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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.

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.

I think that Bill Scott was going to comment.

That is a fair contention. That is the most up-to-date census data that was available to us when we prepared the financial memorandum. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that our data is right because, as I said earlier, we cross-referenced the census data with data on children with additional support needs. When we look at that data, which is more regularly updated—I believe that it was updated yesterday—and the number of disabled people in the census, we can come to a conclusion about the number of people who would access support under the plan.

No problem, convener. I do not think that that is a reasonable concern—I think that the opposite will be the case.

I think that I said that I have met with COSLA, not that I have not—

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.

I would appreciate it. Thank you for the question.

I just want to say at the outset that we have done the best that we can to produce the figures in the financial memorandum. However, as with the bill, we are prepared to discuss these things in detail. I have had meetings about this with COSLA, but I note that there are certain points of departure. It has said, for example, that an additional member of staff will be needed to do something, while I have pointed out that existing staff already have such duties and responsibilities. There are, therefore, a few questions about existing responsibilities and the costs attached to them. I would argue that, if we are not already putting in the resources that COSLA says that we need to put in to meet the requirements of disabled people and give them a fighting chance to have a future, we are failing them. I would therefore call that an admission of failure.

As for the pounds and pence in the figures, I want to start with the figure of 4,000 people that we have set out in the financial memorandum. That figure has been based on the definition used in the census with regard to the disabled people who will be able to access a plan under the bill, and it includes the number of ASN pupils as well as the census data. Usually, the census data uses the definition of disabled people in the 2010 act, and we have looked at that and multiplied it by the number of local authorities. Of course, this is where the law of averages comes in. We have seen the evidence, and I know that the committee, too, has written evidence from, I believe, councils such as Glasgow that have said that the figure will be much more, and from other authorities that have said that it will be different. I understand how that can happen with the way that averages are used and the concerns about that.

However, the most important thing to remember is this: if COSLA and local authorities are arguing that it will be significantly more expensive to do this, we have to ask ourselves what we are not doing already that makes this such an additional cost. We have spent a lot of time this morning talking about existing duties, responsibilities and legislation, but we also have organisations such as COSLA saying, “Actually, it’ll cost a lot more if we do this.” Either those responsibilities exist now and councils should be spending money on them, or they do not exist—which is another argument for the bill.

That is an interesting point. I have had to submit a parliamentary question to try to get that information, because the level 4 information in the budget does not detail specific funding for that. It is difficult for me to tell what is being spent on the transitions of young disabled people and how much the strategy will have behind it. That is the kind of question that is really important.

The costs associated with the bill must be specifically related to the framework that it is putting in place. The financial memorandum specifically details a lot of that in a way that I have not necessarily seen in some Government budgets, because it goes into a significant level of detail. All of us, in our various committees, have just scrutinised the Government’s budget, and it is fair to say that it has been a difficult process. I contend that, because the figures in our financial memorandum are contingent on a given number of people, which relates to a number of hours and, therefore, the costs, it details the rationale for the costs in a way that some Government bills have not done.

Thank you very much for that question. I know that you have a keen interest in the subject and that you are passionate about the rights of young disabled people, and I thank you for the work that you have done on it so far.

The questions that you asked are key. I know that the committee has been looking at the detail of the bill, and I thank it for the work that it has done on the bill. I have looked, but I have not seen another piece of legislation that has done this: at every point in the bill where there is mention of a regulation or a duty on a body, or reference to the development of a strategy or a plan, there is also a provision, almost in the same clause, that says “and must consult”, and that requires the young person and their family to be involved.

Various sections of the bill—sections 7, 11 and 12—cover the issue of ensuring that a person-centred approach is taken. In fact, that is what is most important about the bill. Earlier, I talked about people not wanting to be project managers in their own lives or in the lives of the young people whom they love and care for. It is not that young disabled people want to devolve all responsibility and step aside; it is that they want to spend time thinking about where they want to go, who they want to be and what they want to be. That involves thinking about whether they want to end up in the destination that has been proposed and whether that destination is positive. As an aside, I think that there is a bigger conversation to be had about how we define positive destinations, not just for young disabled people but for all young people in Scotland.

The focus needs to be on those kind of questions, rather than on whether someone has contacted social work and let them know that, in a couple of years’ time, the person might need self-directed support to be put in place or whether someone has had a look at what kind of accommodation or housing will be available if the person goes to college or university. Those are transactional questions about managing a project, as I described. They are not questions such as, “Where do I want to go when I grow up? Do I want to go on a college course?”

I do not want to be disparaging, but I am sure that you have heard in evidence that, in some situations, because of the aspirations that other people have—a plethora of data and research shows that non-disabled people sometimes have lower expectations of disabled people than they themselves have, and I earlier gave a statistic about people’s aspirations being beaten down almost—young disabled people end up being parked on certain courses that they might not want to be on.

That might be because, at the last minute, we rush to find a destination of any description—positive or otherwise, to be honest. What I have heard from people when I have spoken to them about the legislation is that everything is decided far too late. People are often faced with a situation whereby a young person is going to leave school, maybe in a matter of weeks, and they ask, “What are we going to do? We will have to do something. Right, here’s a college course. You can definitely go and do that life skills course,” or whatever.

I am not suggesting that those courses are not appropriate for some people—of course, they are—but we should not end up in a situation in which, because we do not have much time, we are almost panic placing people into situations that are not really positive destinations—they are just destinations.

The bill will bring in that planning process in a more streamlined fashion, starting at an earlier point, giving people a responsibility to get round the table and having somebody outwith the family as the person who makes sure that people have done the bit that they are supposed to do, have phoned the person they said they would phone and have been in touch with whoever. That is important, because it allows the family to focus on what the destination is.