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In your view, who is leading this process? Are Scottish ministers giving direction to the inspectorates, or is there one person who is leading it? There is an assumption that you are doing so, to some extent.

Good morning. When John Swinney was Covid recovery secretary, he said that recovery in our schools was the Government’s immediate priority. My understanding is that that pledge related to the lifetime of the parliamentary session, of which we are now at the end. What was your understanding of that pledge?

It is interesting, because when we had an exchange on this following your statement in the chamber last week, I raised the issue of the chasm in the attendance numbers that exists in a lot of places. I referred to South Ayrshire and East Ayrshire. South Ayrshire, because of its demographics, has a high level of attendance, while East Ayrshire, which has a very different set of demographics in some ways, has a very low level of attendance. Your response to me at that point was that that was a local authority issue.

This morning, you have referred to your frustration about there being 32 different local authority approaches, but you also referenced the leadership of Education Scotland and your role as cabinet secretary in leading some of that change. It would therefore be useful to hear that you accept that you have a responsibility for leading some of the work on reducing absences, particularly persistent absences. What more can the Government do with its important convening power?

Your exchange with Mr Greer was interesting, although I appreciate that we do not have time to get into the complexities of education reform and how 32 local authorities work. However, for example, you decided not to move ahead with regional improvement collaboratives for what I assume was a variety of reasons. They were collaborating on a range of issues, including the issue of how we ensure that young people are in our schools and classrooms and are learning. Could you reflect on some of that?

I am grateful. There was some useful content in that answer and the committee will want to look at it further in some detail.

Convener, I will turn to attainment briefly. The Government prefers a measure that combines an average figure across primary 1, primary 4 and primary 7. I suggest that that approach is questionable because, as we know, those are very different stages of a child’s development.

For example, I have raised concerns about numeracy in primary 4, and about the fact that, on those individual measures, the gap is very often widening or stagnating. With literacy and writing, we have seen a fairly flat line on the individual measures.

Is the cabinet secretary concerned that we are painting a fairly positive picture when we are not getting into the detail? At crucial stages such as primary 4, where we know that children are in a transitional phase in their primary education, we are maybe missing something.

Also, does she have a concern that, if rates are flatlining on things such as literacy and writing, by the time that children get to secondary, we will have to do a lot more and invest in things such as reading recovery and supporting children to continue some of what they have been doing in primary into the early years of secondary?

With respect, Ms Colvin, I am not sure why there were press statements on Monday—

So you are not clear why the inspectorates said that.

It is clear from that exchange that there is confusion, and I am sure that the committee will want to return to the agencies to understand exactly their view of the comments that they made on Monday.

To return to the cabinet secretary’s answer, I think that part of the problem is that, if something is everyone’s responsibility, it can sometimes become nobody’s responsibility, to some extent. I think that that is what victims are expressing.

Cabinet secretary, can you reflect on whether an independent review, chaired by someone like Alexis Jay, would be the appropriate way to show that there is someone who is leading? Alexis Jay, in her comments to me this morning, said that she is not leading the review group. What is the view on whether we need an independent review with clear independent leadership?

There is a degree of confusion because the landscape is a little cluttered—you have already briefly touched on that point. Do you understand why there is a frustration among victims about who is leading the process and who is able to get them the answers they require?

I thank Maggie Chapman for that intervention. I will certainly revisit the evidence that was taken, as I was not on the committee at that time. However, my understanding from my conversations about the amendments and the stage 2 process is that there is concern in the denominational sector about how to separate RE and RO in a Catholic school, for example, when the two things are interconnected. There are two aspects to that, which I was coming on to express.

First, RE in a Catholic school is, by its nature, Catholic. Although there will be study of other religions and moral systems, there will be a catholicity to what is taught in RE. RO in a Catholic school permeates the entire ethos of the school. It is not as it is in the non-denominational sector, where there will be set times for RO at periods during the year. In a Catholic school, there will be opportunities throughout the day to observe the Catholic religion. That is true of the Jewish school in East Renfrewshire as well—culturally, the religion will permeate the day in terms of prayer and things like that.

It is hard to decouple RO and RE in such settings, and many people in the denominational sector are concerned that we are taking, I suppose, a secular view of RO, or a view of it that would exist in a non-denominational setting, rather than looking at the interconnectedness of RO and RE in the denominational setting. There is concern for the value of both RE and RO in such settings. As I said, they have a unique place in those schools.

If we flip that on its head, I also have a slight concern that parents being unable to withdraw their child from RE in a Catholic school in particular is more problematic than we might at first have considered it to be. If someone wants to remove their child from very specific RE that is Roman Catholic, they will not be able to do that. It is more difficult for them to remove their child from RO in a Catholic school because, as I said, it permeates the life of the school. I have a concern about parental rights in that space.

I also have a wider concern that we are not talking about exactly the same thing when we discuss religious, moral and philosophical studies in a non-denominational school and RE in a denominational school. As I have said, there are complexities here, and that is particularly true of the amendments that we are discussing.

It is a long-standing matter of statute in this country that we have denominational schools and, in particular, that we have Catholic schools. It is my party’s position and the position that I continue to hold that we support that long-standing definition. However, it is wrong to assume that only pupils and families of particular denominations choose and attend denominational schools. We probably all recognise from our regions that those schools are attended by a variety of young people for a variety of reasons. I reiterate the importance of ensuring that we take a careful and considered approach to how amendment 9 would work in the denominational sector.

I have raised those issues with the cabinet secretary, but I understand from Ms Chapman’s comments that the Government intends to support her amendment. I caution that it is not right to support the amendment without understanding exactly how it will impact on denominational education more widely. Rather than having to try to fix something at stage 3, I would prefer that we take our time and take a considered approach to the matter, which we can then revisit at stage 3.

More widely, because of the many complexities that I have referenced, I cannot support the amendments in the group in the names of Maggie Chapman and Stephen Kerr. I have outlined my reasons for that. I would welcome further contributions in order to understand the Government’s position.

I am grateful to Maggie Chapman for taking my intervention so early on in her contribution. I recognise her view and that of the Scottish Green Party on the separation of church and state. Does that view extend to denominational provision in Scotland? Due to the 1980 act, we have a situation in Scotland that is, in some ways, almost unique in that we have what could be recognised as a social contract. Is it Maggie Chapman’s view that there should not be denominational provision? If we are to decouple things, we have to look at both spheres of education—non-denominational and denominational.