Scottish Parliament, 15 February 2001

485 contributions from 86 members. The official report.

Introduction

Motion of No Confidence

David (None, Lothians)

Good morning. Our first item of business today is a debate on motion S1M-1621—a motion of no confidence—in the name of Bruce Crawford, and an amendment to that motion.

Bruce Crawford (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I state unequivocally that the SNP has no beef with a minister who is intent on producing savings in her budget, provided that she does so for the good of Scotland. Nor do we have any beef with a minister who can deliver a transport bill in the confines of the limited powers that are available to her. The Minister for Transport has done her best as she sees it for the good of Scotland.

However, the SNP believes that, in the case of the trunk road tendering process, there is substantial and solid evidence that the minister has failed seriously to discharge her ministerial responsibilities to a satisfactory standard. In other words, we believe that the decisions that she took did not serve Scotland well. In particular, she failed to ensure that, as part of Government policy, proper cognisance was taken of or proper weight was given to the requirement for an integrated and best-value approach to how the services are to be delivered across the public sector. That is a key issue in Scottish transport. The Government was meant to deliver on it, but the minister has failed to do so.

In addition, the minister is culpable because she was warned repeatedly about the dangers. During the initial consultation in 1999, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, many local authorities and others warned of the dire consequences of the Government's proposals. They warned that the process was too narrowly focused on the monetary cost to the Executive and that it was based on the old compulsory competitive tendering regime rather than on the principles of best value.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

When—on what day and at what time—did the member first raise that issue with the minister?

Bruce Crawford (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I raised it as leader of Perth and Kinross Council way back when I was involved in the process. I have been involved in it all along.

The back benchers have a job to do today: they must decide either to stick up for their constituents or to stick up for the minister.

Fatally, the trunk road proposals ignored the fact that, if trunk road maintenance were to be completely separated from local road maintenance, the economies of scale and efficiencies from the integrated use of depots and plant would be lost.

Pauline McNeill (Labour, Glasgow Kelvin)

On a point of order.

Bruce Crawford (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Can I just get on, please?

David (None, Lothians)

Mr Crawford, there is a point of order.

Pauline McNeill (Labour, Glasgow Kelvin)

Presiding Officer, will you rule on whether it is in order for a member to claim in the chamber that he said something when he cannot substantiate that claim in debate?

David (None, Lothians)

As I have said many times, the content of speeches and answers is not a matter for points of order.

Bruce Crawford (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The minister knows all the things that I have outlined. She also knows that she failed to publish the outcomes of the consultation. Why did she fail to publish the outcomes of a consultation that was meant to be open? After all, even the Tories managed to do that in 1995.

The warnings of a public policy disaster were loud and clear from the beginning, but the minister chose not to listen; instead, she stumbled into a catalogue of errors over the tendering process. The result is the immediate threat to between 400 and 500 jobs, with 3,500 jobs potentially under threat as the loss of economies of scale begins to bite across local government. The council tax payer will be left to pick up the tab for redundancy costs and the loss of surplus income from the contracts.

The minister also failed to heed the many warnings about the quantities detailed for materials. Those figures were seriously flawed. In many cases, the base quantities differed from historical actuals by as much as 60 per cent. Incredibly, the Executive posted out the base quantities information, which was to be used in its assessment model, only after the deadline for the submission of tenders. That was far too late to allow tenderers to use it to inform their bids.

Those are the reasons why Scottish councils took the extraordinary step of going to court to challenge a decision of a Government that most of them support. It is important to note that, unlike the minister's media spin, the courts were sympathetic to the views of the local authorities. Lord Macfadyen found that the local authority consortia had established a prima facie case and that existing tenderers, who had used accurate historical information, were disadvantaged because of the grossly overstated quantities.

What was the impact of those serious errors on the bidding process? For the north-west unit, Highland Council said:

"We estimate that the overall effect of the revision of the quantities used would have the effect of slicing a staggering £70 million from our tender assessment."

The south-west unit estimates a reduction of £60 million, the north-east estimates one of £21 million and the south-east estimates one of £20 million. As the minister knows, the bids could have been reduced by those sums if the quantities had been properly stated. If the process not been flawed, the bids of the existing consortia could have been reduced by £174 million over the five-year life of the contract.

Contrast that with the minister's hollow boasts in her press release of 23 January, when she said that she would save £75 million over five years in comparison to the existing arrangements, and with her constant plea that the decision would save money. It could not be clearer: if she had heeded the advice of the majority in this Parliament, she could have saved an additional £90 million over and above what she claimed was achievable.

What has the minister done, having got things so wrong? She has not taken steps to put them right; instead, she has compounded the errors by announcing an independent review, which is nothing of the sort. The so-called independent review has been undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a company that was a major part of the minister's performance audit group for the tender assessment panel and was substantially and materially involved in interviewing the organisations that had submitted bids. The review was not independent; it was—and was always intended to be—an internal whitewash.

There has been a genuine independent review, however—the one carried out by Trett Consulting for the Clyde Solway Consortium. That report's conclusion is very damaging to the minister's case. It states:

"This is undoubtedly the most onerous contract we have ever reviewed. The Scottish Executive have endeavoured to abdicate all responsibility . . . The contract virtually decrees a master and serf relationship and in our opinion is an affront to fair and reasonable contract drafting."

The process has been an affront to justice and fairness and an affront to the Parliament. The actions of the minister have been an affront to the position that she holds. In view of the evidence that is stacked against any claim that the process was fair or just, it is reasonable to ask what was driving the minister. What was her motivation? Was it that, come hell or high water, she was determined to reach her budget targets, regardless of who got in the way and regardless of the dangerous impact that that would have on jobs and public safety? This was a minister driven by fear to misjudgments and errors in an effort to reach her targets. If she had referred the matter to the Transport and the Environment Committee, she might have saved even more money and many people's jobs.

Those who vote against the SNP motion will show that they have confidence in the way in which this whole sorry mess has been handled. They will show that they believe that public safety will be best served, that the minister has gained best value for the taxpayer and that 3,500 jobs were not worth saving. The Parliament should support the motion. The buck should stop with the minister. The case could not be clearer.

I move,

That the Parliament has no confidence in the Minister for Transport on account of her handling of the trunk road management and maintenance tendering process.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

We must congratulate Bruce Crawford on at least managing to unite the Executive on this issue.

Three weeks ago, the SNP did the Parliament a considerable favour by allocating some of its time to a debate on the trunk road maintenance and management tendering process, which is an important issue that had not been ventilated in Parliament or its committees. We were correct to discuss such an important policy switch. Today, however, the SNP has not done Parliament a service—by introducing a no confidence motion, it has, in effect, prejudged the matter.

The Conservatives have two essential concerns about the process, the first of which is the way in which the evaluation was carried out. That matter has been internally re-evaluated; the minister has invited the Auditor General to review the process and the Transport and the Environment Committee has intimated its intention to investigate the contracting procedure. If Bruce Crawford's concerns are vindicated by either or both of those investigations and if damning judgment is passed on the process, questions will quite rightly be asked about the minister's handling of the affair. However, I am afraid that, by bringing the matter forward at this stage—so prejudging the evidence and taking one side without allowing for the possibility that the analysis might be wrong— SNP members have been opportunistic.

The Conservatives have no difficulty with the principle of tendering; our reservations have centred on the process and the initial risk transfer, which is an issue that has never been assessed, discussed or evaluated. However, those matters—along with the evaluation process—will be investigated and we are happy to await the outcomes of those investigations.

I do not understand why the SNP's motion attacks the Minister for Transport. The policy is not the minister's, it is the Executive's. In debating the matter, the minister has been consistent and honest—within her lights—in her handling of the matter. The SNP's personal attack on her is misplaced. If SNP members need a target, it should not be the tendering process or even the evaluation, which still await assessment; they should concentrate instead on the way in which the matter was slid past the Parliament in the roads debate three weeks ago. That was a rather sticky day for the Executive, and it was not Sarah Boyack who said at question time that afternoon that she would ensure that

"members' concerns are listened to and that everything humanly possible is done to address them."

It was not Sarah Boyack who regretted

"the rancour, mistrust and concerns that were expressed"

or who said:

"I cannot be specific, but I am sure that Bruce Crawford hears what I am saying and understands that I want to discuss the matter further."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 657.]

Those were the First Minister's words and, if the SNP is unhappy with anyone, it should be unhappy with the organ-grinder, not the monkey.

The First Minister made those statements and then failed to deliver any substantive response to his commitments. All that happened was that, a week later, after the internal investigation, the contracts were awarded. None of the other issues was addressed or discussed and no further response was made to COSLA or the local authorities. If members are unhappy with the situation, their target should be the First Minister.

Of course, the First Minister's words were not accidental. Although words sometimes stumble out, I think that those words were carefully judged on the afternoon of the difficult discussions over the potential Sutherland U-turn. On that occasion, those words were meant to buy the silence of the lambs. Anyone who had followed the local press in certain parts of Scotland could have been forgiven for believing that the Liberal Democrats were leading the assault against the Executive initiative. Mr Iain Smith even said that he was going to press for a six-month delay; however, no one seems to have told him how to lodge a motion in the Parliament, as such a motion did not appear for debate. The First Minister's response to the debate three weeks ago was an attempt to finesse the situation on a difficult day.

No one has addressed our remaining concern about the impact of the decision on the local authorities in relation to operational efficiency and value for money across the networks. That issue remains to be addressed; it was not good enough for the Minister for Transport to say in question time a fortnight ago that any diseconomies of scale for the local authorities have been compensated for by the additional resources that they received earlier this year. That capital allocation was announced to make the point that the Executive was funding road maintenance for councils; it is not reasonable to use that money to pay for increased revenue costs, much less redundancy costs. Any costs to the local authorities must be met from public funds. If they are not, the local roads service will suffer grievously, particularly in rural areas, which have seen their control over the standards of winter maintenance and their influence over substantial resources slide away.

There are substantial issues for the Parliament to investigate. When it has done so and received answers, we might purposefully and usefully debate no confidence motions. Until that time, such motions are of little value and command little respect.

