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That is a good question. I have to say that, even after considerable research, it is difficult to tell how many schools have their own minibuses, how many minibuses there are within local authorities or, even within local authorities, how much of that service is deployed to schools. A lot of schools use coach services. Again, it comes back to the numbers. The average school minibus now seats 17. That includes the driver and will almost inevitably include two other members of staff. Realistically, each minibus of the type that we normally see on the roads has only about 14 or 15 pupils in it. A coach can take up to 44 pupils. I have a lot of experience of organising minibuses and so on, and there is considerable variability. It also depends on how far you are going and the capacity of the outdoor centre when you get there.

We do not have all the data on that. One of the fundamental issues is that we need more data. I was very pleased that the Education, Children and Young People Committee has written to the outdoor centres to get a bit more intelligence back from them about how many people are pitching up.

It will in some cases. Let us not forget that, because of Covid, there were two years of virtually nothing happening. The Scottish Government very kindly provided £2 million in the first year and an additional £1 million to ensure that the centres were able to stay open. I was very grateful for that at the time because, had it not happened, more of the centres would have shut down.

If somebody goes for a state-of-the-art outdoor education centre, where there is not only an improvement in the buildings and facilities for young people but an update to outdoor activities—if specialists are brought in to do rock climbing or canoeing or whatever—the costs will increase. That might have a knock-on effect, so we would have to be mindful of that.

Having been a teacher myself, I am slightly biased.

That is very helpful.

It is quite important for the overall tax burden in Scotland.

No. Under the bill, it is not compulsory for everyone to take part in outdoor education—I have never said that it is. I want the opportunity to be made available for all young people, but it is not compulsory. Some families will choose not to participate, just as some do now, for very good reasons. The bill is not about making outdoor education compulsory, which would be the wrong thing to do. It is about ensuring that there are opportunities for more young people than is the case currently. The University of Edinburgh’s analysis from 2019 shows that about a third of pupils from the secondary sector and roughly a quarter of pupils from the primary sector get such provision, which means that two thirds of secondary school pupils and three quarters of primary school pupils do not.

On the same side of that coin, Mr Greer, is the fact that if those centres were to take bookings from non-school attendees and the price shot up, the temptation would then be to have fewer places for young people, because, obviously, there would be displacement and it would be more tempting for a provider to simply offer the space, not to young people, but to those who are able to pay more. I do not think that that will happen—I see no sign of that whatsoever. In fact, it is quite the reverse in the sector. However, that displacement effect could happen if the centres felt that they had to get an awful lot of extra money from somewhere else, because schools would simply not be able to pay those fees. That would reduce the number of spaces that were available for young people.

I am the first to admit that not all youngsters will benefit from residential outdoor education. A small number do not like it at all; they feel quite pressurised by it, and anxious as a result, and we have to be mindful of those young people.

As for the way in which the centres operate now, they are much more understanding of and care more about that type of young person than was perhaps the case in my day, when you just had to get on with it and did not get much opportunity to do anything else. That kind of education is changing for the better with regard to looking after the child’s best interests. I suppose that, if we want to put it into Government speak, it is about getting it right for every child. I think that that is improving a lot.

We absolutely should include other opportunities from different perspectives, because education is a wonderful thing, which people can benefit from in so many different ways.

Quite right.

The Scottish Government—all credit to it for doing so—set up Inspiring Scotland, which is a collaboration involving the Government, the private sector, the charitable sector and the third sector. I have suggested to the Scottish Government that it has a long conversation with Inspiring Scotland, which has been relatively successful and has been a really good thing for Scotland.

Rethink Ireland has raised quite a lot of money from a social perspective, and we can write to the committee about how it operates. There is also the Ernest Cook Trust down south, which has been very good at providing centres with additional support. I think that we can make that work.