Seòmar agus comataidhean

As I said to Parliament last week during the stage 1 debate on the tertiary education bill, and as I was very clear in saying my opening statement, I am not waiting for primary legislation to work with the universities to seek to enhance the graduate apprenticeship offer. That is all I am going to say just now. I will update the committee on that in due course, but I have to have further dialogue with Universities Scotland.

I will update the committee on that when I am ready to.

I would have to take that away and look at it in more detail. We know that the financial transaction budget for the Scottish Government has been massively slashed in previous financial years, and that has had consequences not just in this portfolio but elsewhere. I will take that issue away and write to the committee.

The issue of international students is, of course, important for all universities across the UK, not just those in Scotland. First, I think it important to state the benefit of international students, and not just in a monetary sense through the fee income that they bring into universities. Something that we need to consider collectively, as we work with universities on sustainable funding, is how to be not overly reliant on international student income. That income is very important; indeed, it is a public benefit not just to universities, but to the whole of the UK, and it is, of course, of particular interest to our Government in Scotland.

However, this is not just about bringing people here so that they can pay fees and can study; it is also about what they do when they are here and their participation in our economy and society. I can give you an example from a visit that I made to a care home in my constituency not so long ago. The international students studying care who do not go home in the summer, because, financially, it makes no sense for them, stay in Scotland and provide extra cover in that care home, allowing the other carers who work there to take their annual leave over the summer. I just use that as an example of the multi-benefits of having international students.

Furthermore, when many of these international students were able to stay here before Brexit, before these immigration changes and, indeed, before the further restrictions that we are going to see on immigration, they started businesses and worked in our public services and our economy. There is a multiplier effect to the benefits of international students, not just in terms of the fees and income that they provide to universities, and I implore the UK Government to rethink its position on putting restrictions on them. My strong view is that that is not a solution to some immigration challenge that it believes exists; instead, it is a damaging change of economic policy from the UK Government. Quite frankly, it is illogical.

Yes, of course, because it means that what individuals here have to consider is just their cost of living—although I should say that there is a good support package for that, too—rather than the accumulation of the cost of living, fees and so on.

We know how difficult things are, particularly for our young people at the moment. At a UK level, millennials, and younger, are finding the affordability of housing more of a challenge than it has been for decades. Finding ways in which we can support our young people and ensure that they are not overly burdened by debt and can move into their careers with confidence, having had a first-class education, is rightly a priority for this Government.

I do not want to be definitive on how that will be expressed, but I am not close-minded to the idea of engaging with the Parliament in that way.

No—I have not had conversations about that. It is important to note that the Parliament passed the bill at stage 1. I also heard loudly and clearly—and I was pleased to hear it last week during the stage 1 debate—that there is a unified understanding that we need to make progress on the skills agenda, whether that is in industry, across the political parties or across the business community. We know that we need to make progress, but the question is how. The whys are shared but the how is where the disagreement is.

I listened carefully to all the speeches during the stage 1 process of the bill last week and I will reflect on them. However, if the primary legislation is to progress—which the Parliament voted for last week—it is incumbent on members to collectively make it work as efficiently and effectively as possible for the people of Scotland.

That is a fair question, convener. I am taking time to reflect on the stage 1 debate, and I hope that you will allow me that. It is important to emphasise that, as I recall was stated earlier this morning, the IT costs are an upper estimate and there has been a reanalysis of the finances. I will engage bilaterally with members on the bill ahead of stage 2, as they wish, and I will proactively reach out to several members of the committee. I can reach out to the whole committee, if that is preferred, but I will certainly engage ahead of stage 2 in relation to further analysis of the figures.

The analysis of the finances that was provided to Parliament ahead of stage 1 was undertaken professionally by actuaries, and it was robust. I will seek further comfort on those figures ahead of stage 2, as well as on the pension arrangements, as I said in my summing up at stage 1.

That is completely fair, and I am happy to be engaged in that way.

I was not anticipating a further discussion on the bill today, because we had quite a broad one at the stage 1 debate last week, but I am very happy to engage. The question that we have to ask ourselves as a legislature is whether we want to legislate in that area, and I think that there is a requirement that we should.

It is unrepresentative to characterise the intention of the bill as just moving function from one place to another. It is about streamlining and, as the SFC set out this morning, creating greater efficiency so that we have the right arrangement to direct the resources to ensure that we maximise the delivery of the apprenticeships and training programmes. We could have a more optimal system than our current one.