I move amendment S1M-1621.1, to leave out from "has no confidence" to end and insert:

"supports the principle of competitive tendering in relation to public works contracts such as the contract for trunk roads management and maintenance, in view of the paramount importance of securing best value for the taxpayer at both local and national level; notes the concerns raised in relation to the award of the trunk roads contracts and the intention of the Transport and the Environment Committee to investigate relevant aspects of the process; endorses the Minister for Transport's invitation to the Auditor General for Scotland to review the tendering process and the evaluation in this case, and calls upon the Scottish Executive to clarify how the client and monitoring functions will be exercised under the new contracts and to review and report further to the Parliament on the implications of disaggregation of trunk and local services for local authorities."

Andy Kerr (Labour, East Kilbride)

I congratulate Bruce Crawford on his total incompetence. He has succeeded both in uniting Labour back benchers and in defining the Parliament's dividing lines. The pettiness of the nationalists has been ranged against the benefits of working within the Parliament; our principles have been set against their opportunism; and the real world that we live in has been opposed by the fantasy world in which the nationalists live.

I want the real Bruce Crawford to come on down. At the merest smell of blood, the same person who talked about cross-party consensus lodges this pathetic motion, which does nothing for road workers in Scotland. Indeed, it does nothing at all. He is not chasing political ambulances; he is chasing council gritters, and I have no confidence in him.

That is enough of the new SNP transport spokesperson. What about Kenny MacAskill, who is a fond sight to many of us? From autorant to autobank, he talked about spending money all over Scotland. However, he soon went over his credit limit and the nationalists took away his portfolio as transport spokesperson. As a result, we can have no confidence in his judgment either.

As for confidence in the judgment of MSPs, representatives of COSLA were in the visitors gallery two weeks ago when John Swinney rose at First Minister's question time. The ball was at his feet, but he kicked it over the bar and out of the stadium. Where was his concern about road workers? Did he care about them then, and does he care about them now? I think not, yet later we will see his crocodile tears. He is the Johnny-come-lately on this issue; his response has been rather pathetic and I have no confidence in him either.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Mr Kerr has just stated that he has no confidence in Bruce Crawford's judgment. I take him back to the roads debate three weeks ago when he said:

"I have absolutely no confidence in Sarah Boyack's judgment on the matter."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 579.]

Will Mr Kerr address that point now?

Andy Kerr (Labour, East Kilbride)

I am astonished that the SNP has chosen to raise that point. My debate with the minister is about trunk roads. I have thrown everything at her on this issue, including the kitchen sink, and she still does not agree with my position. That is what the Parliament is about. The Parliament will investigate the matter through its committees, not through the pathetic and petty motion that the SNP has lodged. If we cannot disagree on issues without lodging motions of no confidence, what is the Parliament all about?

Where were the nationalists 14 months ago when I was debating these issues with ministers? I say bluntly that I do not believe Bruce Crawford's comments about when he was leader of Perth and Kinross Council, because the issues were not the same then. Again, the SNP does not care about jobs and services. Although I passionately believe in retendering the exercise, I think that it will not happen.

As convener of the Transport and the Environment Committee, I have sat through many meetings with Sarah Boyack discussing the many issues in her wide portfolio. She understands the issues and I have great confidence in her ability. For example, when she was the Minister for Transport and the Environment, she introduced the ministerial action team for sustainable development. She delivered a free travel scheme for the blind and visually impaired and committed the Executive to free off-peak travel for pensioners and people with disabilities. Furthermore, she delivered a 45 per cent increase in the budget for transport over the next three years. We should compare that with the nationalists' pathetic response. More parochially, she has delivered the M74, which has proved to be of great value to my community, even though the nationalists opposed it. I have confidence in Sarah Boyack.

However, like the people of Scotland, I do not have any confidence in the nationalists. The debate is about principles and values; I have retained those values and will pursue those principles. I have fought for a level playing field for local authorities for 15 years, which is something to consider beside the unprincipled stance of the nationalists.

I cannot and will not support the motion. Focusing on one issue in an attempt to undermine a ministerial portfolio is unacceptable to me and my colleagues; one nationalist swallow does not make a nationalist summer. The issue of trunk roads is, and will remain, a matter of principle for me.

On the other hand, the nationalists have no principles. I am angry and disappointed that Bruce Crawford has chosen to abuse the issue of trunk roads for narrow political advantage. It was not right of him to have lodged the motion; however, it is right that I stand up to defend the minister. I share her many values and principles and I will defend her achievements and my party's achievements. I urge members to vote against the motion.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

I have to follow Andy Kerr. He said—

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

On a point of order.

David (None, Lothians)

I hope that you are not raising a point of order about my selection of members to speak.

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I thought that it was normal to take a speech from a member of each party first.

David (None, Lothians)

No. I must balance the debate, and I am taking the balance for and against the motion.

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

On a point of order. [Interruption.]

David (None, Lothians)

Order. Let me hear the point of order.

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

With respect, Presiding Officer, as you do not know what I am going to say, how can you make a judgment on it? It is normal—

David (None, Lothians)

Order. There is no point of order concerning the selection of members who are called to speak. You will be called if you bide your time.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

Let us return to the issue at hand, which is the minister and her competence in the handling of the trunk roads maintenance contracts. She prejudged the issue and signed the contracts against the will of Parliament, which was expressed in the chamber three weeks ago when member after member rose to tell her to take her time, to wait for the committee's report and not to go ahead with the flawed process.

Andy Kerr said that there was only one issue over which he took issue with the minister. However, we must consider the minister's record not only on trunk roads, but on her general overseeing of the brief. There was the issue of the problems with Caledonian MacBrayne. We are sadly considering a seatrack rather than a Railtrack. She has considered bundling routes and she is reported to have visited Brussels on more than one occasion. Was any of that necessary? Could not the minister have sat down and worked things out properly in the first place?

There was the issue of the northern ferries contract. At the last minute, the minister had to come to Parliament—

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Will you please ask Fiona McLeod to address the motion? None of the issues that she is raising is in the motion.

David (None, Lothians)

The member is addressing the motion.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Other members accept the fact that I am addressing the competence of the minister.

At the last minute, the minister had to make an emergency statement to Parliament on the northern ferries contract. Even after that, we still lost the contract to a Finnish yard.

Pauline McNeill (Labour, Glasgow Kelvin)

I remind Fiona McLeod of the text of the motion:

"That the Parliament has no confidence in the Minister for Transport on account of her handling of the trunk road management and maintenance tendering process."

There is no mention of CalMac or any of the other issues that she has raised so far. I ask her to address the motion, which the SNP should have got right in the first place.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

I do not intend to repeat continually that I am addressing the competence of the minister. The minister is already costing an extra £400,000 a year in public funds that are being used to support a Finnish yard rather than a Scottish yard.

We are talking about lifeline services, not the life of a minister. We are talking about the winter maintenance of our roads and the chaos that will result from the minister's actions—chaos that is already apparent. We have received reports that the contractors are asking local coal merchants and hauliers whether they will be able to help them to fulfil their part of the contract. We will have blocked roads this winter and a jigsaw of access because, although some roads will be cleared by the councils, trunk roads will not be cleared by the private contractors.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

Will Fiona McLeod give way?

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

No, I will not. I am closing.

The minister came to the Parliament with ideas about and commitment to an integrated transport policy. In this instance, she has failed in her brief and has failed the Parliament. It is time for her to go.

David (None, Lothians)

Many more members want to speak than can be fitted into the time that is available. The shorter that members' speeches are, the more members will be able to participate. I call Iain Smith, to be followed by Kenny Gibson. [Applause.]

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I am pleased to have a fan club.

The motion is a blatant exercise in political opportunism by the SNP. It has absolutely nothing to do with ensuring adequate public service on our roads, either this winter or in future; it is simply about taking a party political opportunity. That is all that the SNP knows. It is a disgrace that the motion is being debated and I agree entirely with Murray Tosh that the SNP lodged it simply for cheap political purposes.

Bruce Crawford completely failed to answer the question about when he started to raise concerns on the trunk roads tendering process. The SNP did not raise concerns early. There was nothing different in what Bruce Crawford said today from what he said in a previous debate and nothing to justify the motion of no confidence. He talked about an independent review; the Transport and the Environment Committee will carry out an independent review. Surely that is the appropriate course of action. The Parliament should be able to investigate properly the awarding of the contracts.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Will Iain Smith give way?

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

No. I have only a short time and I will not take any interventions.

The fact that the SNP has lodged the motion is as much an affront to the Transport and the Environment Committee as it is an affront to the Parliament.

I cannot support Murray Tosh's amendment because I do not believe that competitive tendering is the only way in which to ensure best value. Competitive tendering is a way of judging best value, but it is not necessarily the only way.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will Iain Smith give way?

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I am sorry, but I do not have time.

The lowest bid is not always the best and competitive tendering is only one of the vehicles that can be used by the Executive and local government in judging best value.

Several matters remain to be addressed. I hope that the Transport and the Environment Committee will carefully examine the issues surrounding the awarding of the contracts—the consultation process, the reasons for packaging the contracts as they were packaged, and the way in which the tenders were issued and evaluated. We must get to the bottom of all those important issues. We must also judge whether best value will be achieved for the public purse. That is the fundamental issue, and I am sure that the committee will investigate it.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will Iain Smith give way?

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I am sorry, but I do not have time.

I hope that the First Minister will address those important issues when he sums up the debate.

We all accept that there will be serious implications for local government following the awarding of the contracts—no one is denying that. I have raised the issue with the minister, as did my colleague Jamie Stone as far back as October—unlike SNP members, we have been raising the issue for some time. We are aware of the concerns over winter maintenance and we must be reassured that local authorities will be able to continue to provide a service for our local roads to ensure public safety.

Local government must be able to spend the same money on the local road network and provide the same level of service as at present. If local government incurs additional costs—there is serious concern that there will be additional overheads to meet and that the economies of scale will be lost through not having the trunk roads contracts—that must be addressed. I ask the First Minister to assure us that the Executive will listen carefully and sympathetically to any case that local government puts on that issue.

In this debate and in Kenny Gibson's comments about COSLA that appeared in today's newspapers, we have seen not only that the SNP is not fit to govern, but that it is not fit even to be in opposition.

