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I am particularly grateful to Martin Whitfield for making that point and clarifying that we want to hear from young people who may not be taking a qualifications Scotland qualification. On that basis, I would be happy to support his amendment 226 if he moves it at this stage, but it would be helpful if he could acknowledge that if both my amendment 119 and his amendment 226 are agreed to, we will need to do a little bit of reconciliation to tidy things up at stage 3.

The primary intention of the wording that the Government and I landed on in amendment 119—

“young people who are undertaking, or have recent experience of undertaking”—

qualifications, was, as I mentioned earlier, to ensure that we do not disqualify a young person as soon as they have completed their course. The experience of a young person who has, for example, just finished high school is really valuable: having been all the way through the process, they can reflect back on it—that is a voice that we want to hear.

Does Martin Whitfield appreciate that point and recognise that, if we agree to amendments 119, 120 and 226, we will need to do a little bit of tidying up to capture both of the points that we are getting at? The requirement does not necessarily need to be for the young people to be currently undertaking the qualifications, because those who are not undertaking any qualifications are a particularly important marginalised group who we need to hear from, but we do not want to exclude those who have already undertaken a qualification, such as school leavers.

I do not want to be too flippant, but the rationale is quite simple. The organisation that we are replacing has proven itself undeserving of our trust and incapable in governance, in how it structures itself and in the operational decisions that it makes. That is why Parliament is now taking the dramatic step of abolishing the Scottish Qualifications Authority and replacing it with a new body. I want to ensure that we build in safeguards so that we do not repeat some of those mistakes. It sounds as if the cabinet secretary is essentially asking us to trust the new organisation and, although I hope that the new organisation will prove itself deserving of our trust, I do not think that the risk is worth taking, given why we have got to where we are now, and I think that we should put that safeguard into the legislation.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for laying out her rationale. I must admit that I am still somewhat unsure of the Government’s position and of exactly what the cabinet secretary is offering me. If the Government is willing to accept that we should legislate to separate those roles, I am perfectly happy to work with the cabinet secretary and come back with an amendment at stage 3 that addresses the point around the GTCS in particular—although I do not entirely agree with it, I am perfectly happy to address that point for the sake of achieving wider agreement.

I am grateful for that. It is valuable for us to achieve consensus wherever possible. On the basis that we will come back at stage 3 with an amendment that sets out the separation of those two roles, I am perfectly happy to not press amendment 47 to a vote or to move amendment 48.

On Mr Kerr’s amendments, I think that amendment 222 is too prescriptive and amendment 223 too restrictive. I have some sympathy for what is in amendment 221 as a broad statement of principles but, given that we will be coming back with amendments at stage 3 to address the points that we have been discussing on the separation of the roles, I would not vote for amendment 221 at this stage, although I could conceive of something in that area that I would be able to agree to at stage 3.

On the basis of the cabinet secretary’s reassurance, I will not press amendment 47 or move amendment 48 when we get to it.

Amendment 47, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 221 to 223 not moved.

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for her comments. She rightly points out that my amendment 3 in a later group covers very similar ground.

The cabinet secretary’s specific concerns around the drafting of the amendment are perfectly understandable. What I am really trying to get at—and I am looking to get reassurance on the record on this from the Government—is whether the Government is unequivocal that qualifications Scotland’s public service duties here in Scotland will be a greater priority than its international commercial activity. That is the core motivation behind my amendment.

Since the end of the SQA’s term—or certainly since the time of the pandemic; the situation has been slightly different since then—there has been no clear hierarchy of priorities in the organisation. If the cabinet secretary were able to intervene on me to assure me that the Government’s position is that those core public service responsibilities in Scotland will be a higher priority than international commercial activity, and that we can work together on a stage 3 amendment on that basis, I would be happy not to press amendment 2 at this stage.

The motivation behind this amendment is quite simple: it is based on the experiences of our predecessor committee in the previous session of Parliament, the Education and Skills Committee, in scrutinising the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

As far as I am concerned, the SQA’s primary function is to serve learners in Scotland in the delivery of qualifications that are relevant for them. However, in the previous session, we found that there had essentially been mission creep in the SQA’s commercial activities, which had resulted in a significant amount of time and energy from senior management at the SQA in particular being diverted away from the organisation’s core mission of serving learners in Scotland. It had also resulted in levels of international travel that were pretty hard to justify, with spending on pretty luxurious travel, accommodation and so on, and in the SQA taking its eye off the ball in many ways. That is what has led to the bill being necessary and to the fact that we are going to abolish the SQA and replace it.

Amendment 2 would set down a pretty simple principle right at the start, and would make it clear that the founding principle of qualifications Scotland is to support those who are undertaking its qualifications in Scotland.

I move amendment 2.

The cabinet secretary is quite legitimately laying out the challenges with each of the amendments in the group. Willie Rennie opened the debate on the group by acknowledging that none of the proposals meets the three criteria that we have all coalesced around. There is also quite clearly a majority on this committee and in Parliament for us to resolve the issue now through the bill—not through the review that the Scottish Government is proposing. Does the cabinet secretary recognise that? Would she be willing to facilitate some kind of cross-party discussion to reach a solution ahead of stage 3? If that were the case, I would urge members not to press amendments in this group and instead to go away and try to resolve the issue. If the Government cannot recognise that there is a majority to address the issue through the bill, I and other members will be forced to choose the least worst of the options in front of us now.

