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Okay—I come to everyone else.

There are concerns that come up time and time again. During apprenticeship week, I met with Serimax, and it raised housing and transport as issues of real concern that presented difficulties in various areas. That aspect concerns me. It is all right for those in the central belt to take decisions and say, “This is what we want to deliver in this area”, but we know that there will be some overheating around the Cromarty Firth, for example, given that there will be—it is hoped—so much work going there. I suppose, Paul Campbell, that you would say that you are not confident that the potential new approach, with the loss of SAAB, will be able to deliver that input.

I will make a statement and ask the witnesses to agree with it—[Laughter.]—or disagree with it. Sorry—I am not trying to push you either way.

It follows up on previous questions, in particular from Murdo Fraser. Previous witnesses have said that the system operates in the following way. There is not enough funding for apprenticeships, so there are not enough places, and people apply for apprenticeships and do not get them. They then go to college—they might even go on to university—and they end up roughly where they would have been if they had simply been able to do an apprenticeship, as would have been the case in the past. That is potentially costing more money, and it also means that we do not get much-needed people into the workplace.

Would you agree or disagree with that, and do you have any additional insights?

Does anybody else want to come in on that?

I thank the witnesses for coming in—the session has been extremely interesting. I will look at a couple of areas and then finish with a follow-up question on what Daniel Johnson asked about.

First, I come back to Paul Campbell on the SAAB question. The Cromarty Firth development was touched on just now. Delivering skills, apprenticeships and training in areas such as my region of the Highlands and Islands is very different from doing so in other parts of Scotland. The Withers report included proposals for regional skills councils. Would that be enough to ensure that there is regional input, or do you—or any of the other witnesses—have concerns that we will lose some of that regional input and expertise?

I come to my last question—again, you can agree or disagree. The committee’s inquiry will help, we hope, with the direction in the future. However, do you have confidence that, if things continue to go the way that they seem to be going, as we have heard concerns about, we will be able to meet Scotland’s skills needs?

I am grateful to Jeremy Balfour for his comments, because I have a point that follows on from that. The minister and I had a good meeting and discussion, and I recognise some of the concerns that he had. Rough sleeping is not a new problem. Some circumstances exacerbate it, and some years are worse than others.

Minister, can I confirm that you believe that it is possible to end people being forced to sleep on the streets in Scotland, that the Government is committed to that and that it is simply a question of timescales?

I thank everyone who has contributed to the discussion. The last point that Jeremy Balfour raised was very important, and I think that the minister committed to ending rough sleeping by the end of this decade, which is what my amendment calls for.

I want to ask the minister about that commitment; I am happy to take an intervention from him on it, which I think that I am allowed to do. One aspect of that commitment is having an understanding of the cost, because, as Mr Balfour rightly pointed out, in many ways, the ability to meet the commitment will come down to the costs. If the Government is making that commitment, we must have an idea of the relative costs of providing people with the alternative accommodation. Is the minister able to make an intervention to outline those costs?

Thank you. Rough sleeping is an extremely important issue that has probably been going on since time immemorial. It is a serious issue, and I am very keen that it is included in the bill. On the basis that I will have meetings with the minister, the cabinet secretary and other organisations and colleagues, I will not press amendment 1086 or move amendment 1087. However, I look forward to working with the minister with a view to possibly bringing those amendments back at stage 3.

Amendment 1086, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 1087 not moved.

Section 42—Assessment of housing support services

As I am sure that everyone on the committee knows, incidents of rough sleeping increased last year. However, given the nature of rough sleeping, we are probably seeing only the tip of the iceberg. I hope that nobody round the table opposes the principle of my amendments 1086 and 1087, but I recognise that ending rough sleeping is not a simple task and that there are many and varied reasons why people find themselves sleeping rough, and many challenges to overcome. The very definition of rough sleeping may not cover some of the more gendered aspects of the problem.

However, I do not believe that the challenges are insurmountable if the Government is truly committed to ending rough sleeping in Scotland. The actions that were taken during the pandemic, albeit in unique circumstances, highlight that. The objective of my amendments is to end rough sleeping across the country, and they do not call for anything that the Scottish Government has not already committed to in 2018 and 2020.

Amendment 1086 seeks to end rough sleeping by 31 December 2029. It would require the Scottish ministers to provide a report on progress by 31 December 2027 and a second report by 31 December 2028. Amendment 1087 would require the Scottish ministers to produce an action plan to end rough sleeping by 31 December 2029, and it provides that the plan must be published by 31 December 2026.

I am grateful to the minister and the cabinet secretary for meeting me to discuss my amendments and to raise some of their concerns and the issues that they have, and I welcome the offer that was made to meet further on the issue.

I move amendment 1086.

I am glad that this issue came up because I visited Serimax as part of apprenticeship week and this is exactly the issue that they were talking about—the lack of transport and the fact that, even if there is a bus, it does not always run to the timings that young folk need to get in to their apprenticeships.

Another issue that was raised, which is a particular concern in a lot of rural areas where there is limited choice, is the lack of accommodation, housing and the like. I know that that is something that has come up. How does that impact on you? It is perhaps easier when folk are living at home but if we are looking at 2,000 jobs in our area, which are competing with other jobs as well, we simply do not have the accommodation to be able to accommodate a lot of these people. What are your thoughts on that?