Kenneth Gibson (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

What a load of waffling mince we have just heard from the Liberal Democrats, who are so concerned about this issue that only a third of their group have bothered to show up. Moreover, what can we say of the massed ranks of the Labour back benchers who have been dragooned into showing up today but who were not present in any numbers three weeks ago when the minister was getting a pounding from all parts of the chamber?

One or two members seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about the SNP even bringing this issue to the chamber today. We do so not out of spite or vindictiveness towards the minister, whom many of us like a great deal, or out of a desire to score, in the words of the immortal Iain Smith, "cheap political" points. We bring the issue to the chamber today because the minister has gone against the will of Parliament on the trunk roads issue to the detriment of the public sector and the public purse. Indeed, Donald Gorrie—who, I understand, is a colleague of Iain Smith—said in the previous debate:

"Although we do not want crises, votes of no confidence and so on, it is not acceptable for a minister to ignore the majority opinion of the Parliament."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 593.]

Touché. However, it is clear that when a minister cocks a snook at Parliament, we have little option but to move a motion of no confidence, otherwise ministers could be forgiven for doing whatever they liked and thinking that they could get away with it.

Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

Will the member give way?

Kenneth Gibson (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

Sit down.

Our party has nothing to gain from this issue. Parliament will gain. If the motion is successful, new Labour will select a replacement from its own ranks who not only might be more effective but, as important, will not be able to ignore the will of the chamber on issues that deeply affect the lives of many thousands of people across Scotland.

The fact is that, on the issue of trunk road contracts, the minister chose to accept the advice of a small group of civil servants rather than that of local authorities, unions and fellow parliamentarians of all colours. Pleas calling for a delay so that the issue could be reviewed fell on deaf ears. Details have emerged showing not only that the process was flawed, but that the costs in terms of job losses, damage to local authority direct labour organisations and the waste of public money will be, as Bruce Crawford suggested, colossal.

On 25 January, ministers stayed away from the chamber in an act of outright political cowardice. Of the 22 members of the Executive, the only one who bothered to show up during the 90-minute debate to give Sarah Boyack an element of support was Rhona Brankin. Today, however, the ministers are in the chamber to ride shotgun over those Labour members who dared to criticise the minister and who now, suitably chastised, jump to her defence.

Andy Kerr (Labour, East Kilbride)

Will the member give way?

Kenneth Gibson (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

No. I am going to quote again the words of Mr Kerr for the benefit of those who did not hear them the first time. He said:

"I have absolutely no confidence in Sarah Boyack's judgment on the matter."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 579.]

Today, Mr Kerr said that he had no confidence in Bruce Crawford. Who will Mr Kerr have no confidence in next month? The man who criticised the SNP for not being supportive of the Scottish Parliament is a man who does not even believe in devolution to the Scottish Parliament and who said to me and four of my colleagues that he was in the Scottish Parliament only to stop a devolutionist getting elected and that he had more in common with the Tories than he would ever have with Scotland's party. Andy has had his bum skelped over his comments of January 25—I hope only metaphorically—and we know that he has been told exactly what to say today.

The minister is under fire on other issues as well. This Monday, the headline of the Evening Times read: "Boyack Gets Bridge Message Wrong". The story said that

"drivers were misled over the lifting of restrictions on the Kingston Bridge."

There has also been criticism from Glasgow City Council and others over delays in the construction of the vital M74 northern extension and of the minister's continued tinkering with the plans. Before the accession of the new First Minister, the minister also had responsibility for the environment. Her brief was halved, which indicates that the First Minister must have had concerns about her abilities.

Regrettably, the minister listens not to Parliament, colleagues, councils or unions. It is time to replace her with someone who will.

John McAllion (Labour, Dundee East)

I begin by agreeing with Kenny Gibson that, after his speech, the SNP will get no political advantage from today's debate.

Many things can be said about the motion, but the first thing that should be said is that it is not so much poorly timed as it is pathetically timed. Unlike Kenny Gibson, I do not wear knickers and therefore mine cannot be in a twist. However, I described the motion as I did because we still await the report of the Auditor General on the tendering process from the issuing of the consultation document in the spring of 1999 until the disastrous decision to privatise the services only a few weeks ago.

Alex Neil (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

Will the member give way?

John McAllion (Labour, Dundee East)

Sit down.

We also still await the conclusions of the Transport and the Environment Committee, which is investigating the tendering process. Until we see those two reports, the Parliament can take no definitive position on the decisions that were made.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Will the member give way?

John McAllion (Labour, Dundee East)

Sit down. Fiona McLeod is not an experienced politician; I want to speak about somebody who is.

Any experienced politician or parliamentarian would understand the simple point that I have just made. I note that the SNP's most experienced and able politician, Alex Salmond, is not here for this important debate for the SNP. It is the party's first motion of no confidence. He has absented himself because he understands—even if the rest of the official Opposition does not—that it is impossible to get Parliament to take a definitive position until parliamentary committees have reported back on the facts of a situation.

Many of us believe that the tendering process was flawed, that it distorted the bids and that it put the public sector bids at a serious disadvantage. We also believe that the process put price before quality, to say nothing of the fact that it led to the bizarre situation of a Labour-led Executive privatising services out from under Labour-led local authorities. We recognise that those are serious charges that will need to be substantiated by hard evidence—that is generally accepted by all sides of the chamber. That will require attention to highly technical detail, which will have to be supplied by expert witnesses who understand that technical detail. That can be done only through the committee process of the Scottish Parliament or by the Auditor General. When that has happened, we can carefully sift the evidence and come to a conclusion. Until that is completed, it is precipitous for the Parliament to jump to conclusions or to be asked to act as a Parliament before having the hard facts before it.

I must say that, if the Auditor General reports that the tendering process was flawed and that the Executive failed to act responsibly either through incompetence or arrogance, and if the Transport and the Environment Committee reports similarly, the Scottish Parliament will find itself in a different position. It will be required to hold the Executive to account for its failures and it will expect ministers to understand that the road to Cabinet preferment is not a one-way street. The Parliament will want ministers to understand that there will be times when they will be expected—as a matter of decency, honour and responsibility—to do the decent thing and go, if they are found to be at fault.

The motion that we are debating comes nowhere near those high parliamentary standards. In its rush to judgment, it asks the Parliament to act without the full facts being in the public domain.

Shona Robison (Scottish National Party, North East Scotland)

Will the member give way on that point?

David (None, Lothians)

Mr McAllion has one minute left.

John McAllion (Labour, Dundee East)

I have no time to give way.

The motion also targets the resignation of a single minister for a collective Cabinet decision. Even if that resignation were achieved, it would change nothing. It would save no public sector jobs and leave the contracts in the hands of the private sector. The motion leaves the official Opposition looking like so many political hyenas, trying to pick off a person whom they perceive to be the weakest member of the Cabinet in an underhand attempt to secure some political advantage.

I do not quarrel with the SNP about trying to achieve political advantage on the eve of a general election, but I do not understand its naivety in believing that the rest of us will co-operate with its aim. My concern remains with my constituents who work for Tayside Contracts and who tell me that between 40 and 100 jobs might be lost, that seven of the 11 manned depots might be closed and that 60 of their vehicles might be declared surplus to requirements. That will threaten some of the vehicle maintenance depots, thereby threatening more jobs.

David (None, Lothians)

Close, please.

John McAllion (Labour, Dundee East)

If there is the slenderest hope of turning that decision around and saving those jobs in my constituency, I will cling to it. I look to the Auditor General and the Transport and the Environment Committee to move us forward. I do not look to the official Opposition, which has shown itself to be unworthy of that title.

David (None, Lothians)

I am unable to call half a dozen members who wish to speak. As we are running over time, I am able to give Robin Harper only two minutes before we move to the wind-up speeches.

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

I want to explain to the SNP why I cannot support its motion. I observe with some pleasure that, at last, the Minister for Transport, who had two portfolios and no junior minister when she started, seems to be enjoying the kind of support from the Executive that she deserved last year but did not get. I cannot support the SNP's motion simply because I have confidence in what I believe that the minister has tried to achieve for Scotland in the past year and in what she continues to try to achieve.

The motion is previous, although the SNP is—quite rightly—trying to address a very important problem and to bring it out into the open. However, I look forward to the Transport and the Environment Committee's consideration of the detail of the matter—free of assertion and counter-assertion—and to coming to an agreement on a recommendation to the Parliament.

David McLetchie (Conservative, Lothians)

There is no doubt that the tendering process for the award of the contracts has raised many concerns, as was covered by Murray Tosh and other colleagues earlier in the debate. The Conservatives are content that those concerns will be fully investigated by the Parliament's Transport and the Environment Committee, and we support the invitation that was issued by the Minister for Transport to the Auditor General for Scotland to review the tendering process and the evaluation that was carried out in this case. I agree with Murray Tosh, Mr McAllion and Mr Harper, who have said that a rush to judgment today would be premature.

Whatever the rights and wrongs and arithmetical intricacies of the tendering process in question, we should not lose sight of the basic principles that are at stake. My party fully supports competitive tendering in relation to public works as the best method of securing best value for the taxpayer at local and national levels. Competitive tendering and contracting out of services is something that the Conservatives promoted while in government, and we are proud that we have always sought to ensure that public services are run in the interests of the taxpayers, rather than in the vested interests of the service providers.

Tommy Sheridan (SSP, Glasgow)

Will David McLetchie take an intervention?

David McLetchie (Conservative, Lothians)

No, thank you, Mr Sheridan.

In the past, that was done in the face of opposition from the Labour party, at national and local levels. Labour fought the reforms tooth and nail.

Andy Kerr (Labour, East Kilbride)

Will David McLetchie give way?

David McLetchie (Conservative, Lothians)

No, thank you. It is a delicious irony that Labour is now defending a policy that it opposed so vehemently in the past, even although it defends it through gritted teeth.

The difference between the local authority and private sector contractors' bids was £190 million over the five-year contract period. We are told that that represents a saving on existing costs of about £75 million over five years. Those savings are welcome. However, that raises the question of what further savings could be achieved for hard-pressed council tax payers through competitive tendering for all local authority road contracts.