I am conscious that we are now at that part of the proceedings that George Adam referred to at stage 1 as the MGM chorus line of everyone who could be involved.

The cabinet secretary’s reflections on the issues with the composition of the SQA board in 2000 were interesting, but the amendments that I have lodged reflect the issues with the SQA board that we have seen in the past decade. The cabinet secretary, Liz Smith and I will be particularly familiar with those issues from our time on the previous session’s Education and Skills Committee, whereby many—not all, but many—of SQA’s governance failures could be partly traced back to the fact that, for substantial periods of time in its recent history, the SQA has had almost no individuals who are educators on its board. Indeed, until very recently, it had only one headteacher—and no classroom teachers at all. However, it did have three management consultants. I do not want to dismiss the importance of corporate governance, but I think that the public would expect our national qualifications agency to have more educators than management consultants on its board. Again, that is not a judgment on the three individuals who were there at the time.

To that end, amendment 27 sets out a simple principle that a majority of the board must be qualified educators. It does not specify that they should be working in a school, a college or another setting, just that they are qualified educators.

To address Pam Duncan-Glancy’s point, I should make it clear that amendment 27 does not exclude union representation. There is, perhaps, a nuance to highlight here. If Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments were agreed to and a teaching union representative were required to be on the board, that representative would, in practice, be required to be a qualified educator. I do recognise that full-time union officers are sometimes not drawn from the profession that they represent.

In this case, it would be desirable and reasonable for the Parliament to say that, if we agree that the unions are able to nominate individuals to the board, those individuals must be from the profession concerned. I would not exclude union representation, although it would somewhat narrow the criteria that the union could use to nominate individuals. I will come back to that point in a second.

I agree with the cabinet secretary’s view that we should ensure through consultation requirements that parents are consulted as part of the proposed processes, particularly in relation to the corporate plan.

I will listen intently to what other members have to say about the strategic advisory council when we get to the relevant group of amendments. There are two quite different potential visions for the strategic advisory council. I think that having a parent voice on the strategic advisory council would make absolute sense if it is to be a broadly representative body. I do not want to pre-empt the debate on that group of amendments, but the other vision for the strategic advisory council is that it would be more like the international council of education advisers—in other words, it would be made up of academic experts. If that were to be the case, the strategic advisory council would not be an appropriate place for the voice of parents to be heard. However, we would then need to make sure that we found another place for a parent voice to be heard within the organisation and the wider structures of education governance.

I agree that the bill should include a provision that enshrines the involvement of parents, and I think that the cabinet secretary’s points about consultation are important. Once we get to the group on the strategic advisory council, there is a debate to be had about what direction we should go in. If we go in the direction of the strategic advisory council being a representative group, that might be the most appropriate place for a parent voice to be heard within the organisation and its committee and council structure.

I believe that my amendment 119 does the job that Martin Whitfield seeks to do with his amendment 226. I understand his point about the need to clarify the language in respect of the learner interest committee. Although I think that the language in the bill is appropriate, and I believe that the Government also thinks that it is appropriate, it would be helpful to amend that at stage 3 in the manner that Martin Whitfield has suggested—in other words, to remove the term “young people” and just say “children”, as we have a definition of children in Scots law. I would be happy for us to do that. However, as things stand, if my amendment 119 is agreed to, it would not be necessary for us to agree to amendment 226 as well.

My amendments in this group seek to make permanent the current and recent arrangement that separates the role of chief examiner from the current chief executive of the SQA and what will be the chief executive of qualifications Scotland. I think there is value in separating those two distinct roles for a number of reasons.

Concerns have been expressed to me that, in the past, there has been a conflict of interest, where the individual who was fulfilling the single role has suggested to others in the sector that, wearing one hat, they might agree with them but, wearing the other hat, they might not. In those cases, the decision never tends to land in the way that other key stakeholders in the sector would like it to. In particular, there is value in ensuring that the chief examiner of Scotland’s qualification system is a qualified educator, but I do not think that it is necessary for the chief executive of the organisation to be, if the roles are separate.

Clearly, separate skill sets are needed for each role. To be an effective chief executive of any large organisation, and certainly any large public sector organisation, requires a particular skill set that is not exactly the same as that of a qualified educator. In recent years, one weakness in the system has been that we have had a chief examiner who has not been a qualified educator and who has not had knowledge or experience of delivering qualifications. Separating the two roles would allow greater focus on those distinct responsibilities.

Amendments 47 and 48 aim to make permanent the current arrangement, which I think works particularly well. However, I recognise that what they propose clashes with Stephen Kerr’s amendments in the group. That was not deliberate—it is simply that we were simultaneously aiming to do slightly different things. To an extent, we are trying to address the same point, which is about whether the person who is in charge of the system should have the expertise and qualifications of an educator—the intent is the same. I believe that the best way to do that is to separate the role of chief executive and chief examiner, because the person who manages the organisation does not need to be a qualified educator, but the person who manages the system should have that experience.

I am not convinced by the proposal in amendment 223 to limit the term that a chief executive may serve, but I am interested in hearing Mr Kerr’s argument for that. Broadly, there is a lot to welcome in the recent restructuring at the top of the SQA. My amendments 47 and 48 seek to make those changes permanent for the new body.

I move amendment 47.