bring it back.

In session 5, Johann identified what my own transition has taught me, which is that there is a problem and that thousands of young people are being failed every year. We know that disabled people are three times more likely to not be in education, employment or training—incidentally, that has not changed since 2008. A briefing was prepared by Inclusion Scotland in 2008, which I have with me today, and it says that the figure has not changed since then.

There is a five-point gap in the number of disabled people who are getting grades A to C at higher. Disabled people’s economic inactivity rate is three times higher than the inactivity rate of non-disabled people. Disabled people are half as likely to be employed as non-disabled people, and the situation is worse in certain groups, such as people with a learning disability.

Perhaps the hardest thing to hear is that, at 16, young disabled people have the same aspirations as everyone else but, by the age of 26, they believe that nothing they can do will change their lives. At a time when they should be excited about their future and thinking about what and who they want to be, we are stripping them of hope. At that point in their life, it is hardly any wonder that they feel like project managers. They are not focused on their dreams or ambitions; they are project managing their own life and the future that it brings. That cannot continue. I remember my own transitions, when we finally got a plan in place and my mum said to me, “I can now be your mum again.” That has never really left me, and I think that it is one of the reasons why we have to take this forward.

As I said a moment ago, this is not a new issue. Inclusion Scotland said in its 2008 briefing that,

“if the correct support is not delivered during this crucial phase, it is likely that disabled people will not enter college to obtain qualifications crucial to prospective employers. If this occurs, they will end up NEET and remain in limbo, it becomes increasingly difficult to escape it”.

That was right in 2008 and it remains right now. We know that progress has been too slow, and we cannot leave this to chance. If we are serious about addressing these issues among young disabled people, their move to adulthood cannot be left to chance. It is a matter of equality, human rights and justice.

It also should not rest on a manifesto commitment and ministers acting in good faith, because we have seen what can happen when they come and go. When the bill was lodged the first time round, it was noted in committee that the Scottish National Party manifesto committed to a national transitions strategy, but, at that point, it had been five years since that commitment had been made and there was still no strategy.

We also know that things can be deprioritised depending on leadership, such as could happen with the deposit return scheme. I do not say that to be provocative, convener, but to highlight the transient nature of strategies that are plans and not laws.

Much action is taking place already—I recognise that, and I am sure that we will cover a lot of that today—but we really need a bill to address this issue. You might ask why it should be my bill. To that, I say this. It does not undo current work; it adds to it. It creates a legislative structure for the one child, one plan approach that the additional support for learning review and the co-ordinated support plan review recommend. It requires a transition strategy in law to be laid before Parliament, protecting it against changes of Government or leadership. It provides an opportunity for scrutiny that the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 does not, and it addresses issues in the Morgan review, which says that

“the implementation of Additional Support for Learning legislation is over-dependent on committed individuals, is fragmented, inconsistent and is not ensuring that all children and young people who need additional support are being supported to flourish and fulfil their potential.”

It also says that additional support for learning is always somebody else’s problem, and my bill seeks to address that.

A lot of people agree with me. We will talk about this later, but a number of organisations—including the Law Society of Scotland, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, Enable Scotland and the National Autistic Society—believe that the bill will make the change that we need to see.

Members may ask why we simply do not wait to see whether the current strategy works. In response, I would say this: we have heard that before. This year, I will be 42. I graduated in 2004, two years after I should have done, because my transition was not planned properly. Despite the blood, sweat and tears, I got there in the end. I think that we can all agree that, if it takes the tenacity of a future parliamentarian, one good worker—I know that we have all heard of the worker from Falkirk, who did some great work—and a fighter mum to get there, something needs to change.

Yes, absolutely. I thank Stephen Kerr for that question.

The definition that we have chosen in the bill is the definition of a disabled person in the Equality Act 2010. The reason that we have chosen that definition is that I was content that that definition is broad. It includes people on the autistic spectrum and those with learning disabilities and with mental ill health, because it is about how an impairment impacts on their social interaction and the way that they interact with society. If a person’s impairment has a long-term impact on those things, they are considered to be a disabled person.

The Scottish Government’s guidance on definitions of people who can get support at transitions, which I think is provided through a service called Enquire, includes that definition of disabled people. To be honest, that shows a little bit of inconsistency, because, on the one hand, the current legislation talks about people with additional support needs, but, on the other hand, the Government is giving out information that uses the definition that is in the Equality Act 2010. I think that it is correct for the Government to do that, because it is about specifically addressing the needs of this group of people. The other groups of people who are included in the statistics for, and those who have, additional support needs are care leavers and young people who are gifted, which is why that definition is broader.

I am not suggesting for a second that those children do not have additional support needs—they do—or that they do not need support—they do. I am suggesting that there is a cohort of people who are deliberately categorised as having a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010, because it recognises the fundamental oppression and discrimination that they face, and the bill is for that group of people. People worry that that means that it does not include certain impairment categories. However, the Equality Act 2010 is drawn broadly for that specific purpose. If we look back at Hansard from the time when the act was being developed, there was a lot of discussion in Parliament about how you would define disabled people, which looked at shifting the narrative from a medical model focus to a social model focus. That is why I think the definition of a disabled person in the Equality Act 2010 is the right one for this piece of legislation.