The fact that we support the principle behind the Minister for Transport's actions does not mean that we have any great confidence in the minister. Since her U-turns on motorway tolls and workplace parking taxes, her coat has been on a shooglie peg. As Mr Gibson pointed out, the minister was humiliated by her own back benchers in the debate on roads contracts only three weeks ago, and was abandoned by her ministerial colleagues. In the last reshuffle, the then Minister for Transport and the Environment lost half her job and it will not be long before she loses the rest of it. The blunt truth of the matter is that the Labour party has lost confidence in Sarah Boyack. Mr Kerr's pathetic attempts to kiss and make up will not change that harsh reality.

Andy Kerr (Labour, East Kilbride)

Will the member give way on that point?

David McLetchie (Conservative, Lothians)

No, thank you. No one who has Scotland's best interests at heart could support the protectionist sentiments that underpin the SNP motion. Its archaic attitude assumes that Scotland can be insulated from the modern world.

Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

Will David McLetchie give way?

David McLetchie (Conservative, Lothians)

No, thank you—I am in the last minute of my speech.

The SNP is a dinosaur party that wishes to turn Scotland into a giant jurassic park. It is trying to wrest the banner of outmoded municipal socialism from a schizophrenic Labour party that does not know whether to let go or to cling on for dear life.

The Scottish Conservatives will have no truck with such outmoded attitudes; we believe that Scotland should be a progressive country that has nothing to fear and everything to gain—in this case—from public services being provided by the private sector in the interests of the public purse. I support Mr Tosh's amendment.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

In winding up on the SNP's motion, I will concentrate on the key point of the debate—that this about real people and their employment. David McLetchie's attack of a moment ago on the SNP will be interpreted widely in the rural communities of Scotland, where his party aims to recover some of its lost ground.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

No chance.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

I know that there is no chance of that happening, but the Conservatives' attack on us will be interpreted as an attempt to recover lost ground. There is a lack of concern on the part of the Conservative party about the issue of employment, which affects many rural communities. One of the Conservatives' candidates aims to win over at the Westminster election some of the rural communities in the constituency that I represent. He will get an horrific reception when he goes to the depots that face closure because of the insensitivity and weakness of the tendering process. The people who are affected by such closures should be uppermost in our minds.

The other people who should be uppermost in our minds are those who came to observe the proceedings of this Parliament a few weeks ago, when they sat in the galleries and watched the debate on an SNP motion—in SNP time—to bring the matter of the tendering process before Parliament. They would have heard lots of brave words and wise sentiment and all sorts of great commitments, including great claims from Andy Kerr and great comments from Kate MacLean about how appalled they were at the process that was taking place. What has happened? The contracts have been awarded. All those representations have been disregarded, and the contracts have been awarded in a way that the Parliament did not want.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will Mr Swinney give way?

Cathie Craigie (Labour, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth)

Will Mr Swinney give way?

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

I will give way to Mr Tosh.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Can Mr Swinney explain why the SNP motion of three weeks ago did not call for the contracts to be deferred? What did he and his party do to pursue the matter?

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

We provided an opportunity to bring together as many people in the Parliament as possible to produce the parliamentary consensus that people want and that will make ministers listen. I will return to the point about ministers listening in a moment.

At the heart of the debate is the question of what Parliament can do to deliver for the people who sit in the public galleries and hear our debates and concerns, and who hope that the Parliament will bring ministers to account.

I want to address a couple of Andy Kerr's points. He attacked me for not mentioning trunk roads maintenance during First Minister's question time on the day of the earlier debate on the matter. There was a good reason for that. We had had a full parliamentary debate, during which the issues were well aired. Janis Hughes lodged a question, which was in the business bulletin for that day, in which she raised the same issues.

Why did not I raise the issue during First Minister's question time? It was because I was trying to hold the wretched Executive to account on free personal care for the elderly. If the Opposition had not held the Executive to account on that issue on Thursday 25 January in a debate, and during First Minister's question time—forcing the Minister for Parliament to come to the chamber to save himself from an embarrassing defeat—it would not have been the right selection of topics for holding the Executive to account in all that it does.

Andy Kerr accused us of having our principles and opportunism out of kilter. Well—Andy Kerr told Parliament:

"I have absolutely no confidence in Sarah Boyack's judgment on the matter."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 579.]

However, he stood before Parliament today, after the contracts have been awarded and signed and the pass has been sold, to say that all that he said—

Andy Kerr (Labour, East Kilbride)

I point out to Mr Swinney that the Transport and the Environment Committee and the Auditor General will consider those matters. That is what this Parliament is about—not pathetic motions.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

That brings me to the second Labour contribution to which I want to refer, that of John McAllion, with whom I can normally agree on a number of things. He accused us of poor timing. In his intervention, Andy Kerr has just argued that we should have waited for the findings of the Transport and the Environment Committee and of the Auditor General, and that that was all that was required. However, if the Transport and the Environment Committee finds against the minister, what will happen?

Gil Paterson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

Nothing.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Gil Paterson shouts "Nothing", and he is absolutely right. The contracts have been signed already and a pass has been sold.

John McAllion said that we held the naive view that Labour members might co-operate with us on a motion of no confidence in a minister. If we were naive, it was in believing that Labour members might—after the motion had been before Parliament for an honest and frank debate—vote at decision time in favour of a motion that we lodged and that was designed to capture the consensus of opinion on the widespread concern about the tendering process. However, although Labour members articulated their concerns in the chamber, they did nothing about them when it came to the vote.

Pauline McNeill (Labour, Glasgow Kelvin)

John Swinney and other members of his party have spoken about the will of Parliament. If, at 5 o'clock, it is the will of the Parliament that we have confidence in the minister—as I am sure it will be—what will be the SNP's position?

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

The SNP will have defended its parliamentary right as the Opposition to hold the Executive to account for its failure to deliver for the people of Scotland.

John McAllion accused us of unnecessarily lodging the motion. At a full meeting of Dundee City Council on Monday evening, an SNP motion of no confidence in Sarah Boyack was passed by 15 votes to 12. That council is led by the Labour party and the motion was supported by Kate MacLean's election agent, Councillor John Letford. We are more in tune with what is happening in local authority chambers than the Executive is.

Kate Maclean (Labour, Dundee West)

Does John Swinney accept that no other Labour member of the council voted for the SNP motion? Does he accept that Labour back benchers and others in the Parliament are able to articulate their views on the issue through the proper channels without supporting the bully-boys in Parliament?

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Labour members are undoubtedly able to articulate their concerns. They have done so, and what they have said is recorded in the Official Report . The problem is that they do not vote on those concerns.

Murray Tosh made an interesting comment on the words of the First Minister on that fateful day, 25 January. The First Minister said:

"Today, as an act of good faith, I want to reflect on this morning's debate. It is not in the interests of the Parliament or the Executive for there to be the kind of rancour, mistrust and concerns that were expressed this morning. I cannot be specific, but I am sure that Bruce Crawford hears what I am saying and understands that I want to discuss the matters further."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 657.]

That was another nod and a wink from Henry McLeish; another, "Stick with me and I'll make sure that everything's all right." The situation is the same regarding free personal care. The key point is that we had to drag the commitment to free personal care for the elderly kicking and screaming out of the First Minister. We are now holding the Executive to account for the remarks that the First Minister made to the Parliament on 25 January. Despite all the comforting words in response to Bruce Crawford and Janis Hughes, absolutely nothing happened other than that the contracts were signed. How can we take at face value remarks that the First Minister makes in the Parliament and how can we believe that he will address widespread parliamentary concern? That is why Opposition parties must use every device at their disposal to hold to account an Executive that tells the Parliament in good faith that it will deal with things, but which then welshes on that commitment.

Bruce Crawford has made a powerful case for the view that there were opportunities for savings to the public purse if the contract process had been handled properly.

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

Will the member give way?

David (None, Lothians)

The member is in his last minute.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

The Executive has threatened the loss of more than 500 and possibly up to 3,500 jobs, but has expressed no real concern about that. The Opposition must use every device that it can to hold the Executive to account. The SNP motion does exactly that.

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

I welcome the opportunity to respond to the motion. Before I deal with the serious issue—trunk roads, rather than the SNP motion—I say that the Tories have been characteristically out of touch with reality. We had "Silence of the Lambs" from Murray Tosh and "Jurassic Park" from David McLetchie—one does not have to make a big conceptual jump to end up with "Titanic" to describe the Tories.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will the First Minister give way?

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

I will give way later.

David (None, Lothians)

He is in his first minute.

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

I understand that the Tories are anxious.

Another general point that has arisen in the debate is that the SNP has screwed things up once again. It is impossible for SNP members to deny that the motion is anything more than cheap political opportunism. However, I want also to pay due credit to Bruce Crawford and the SNP. I want to share with the Parliament information about a meeting that took place in Perth on 31 July 1997. People must sometimes make tough decisions and Bruce Crawford may have to be congratulated on doing so. He was leader of Perth and Kinross Council, which was then putting out to tender a grounds maintenance contract. The contract was eventually won by Brophy, a subsidiary of Thames Water plc. The press and public were excluded from that meeting. Labour councillors suggested that there should be a six-month delay before the contract was awarded.

However—I must pay tribute to an inconsistency—the 18 SNP members of the council rejected that suggestion and agreed to award the tender to Brophy. I raise that not to make a political point, but merely to applaud it. There are times when one faces issues of legality and contractual compliance in which one must act accordingly. What members cannot stomach is a lecture on probity and effective procedures, given that in another life the person who now holds the SNP transport portfolio put forward a completely different view.

Bruce Crawford (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

It is a pity that the First Minister did not take the story forward a little to a meeting that took place between Perth and Kinross Council and the late First Minister when he was Secretary of State for Scotland. Representatives from across the council asked whether we could legally delay the contract. The Labour secretary of state refused and threatened the councillors with surcharge.

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

Bruce Crawford acknowledged that everything that I said was true. To be fair to him, I admit that tough choices have to be made. Bruce Crawford speaks here with one voice, but spoke with another voice elsewhere. Sir David, I cannot use a word that at Westminster would be considered unparliamentary, but it starts with "h" and finishes with "y".

Margaret Ewing (Scottish National Party, Moray)

Henry!

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

Good point. To clear up any lingering doubts, I will put the word on record; it is "hypocrisy".

I have listened to the debate and to previous discussions here and elsewhere. I recognise fully the range of views, emotions and passions that are aroused by the question of trunk roads maintenance. Against that background, it is all the more important that we think clearly about why we are having the debate.

It is important that we should agree about the factual background and the contractual legal framework by which we are bound; about the process and how the Executive adhered to the process; and, finally, about the outcome. I will do more than that. I will show how, at every step of the way on this complex matter, Sarah Boyack and the Executive acted with full regard for their responsibility for probity and value for money in public spending. We have acted with full cognisance of process and probity and we have acknowledged every detail of the relevant guidance, including UK and European law. That is the world in which we must conduct the business of government and deliver results. Despite the obvious wishes of a number of members who have spoken, there is no other world to do it in.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

The First Minister is clear about the processes and what was said and done. What could he possibly have meant when he said to Bruce Crawford:

"I cannot be specific, but I am sure that Bruce Crawford hears what I am saying and understands that I want to discuss the matters further"?—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 657.]

What concessions, what behaviours, what policies were promised and delivered?

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

I stand by those words. At that point, we proceeded to have the audit done—that was important—and we looked at every conceivable aspect of the issue. That is why I captured that process in my remarks.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

rose—

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

I want to make some progress—I will then take John Swinney's intervention.

Historically, trunk road maintenance was carried out by local authorities, which acted as agents of the then Scottish Office. That situation obtained five years ago.

Since 1996, local authorities have continued to do the work, because local authority consortia succeeded in the first tendering process that was imposed by the Public Works Contract Regulations 1991, which were brought in to implement European Community competition regulations.

All those who are concerned have known that the works would be retendered from 1 April 2001. Consultations began as long ago as April 1999. Of the 66 responses to the consultation paper, 27 were from local authorities, 15 of which saw advantages in operating companies. Following the decision to proceed to tender for four regionally based operating companies, tender documents were issued in May 2000. Four hundred and thirty- three tender queries resulted and 30 tender bulletins were issued.

Full consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities took place in the form of correspondence, a meeting with officials and a meeting with the minister. On 4 September 2000, in connection with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, COSLA said that

"although there has been some delay in getting this matter clarified, the clarity and explicitness of your reply"—

that is, the minister's reply—

"is very helpful and I understand that local authorities involved in this process are also pleased to see the outcome."

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Will the First Minister answer a question that was posed today on further consultation? If the Transport and the Environment Committee finds that the process was fundamentally flawed, that the process has not delivered what was expected and that the contractors have not been dealt with fairly, what will the Executive do on receipt of that committee's report?

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

If the Audit Scotland report or the committee report convinces us that there are serious difficulties with the contract, we can do two things. First, we can suspend the contract. That would involve a process of renegotiation to carry forward the existing contract. Secondly, that point can be followed by a retendering process.

Bruce Crawford (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

A couple of weeks ago, we were clearly told that it would be impossible to suspend the tendering process, because that would be against the law and against European legislation. Why is the First Minister now saying that suspension might be possible? I hope that the back benchers are listening.

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

Bruce Crawford completely misses the point again. There is no evidence whatever at this stage to justify such a course of action. That is why Audit Scotland and the Transport and the Environment Committee will want to look at the process further.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Will the First Minister give way?

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

No. I want to make some progress on points in response to Bruce Crawford's intervention.

All tenders were submitted by 30 October 2000 and fully assessed against the quality standards before cash bids were evaluated. Given the time scale and nature of the process, there can be no serious suggestion that it was rushed or skewed against any bidder.

In mid-December, the Minister for Transport, Sarah Boyack, was aware of the outcome and quite properly questioned officials closely about the process, its rigour and fairness and the extent of external validation that was involved. Thereafter, there was further discussion of the outcome and further questioning of the officials by a wider group of ministers. That was done in explicit recognition of the wider implications of the process and its outcome. Therefore, I am satisfied that a long, complex and exhaustive assessment within the relevant competition rules was carried out with sensitivity, rigour and fairness.

Although the process was challenged, the resulting three court judgments in the Court of Session served only to increase the Executive's confidence in both the process and its outcome. What is more, having completed the process with due probity and care, had we done anything other than award the contracts to the lowest bidders, we would have faced the real risk of being taken to court, losing in court and wasting taxpayers' money on compensation.

As members know, the outcome that the Minister for Transport announced by way of a written answer on 2 February was that two contracts each were awarded to Amey Highways Ltd and BEAR Scotland Ltd. On the point that was raised by David McLetchie, it is important to note that an extensive and now legally validated process that covered quality, quantities and price produced the following results: in the two southern areas, the Amey bids, at £176 million over five years, offer savings of £50 million on the current arrangements; in the northern areas, the BEAR bids, at £182 million over five years, offer a saving of £25 million.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Considerable concerns remain, particularly in the south-east, where the Balfour Beatty contract with the local authorities and two other private sector contracts came in at £97 million. Much of the contract is based on a lump sum, and there are concerns that the successful bidder could achieve such massive savings only if winter maintenance work was undertaken to a lower standard. The Executive must explain how the client side will work and how the quality side is to be guaranteed, so that people can be assured that remoter rural roads in particular will not be under-maintained.

David (None, Lothians)

The First Minister will take no more interventions.

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

The winning bids were based on the same materials, which will be supplied, and there is no suggestion that quality will diminish; the contracts do not allow for that. We must bear in mind the substantial differences in the cost factors—even Murray Tosh and David McLetchie conceded that point. There is no evidence to suggest that there was anything untoward in that part of the process.

The local authority bids were more than 50 per cent higher than the winning bids and were evaluated as costing £190 million more over the five-year period. Clear quality standards are built into the contracts, which are binding, so there is no question that the winning bids will lead to lower maintenance standards. I must also put a stop to the idea that the winning bidders have no experience—both contractors have a proven track record; Amey already maintains much of the M74.

With three court judgments in favour of the Executive, backed up by an independent audit on quantities and methodology, we can be confident that the best outcomes were achieved from the bidding process and that they represent best value.

I want to address the concerns that have been expressed by COSLA and individual local authorities and I praise the convener of the Transport and the Environment Committee for pushing those concerns forward. There have been many conflicting reports about the number of DLO staff who are employed on trunk road maintenance. I assure members that Amey and BEAR have already approached existing employers to pursue staff transfers under TUPE. Both are advertising for staff and each will give preference to TUPE transfers. A preliminary assessment by BEAR suggests that the number of staff who are designated to transfer under TUPE in the northern areas is likely to be broadly in line with the number of staff that will be required. In the southern areas, the contractor still awaits detailed lists of staff who are considered to be covered by TUPE and I urge the authorities that are involved to provide that information quickly.

The savings that will be made from awarding the contracts to the lowest bidders will be available for us to invest in vital services for the public. It is also significant that the Minister for Transport secured an additional £70 million in the spending review for local authorities to spend on local roads and bridges. In addition to that extra work, there will be an opportunity for local authorities to bid for discrete contract work on packages of £150,000 and more; local authorities already win a significant amount of such work.

David (None, Lothians)

Please come to a close, First Minister.

Henry McLeish (Labour, Central Fife)

I will finish, Presiding Officer.

I appreciate fully that these matters are not simple and that detailed and reasoned arguments have not always been heard or listened to as they should have been. Emotions have run high and the disappointment of the local authorities that contended for the contracts is clear.

Let me repeat: the Executive has confidence in the existing process—our confidence is supported by the views of the courts and by the independent audit. In order to provide further reassurance, Audit Scotland will investigate and will report in due course. Therefore, the public can also have confidence. I urge members to reject the motion of no confidence.

Education

David (None, Lothians)

We now move to the next item of business, which is a Scottish National Party debate on motion S1M-1656, in the name of Michael Russell, on the future of Scottish education, and two amendments to that motion. As soon as he is ready, I will call Michael Russell to open the debate.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

The First Minister is never an easy act to follow, especially if one speaks English.

I would like to outline the components of the motion in my name. It is like Gaul—divided into three parts. The Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs is a classicist and understands these things.

The first part is about what has been achieved. It is fair to give credit where credit is due. Yesterday, the minister was concerned about failing teachers. He has, of course, a series of predecessors who were failed or failing ministers—Raymond Robertson, Brian Wilson, Helen Liddell and Sam Galbraith. All of them failed to reach agreement or settlement with the Scottish teaching profession and failed to provide the context in which real development could take place in Scottish education. Where they failed, this minister has succeeded and I give credit to him. He may be in his post accidentally—the right man in the right place—but he has succeeded in achieving an agreement that will, I think, provide a period of stability in Scotland's schools and begin to provide a period in which there can be some consensus about what education is for.

The great advantage of the settlement is that it gives us the opportunity to ask basic questions. What is education for? What type of educational system do we want in Scotland? How can we achieve it? The rest of my motion is about those issues. It asks the questions and it begins to give some answers.

No party in this Parliament has a monopoly of educational wisdom or any other wisdom. There should be a vast debate in Scotland on what education is for. I hope that the minister will confirm this morning that he intends to bring forward a green paper on Scottish education. His department has planned to do so. We could then have a debate in the context of knowing that the major difficulty in building Scottish education has been removed and that we will have a period of co-operation and consensus in the classroom.

It is unfortunate that the Labour amendment—or the Executive amendment—to my motion cuts out the words "beneficial development", because we should be considering what beneficial developments there can be in Scottish education.

I will talk about those developments in a moment, but before I do I would like to talk about the part of my motion that deals with distracting voices from elsewhere. Many people in Scotland are immensely concerned about the noises that they hear from south of the border as we build towards a general election. I do not know whether people in the chamber have read the Prime Minister's words from Monday. They make entertaining reading. We are used to the First Minister's syntax and he now appears to be writing for the Prime Minister, which is a worrying development. The Prime Minister said:

"Diversity must become the norm, not the exception".

That is probably impossible, but that is what the Prime Minister said.

The message from south of the border could be welcomed only by bullet-headed reactionaries—which, of course, is not a reference to any member on the Tory benches. The message seems to be encapsulated in the Tory amendment. The message talks about privatisation, it talks about selection and it talks about levels of specialisation that are absolutely foreign to the Scottish educational system.

Very generously, the SNP motion gives the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs and the Executive an opportunity to say that they will not follow the route that is being laid out by the Prime Minister. I am happy to give them that opportunity, and I am happy to give them the opportunity to confirm that the Scottish educational debate will be one that matters and that we will not listen to, take account of or implement the type of things that we hear from south of the border. Parents are genuinely worried; teachers are genuinely worried. There are people in Scottish education who know that what is said by any Prime Minister today finds its way into the Scottish educational system tomorrow.

I want to talk about one of the things that we hear about from south of the border—league tables—and about changes that we need to make. I know that the minister will tell us in his speech that there are no such things as league tables in Scotland. He may use the word that he used to describe them yesterday—mythic. If the minister would like to intervene, I would be happy to listen to him. In reality, much time and effort is expended in Scotland in producing what are essentially league tables.

On the internet, incidentally, we have a Government and not an Executive—the site is called scotland.gov and not scotland.exec. No doubt Mr McCabe will do something about that.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

You forgot the ".uk".

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I think that scotland.gov sounds better than scotland.gov.uk—but then, I would. Mr McConnell is splitting hairs as usual.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Do not talk about hair.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Indeed. I am not going to get into an argument about lack of hair with anybody, especially not with the leader of my party.

The lists of tables that are published on the internet show Scottish school costs, attendances and absences, and examination results. There is a website that asks, "How good are our results?" A league table is a league table is a league table. The information that is published on websites and published by the Government is essentially information that provides league tables in Scotland. Those league tables are damaging to Scottish education. They have found their way over the border thanks to the Scottish Conservative party and they have stayed over the border thanks to Scottish new Labour. They distort what can be done in Scottish education.

A great deal of time and effort is expended by schools that are trying to get the right results in the league tables. Sometimes it happens by accident. If I were to ask members what schools in Foula, North Ronaldsay, Cliasmol, Eriskay, Iona, Torridon and Papa Westray have in common, the answer would be that they had perfect attendance in 1999. However, the purpose of publishing that information on the internet is not clear. Are there parents who are so interested in perfect attendance that they will uproot their children from Easterhouse or Pilton so that they can attend school in North Ronaldsay?

Tavish Scott (Liberal Democrat, Shetland Islands)

Foula Primary School is a good school.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I am happy to hear a defence of Foula Primary School. I would love to have attended Foula Primary School. However, the publication of information about attendance at Foula Primary School is not necessarily of great benefit to those who live elsewhere. I am sure that the member for Shetland is interested in it, but not many others are. The information that is published is, to be frank, of little use to most people.

Kay Ullrich (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

It is mince.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Mince indeed. As Kay Ullrich says, it is mince. The reason that the information was published in England was to begin to attract pupils from one school to another and to encourage the competitive ethos between schools. There is no need for that in Scotland; it is contrary to the Scottish educational tradition and the time and effort that is expended on it is absolutely wrong.

A great deal of work has been done on considering league tables throughout the United Kingdom. It is interesting to note that the best work that has been done in Scotland has been done by Dr Linda Croxford at the centre for educational sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her conclusions are shortly to be published in an academic journal on educational research and evaluation. Her article has been subjected to full peer review. It is not an expression of opinion; it is an academic analysis of league tables. She says:

"We conclude that the broad . . . targets derived using the . . . Audit Unit's methodology do not have statistical or educational validity".

There is no statistical or educational validity either in league tables or in target setting.

It is clear that we do not need the information that is in the league tables. Statutory instruments ensure that schools publish their own yearbooks and handbooks. That information could be made available on the internet—there is no reason why the handbook of every school in Scotland should not be made available if the Government really wishes parents to see the reality of schools. I would encourage that, rather than the present way of giving information. I hope that the Executive will listen.

It could be argued that league tables should not exist at all. That is not to argue that targets and assessment should not exist.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The member is well known for his commitment to openness in Government.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Yes.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

If information is readily available in the Executive and in local authorities, should that information, as league tables or in other forms, not be available to parents so that they can decipher the school's performance?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

There is a great deal more information available than the information that is published by the Government. I am happy for all the information to be published. That is why I suggest that all school handbooks are published. That would give complete information on every school in a context that parents can understand, and would also encourage parents to visit schools.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Have you ever seen a school handbook?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I have seen them, read them, marked them and inwardly digested them. I am sure that it is easier for someone who is butterfly minded simply to flick through the league tables. In something as important as education it is better to encourage parents not only to look at information on the school but to visit the school and to talk to other parents about it. That is what we should encourage.

On target setting and assessment, it is clear that in any good educational system there should be targets set by teachers. Children should be continually assessed by their teachers. There is something very Stalinist, very five-year-plan-ish, about insisting that targets should be set and assessment should be imposed from the centre. Attempts have been made in recent years, as Mr McConnell indicates, to try to devolve target setting to schools. The reality is that schools still have to try to perform to criteria set elsewhere. That skews the learning that is done in schools. There is no doubt that children are being taught simply to meet targets and to pass assessments. There is more externally moderated assessment in Scottish schools than in any other schools in Europe. We do not see any benefit from it in the results.

There is a place for target setting and for externally moderated assessment, but the people who sat on the inquiry into the Scottish Qualifications Authority—and Cathy Peattie was one of them—know that one of the major problems for the SQA was the burden of data that went into the system, which it could not cope with. That burden of data came from the huge range of demands made on schools by externally moderated assessment that, in evidence to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee that Ian Jenkins will also remember, the schools said was unnecessary.

All teachers—good and bad teachers, but especially good teachers, of whom there are a great many—set targets for their pupils and assess them. They know that there should be some external checking of the work that they have done. However, constantly to examine the mechanism, for ever to be taking the watch to pieces to make sure that it is working, is very destructive in the classroom. Time is spent on very narrow learning tasks rather than on the broadest learning tasks.

The motion encourages the Executive to do a number of things. It encourages the Executive to celebrate the settlement in Scottish classrooms and not to complain about "failing teachers" but to work with other people to solve that problem.

Frank McAveety (Labour, Glasgow Shettleston)

I have listened very carefully to what Mike Russell has said so far. I am alarmed that I am not hearing what he is in favour of, only what he is against. Many models of assessment from south of the border are worth looking at, such as the baseline assessment that is advocated by Birmingham City Council to identify where children are when they begin education and, at each stage, to try to change that.

That is a welcome development and it is important for parents to have that information. If there are very similar catchment areas with an achieving school and, a mile down the road, a non-achieving school, what strategy would the SNP adopt? How would it change the experience of education for children in the most disadvantaged communities?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

That is a very simplistic approach from someone who knows the complexity of the system.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Mike Russell would understand it then.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I will take no lessons in understanding from Mr Monteith.

To answer Mr McAveety's question, I would need to have his definition of a school that it is not achieving. Certainly it would be necessary to look very closely at the school. As I said at the beginning of my speech, let us engage in a debate about what is right for schools, and let us try to engage in it together in the Parliament as we have done in the Education, Culture and Sport Committee.

I am being clear about what I am in favour of: an educational system that allows people to learn, uninterrupted by over-targeting, over-assessment and without that learning being skewed by the publication of league tables that are not useful and are, indeed, damaging. As Mr McAveety knows, I am in favour of many other things in education as well, which we will debate over the weeks and months to come.

The two amendments to our positive motion are extremely unhelpful. The Tory amendment is simply reactionary and makes no educational sense whatsoever. It is an amendment from a party that has learned nothing either in government or in opposition and that has a bankrupt right-wing ideology. I am more hopeful about the Executive amendment. Vague as it is, light as it is—as Mr McConnell indicates—by not saying very much, it gives me an indication that the Executive is sympathetic to changing the way in which things are done in Scottish schools.

There are some good signs from Mr McConnell. When he came into office he took out of the filing cabinet the file that Sam Galbraith had put away that is marked "All the positive things that we should be doing". The things we are talking about today are also positive. I hope that Mr McConnell will consider them seriously and that, as we debate them over the months to come, we will get to a definition of Scottish education that allows Scottish young people to learn in the way that the Scottish traditions of education have shown is the best way.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the acceptance of the McCrone settlement by Scottish teachers and looks forward to a new era of co-operation and consultation between government, teachers, parents and education authorities which could result in much beneficial development of our educational system; rejects the moves towards selection and privatisation of education outlined by the Prime Minister in recent speeches; expects the Scottish Executive to make no attempt to imitate such policies which are not only directly contrary to the Scottish educational ethos but would re-create resentment and division in our schools; calls upon the Scottish Executive to emphasise its desire to improve Scotland's distinctive education system by following the example of the Northern Ireland Executive in abandoning league tables, and further encourages the Scottish Executive to re-examine critically target setting for schools and the burden of externally imposed assessment on Scotland's young people.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I welcome the consensus in the chamber on educational matters over recent months, but that can sometimes be a little bit boring so I welcome the opportunity this morning, at Mr Russell's instigation, for a proper debate. There are three very different ideologies of education operating in this chamber, and if that is exposed this morning, that will be good for Scotland as well as for the parties in the coalition.

Much that is very good is happening in Scottish education. I think that it would be hard to find a realistic and honest person in either of the Opposition parties who is opposed to the many measures that are now making such a difference, from nursery schools through to the end of secondary school. In recent years, there has been an expansion of nursery school provision to include all four-year-olds and which will soon include all three-year-olds. There has been a systematic reduction in class sizes in the early years in primary schools, and early intervention schemes have been introduced to help pupils who for family or other reasons are starting to fall behind in the early years. We are seeing quality, diversity and standards brought into the primary curriculum. In the secondary sector there is the development of new community schools and action starting to happen on attendance, discipline and school buildings. There is the current action to ensure that the reputation of Scotland's exam system is restored and that this year's diet of examinations is run accurately and on time.

Those are all positive developments that command a sense of common purpose in the chamber, a shared feeling about education and where we are going. Although we may disagree on the policies to achieve it, we also share a sense that the purpose of education policy is to raise levels of attainment and achievement and to promote excellence throughout Scottish education and, in the longer term, to promote lifelong learning from the cradle to the grave. I believe that we have a structure in place that will start to achieve that.

In the national framework—

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

I did not want to interrupt Mr McConnell in his first minute, but will he concede that there may be four different views of education in Scotland in this chamber?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

That will be interesting to discover: we will have to wait and see. I hope that Mr Harper will welcome the fact that our model is at least sustainable.

There have been two serious structural changes in the national framework. One—as Mr Russell may have been alluding to—has been to the inspectorate. I believe that we need to have a strong, independent inspectorate for Scotland's schools and its local education authorities. That inspectorate should inspect and report and not make policy. I believe that we have achieved that division of responsibilities. The new agency will be in place on 1 April 2001. That will be good for Scottish education. The agency will drive up standards and clarify where the policy responsibility lies.

The framework of national priorities, local improvement plans and school development plans—properly inspected, but put together locally in an open and accountable way—can drive up standards in every school. We want to see every school as an improving school. We want to see standards raised in every classroom across Scotland. I want to see the classroom at the centre of our education policy, rather than our education policy being imposed on the centre of the classroom.

Yesterday, we debated the agreement reached for a future quality teaching profession for Scotland. That agreement gives us the opportunity to have a quality profession with quality rewards, as part of a quality system. The purpose of the system is not to reward teachers, employ teachers or listen to teachers. The purpose of those three elements is to ensure that pupils and parents have the best possible education service in Scotland.

I want to turn to the SNP motion and the Tory amendment, and will start by looking at the motion in front of us today. Perhaps, in these early days of George Bush's presidency—given the American President's use of syntax—it is dangerous to use phrases such as back to the future. That said, I think that the SNP motion would take us backwards into the future. We would have a very depressing view of Scottish education if we went down the road that Mr Russell outlined.

I have to say that Mike Russell has made some welcome changes to the nationalist education policies in recent months. I remember Nicola Sturgeon's opposition last year to the setting up of the McCrone committee. That committee has made such a difference to developing a momentum for change, and has led to the unique partnership that was realised this week in the agreement. At that time, I believe that the nationalists were also opposed to the abolition of the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee. Now there is a broad consensus across Scotland that the new tripartite machinery can, and will, work in practice.

It is much more worrying that the SNP motion is a plea for caution and conservatism, for the motion says that everything is okay and that nothing should change. I think that it is a sad day when the party of conservatism in education is the nationalist party and the party of dangerous radical change is the Conservative party. It is a very sad day for the Scottish Parliament that we have a motion from the nationalists that refers to a debate taking place in England and in Wales. That is not the debate that should be taking place in this chamber: we are here to debate the Scottish education system and to point the way ahead.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I entirely agree with the minister—

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I thought that that might provoke Mr Russell.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I would be very happy if the minister were prepared to take the opportunity that I have given him to refute completely that the debate that is taking place in England will have any part in setting his policies. If he is prepared to say that now, on the record, I promise that this is the last time that we will debate it.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

There will be an entirely separate and distinct green paper on the Scottish education system before the end of the calendar year and I look forward to the debate that that will promote.

If Mr Russell's comments about the speeches made by the Prime Minister and Mr Blunkett earlier this week mean that he is against choice, diversity, improvement, standards and excellence in education, it is Mr Russell who is wrong, not the Prime Minister and Mr Blunkett, and his motion is wrong too.

There are no league tables in Scottish education; there is a publication of statistics, which every parent, pupil, community, education policy maker and elected politician with responsibility for education should welcome and use to drive up standards across Scotland's schools. There are no centrally imposed targets in Scotland's schools; there are targets that are set by the schools, which should be published and met, ensuring that standards are driven up to improve excellence and performance.

The publication of those statistics is good for Scotland's schools. Let me tell members about a school in my constituency, Braidhurst High School, which is approximately half a mile from another, Dalziel High School. Dalziel High School is a well-known school in Lanarkshire, which attracts pupils from outwith the catchment area, has a high level of academic and sporting achievement and has won awards. About five years ago, Braidhurst High School was struggling in relation to Dalziel High School. It had difficult social and economic conditions in the two communities that it serves, a low morale among staff and parents, low achievement levels and a falling school roll. That school has been turned round by the hard work of the head teacher, the teachers, pupils and parents. The fact that Braidhurst High School can see in the publication of the individual information about every school—not in a league table—that it has the second highest level of attendance of any North Lanarkshire school is a source of pride, raises morale and provides an opportunity to move forward. The school deserves great credit for that achievement.

The motion that we are debating implies that we should abandon target setting, the publication of information and assessment procedures and that there should be no change in Scottish education. That would be wrong and I am opposed to the motion on that basis. I am also opposed to the amendment in the name of Brian Monteith. I agree with Mr Russell—another worrying outbreak of consensus—that the Tory amendment is a worrying development. There is no place in the Scottish education system for privatisation, selection or streaming. I support diversity and choice, ensuring that the education in the classroom is right for the current level of ability and development of the children in that classroom.

We need to refine the procedures that give children—at whatever point in the ability range—the right opportunity to reach their full potential. I do not want Scotland's children at a very early age to be split off into different classes in different schools and told that they are failures. Those children cannot be failures and must be encouraged to be successes.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The minister will note that the amendment does not suggest what he has just outlined. Given that the minister has said that he does not believe in privatisation, is he announcing to the chamber that, in future, he will be curtailing or withdrawing the grant aid that the state gives to St Mary's Music School, which is an independent school? Is that what he would describe as privatisation, or is it an entirely different concept which we have not yet heard about?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

It is an entirely different concept of which Mr Monteith has clearly never heard.

The policies that Mr Monteith and Mr McLetchie have espoused in recent weeks are about the structural break-up of the Scottish education system and are not about raising standards, excellence or driving up performance. That is why those policies are wrong. I am very keen to promote a debate about Scottish education, but right now I seek a period of stability and less initiative. I want to end the period of feast or famine in pay disputes. I want to ensure that discipline and order in the classroom and the ethos of our schools, the morale of our teaching staff, the publication of statistics, the driving up of standards and the reporting of that all take place in an atmosphere that encourages improvement in performance and results.

Later this year, we should start to look to the future. There are massive changes taking place in technology, the nature of citizenship and the economy. There should be changes taking place—although not too many or simply driven for the sake of it—in our curriculum to ensure that it is relevant for the 21st century and not just for the latter half of the 20th century. To do that, we need to look carefully at whether the changes of the past 20 years are working properly. We need to ensure that our education system is a system that we can be proud of. There is no more important task or tool for our policy of social justice. There is no more important vehicle for opportunity and equality. I believe that we will make history in this Parliament if we make our education system one in which we can be proud again.

I move amendment S1M-1656.1, to leave out from "which could result in" to end and insert:

"; believes that world class education is essential to give every child the best possible start in life and is critical to the future prosperity of Scotland; welcomes the clear vision that puts the interests of the child at the centre of the improvement of Scottish education embodied in the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000; and recognises the clear priority which the Executive has given to raising standards and promoting ambition for all."

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I was interested to hear Mike Russell say that he feels that the Conservatives in particular have learned nothing from their period in government and, humbly, in opposition. I assure Mr Russell that we have learned a great deal, particularly from the period in opposition. We have learned that if we have popular education policies, the Government will adopt many of them and a new consensus will be established—a consensus to which the minister himself drew attention in his speech.

I will remind the chamber of some of the areas in which we have learned that having popular education policies is beneficial. For example, there should be a degree of selection in schools. As the spokesman for the SNP told us, Mr Blair has moved to that position. That there should be direct funding of schools is a position shared by no less than Gordon Brown. The funding of new schools through private finance initiatives has been enhanced and developed by the Scottish Executive. Many of our policies in schools themselves, such as league tables, have become part and parcel of the education consensus, which Mike Russell now seeks to challenge.

Let us look at what Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said and what it means. The Prime Minister has advocated that 5 per cent of English pupils should be admitted by selection. That is hardly groundbreaking stuff. He has said that diversity is what counts. I welcome the Prime Minister's move to produce proposals for diversity south of the border. I welcome a British debate, even though English education is separate from Scottish education, for unlike Mike Russell I do not have any English prejudices that tell me that we cannot learn from the English education system—

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

rose—

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

rose—

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I knew that that would provoke a reaction. I do not have any prejudices that tell me we cannot learn from the English debate.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

My English prejudices include the fact that I was born in England, so I have a warm and sympathetic view of what takes place south of the border. However, I do not think that in education the English are ahead of Scotland. As Brian Monteith now approves of what they are doing, that proves that they are not.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

As I will show, Mike Russell is not aware of what is happening in Scotland and therefore does not understand his brief. I am well aware that Mike Russell was born in Bromley in Kent. That is why we refer to him as Russell and Bromley.

Let us look at the reality in Scotland's schools. Already, many state schools use selection. Mr Russell clearly is not aware of that. Broughton High School in Edinburgh, which sits in the shadow of Fettes College, the Prime Minister's old school, specialises in music and takes pupils following auditions to test their ability. Even pupils who attend Broughton High School because they live in the catchment area have to take auditions to receive the specialist music tuition—it is hardly a comprehensive system.

Margo MacDonald (Independent, Lothians)

I pay tribute to Broughton High School. It is possible to offer some specialisation within the comprehensive system in all Scotland's cities, but for people who live in Motherwell—the minister referred to Braidhurst High School and Dalziel High School—there is not the same spread of ability to offer the same quality and breadth of education and specialisation as can be found in the cities.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

That is not to say that specialisation cannot be offered. I accept that it is harder to provide specialisation in areas where there are only one or two schools, but that is not to say that it cannot be done.

I will provide more examples of selection. Bellahouston Academy specialises in sports. Pupils from outside its catchment area have to prove their sporting prowess before they can attend the school and benefit from its expertise. Other examples are Knightswood Secondary School, which specialises in dance; Douglas Academy, which specialises in music—as do Dyce Academy and schools in Fife; and Plockton High School, which specialises in traditional music and is not exactly in the heart of the urban belt. Furthermore, modern languages schools are being developed in Glasgow. The reality of our education system is that the comprehensive ethos is already breaking down; it has been breaking down for a number of years.

Frank McAveety (Labour, Glasgow Shettleston)

Would it be more accurate to say that the comprehensive system is evolving and developing in line with parents' aspirations and wider community needs? I welcome the fact that for the first time since I arrived in this chamber, Brian Monteith is praising the innovative work that has been undertaken by Glasgow City Council education department.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

If only Frank McAveety and I spent more time drinking coffee together he would know that I could also praise the department for moving forward with the cluster approach to management in schools in Glasgow.

Having looked at the background, we see that through parental pressure and the belief that the comprehensive system is not delivering the schools they want for their children, parents have brought about change in schools. Are Mike Russell and the SNP saying that the schools that I have mentioned should stop their drive for excellence?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

No.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Well, if they are not, that does not correspond with their motion. Is the SNP saying that we should have one size fits all— that we should have conformity in the name of social engineering? That is the logical extension of Mike Russell's motion, for not only is selection explicit in some Scottish schools, it is implicit in practically all other schools where competition exists.

Parents can and do select schools through house purchase. By moving to an area with a school that has a good reputation, parents select their children's schools. Educationally, that is absurd. It means that a bright child in Pilton has little chance of attending, say, the Royal High School because their parents do not live in Barnton and have no prospect of doing so.

Where is the social justice in the fact that only the wealthiest parents can choose the state school of their choice? Conservatives tried to tackle that by allowing parents greater flexibility through placing requests, a policy that we had to drag our opponents kicking and screaming to concede, for they see comprehensive schools as social engineering rather than education.

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I am intrigued by the democratic line that Brian Monteith is taking. Can he tell me how the child of somebody who is living on benefits on a more impoverished estate in Edinburgh and who chooses a school on the west side, for example in Barnton, will get there? They do not have money for transport. He is proposing a divisive system.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I am not suggesting a divisive system. We know that parents make great sacrifices for their children. It would not be difficult to walk from Pilton to the Royal High School.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

It is not "on your bike"; it is "on your shoes".

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

No.

As I said, Conservatives tried to tackle the situation by allowing parents greater flexibility. That is why we also need to maintain league tables, because they provide valuable information to parents, which allows them to challenge failing schools and bring pressure to bear through their own selection of schools. Of course they have access to handbooks, of course they can meet teachers, and of course they can meet other parents, but what Mike Russell is proposing can be more aptly put as "forward into the 1970s".

Let us consider the historical ethos of Scotland's education. Education has always had an important position in Scotland and was valued more highly here than in the rest of the British isles. It was seen as a ladder by which people from a poorer or underprivileged background could further themselves. To suggest that schools did not employ selection in the past and that they are not employing it now is to fail to see the reality.

Mike Russell's hypocrisy on this issue is clear: he says that selection should be stopped and that we should avoid it because it is an English concept, but just the other week I shared a hustings with him when we were at St Mary's Music School—an independent grant-aided school that not only takes state money but employs selection. There was no word from Mike Russell that that school does not fit in with his ethos. If we are to believe his motion and his actions in the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, however, he is against selective schools and grant aid. Is he against streaming? Is he against setting? I wonder whether that matters, when he tries to deny the reality of the consequences of the policies that he advocates.

The Conservatives do not believe that there is a monopoly in educational policy. I may be wrong—comprehensives may offer educational benefits. I am not convinced of that, but such schools should be allowed to exist and be part of the state system. All I say is that we should have a choice through diversity. Parents should be able to choose the education that they feel is right for their children. That may be a school that uses immersion language teaching or Gaelic-medium teaching. It may specialise in maths or, like Craigroyston Community High School in Pilton, it may be particularly good at getting pupils into art colleges and could develop a greater specialisation in arts and drama.

Let us have choice rather than a comprehensive system that is like a big yet ill-fitting red woolly cardigan that has holes in its elbows and missing buttons and was made from an old pattern that even retro fashion would not touch. If Mike Russell were a teacher, Jack McConnell and Ronnie Smith would boot him out of the profession for incompetence. Let us be thankful that Mike Russell is not a teacher. More important—and more serious—let us be thankful that Mike Russell is not the minister who is responsible for education, for then we really would have difficulty sleeping at night.

I move amendment S1M-1656.2, to leave out from "looks" to end and insert:

"the acknowledgement by the Prime Minister that a 'one size fits all' comprehensive system of education is failing Britain's children; believes that choice through diversity and competition, together with the involvement of parents and the professional commitment of headteachers and teachers are the crucial factors in raising educational standards for all children; recognises that specialisation in subjects, selection and streaming are a necessary requirement for such diversity, and reaffirms that league tables provide a valuable source of information to parents to assess their local schools."

Ian Jenkins (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

At the beginning of his speech, Michael Russell talked about the motion having three parts. I will talk about the first part.

I welcome the McCrone commission, its report and the endorsement given by 80 per cent of teachers, which gives us a significant mandate to progress that programme and raise the status of the teaching profession in its own estimation and that of the public. As I said yesterday, the salaries that the commission's report established must not be allowed to wither on the vine. We must change how public service pay is reviewed in the long term, so that it is not subject to boom and bust.

I welcome the winding-down scheme, which can change how we think of education. People who are in the profession but close to the end of their careers are of great value and will benefit from the scheme, which gives them an easier way of winding down out of the profession without losing pension.

I welcome the provision for primary school teachers to have more class contact time to do the job that we have for too long asked them to do without the facilities and time they require.

I welcome the chartered teacher initiative, but it must be clear that it is available to everyone who wishes to take it up. The quality of training and access to the scheme must not be subject to a ceiling or the conditions that were troublesome with the senior teachers initiative. The idea is to keep chartered teachers in the classroom, but the fact that administration has to be done in schools must be taken into account. Principal teachers cannot be left to do all the administration themselves. A mechanism is required by which the division of such work is agreed in schools. Structures must take account of local circumstances.

Extra time for professional development is one of the most important items in the McCrone settlement. It provides the opportunity to revitalise teachers. Teachers may think of the extra time as a threat; it is not that—it is an opportunity. Teachers who have worked in English classrooms for a long time take courses in drama, special educational needs or computing, which revitalise how they think of themselves and do their jobs. Sports coaching courses and other courses can open up avenues. I think that that is one of the good opportunities from McCrone to which Michael Russell's motion refers.

Teachers have long been underpaid, undervalued and overworked. I hope that McCrone will tackle the underpayment and undervaluing. The overwork has still to be examined. This should be a pivotal moment in the relationship between the Government and the teaching profession. More important, working and dialogue can be brought to bear throughout the whole teaching profession and the partners with which we work.

Mike Russell's mention of Tony Blair in the motion is mischievous. I will not indulge him by talking about Westminster. This is a Scottish Parliament discussing Scottish education. I believe that our school system should be public and have values that are based on equality of opportunity and parity of esteem for all pupils. It should seek to give every pupil a fair chance in life to grow as an individual and as a member of society. Those aspirations are most readily achieved in a comprehensive school setting, which is epitomised in the secondary schools that we find across Scotland in towns whose local high school has a clearly defined and comprehensive catchment area.

Of course such schools will strive for excellence. Many achieve it. There is no harm in schools playing to their strengths and seeking to establish a reputation for special excellence in an aspect of the curriculum. As Brian Monteith would say, there is a case to be made for schools that specialise in activities such as sport or music. We must get away from dogmatic argument. We must see what works best. Our system should not be monolithic: it should provide more room for experimentation, more diversity and more pluralism in provision, but it should be grounded in the public system that is based on the principles of equity that are well established in the Scottish educational world.

I do not like league tables: they are subversive and misleading and tell only a tiny part of the story about a school. I have no objection to parents having information; I object to the way in which league tables are promoted as a soundbite that tells us about the quality of a school. The tables are seductive. People find themselves looking to find out how their own schools have performed. We cannot help but be affected by them, against our better judgment. I have spoken about worries about statistics and tables and how they narrow our vision to matters that are easily measured. They create soundbite education and a distortion of the truth.

Schools are not just about examination results. They are about music, drama, sport, play, personal development, social interaction and creativity. They are about feelings, pupils' self-esteem, guidance and respect for others. A school's ethos cannot be captured in a league table. All the performance indicators in the world cannot reduce a school to a soundbite. While we are discussing funny statistics, I ask the minister again to examine relative ratings, which are my bête noire of school statistics. I will not go on about them now.

Targets are important, but I have worries about target setting when the targets are produced from outside—parachuted in—without reference to the facts and practice in schools. I recognise and encourage the movement to take schools along in the process of target setting. Targets are valuable in encouraging focused thinking, but we must avoid targets that distort how schools wish to teach. Sometimes, aiming for one target means that other considerations must be set aside and be reduced in importance in people's eyes. However, targets can be valuable. I attended a seminar at which a representative from Burnfoot Community School in Hawick gave a presentation that showed how targets had helped to raise the self-esteem and effectiveness of the school. When targets work and schools support them, they are valuable incentives. Mr Russell and the minister know well of my reservations about over-assessment in schools.

Testing is not the same as teaching. Although testing is necessary for formative work with pupils—and indeed for final assessments of achievement—it can get in the way of teaching. Testing can limit the vision of teachers and pupils, who cannot see the bigger picture because they are concentrating on next week's assessments. We have seen in the SQA crisis how an over-elaborate assessment system can lead to administrative difficulty. There are times when the wider aims of education are obstructed by a system that becomes obsessed with assessment.

I believe that the higher still English course is not serving its pupils well. It sets narrower aims and objectives than I would like for the teaching of English to fifth and sixth-year pupils in Scottish secondary schools.

In all the issues where I have disagreements with some people and where I have a particular point of view, I turn with great hope to Jack McConnell. Jack McConnell has established a platform on which teachers, the Executive and parents can work with one another. We have so many forums—so many opportunities—for discussion and debate. I believe that in discussion and debate, and in partnership between parents, teachers, pupils and the Scottish Executive, we have a bright future for Scottish education, where together we can raise standards and excellence to offer our pupils opportunities for the future.

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

We now come to the open part of the debate. I warn members that, even on speeches of four minutes, which is what I will allow, it is unlikely that all members will be called.

Colin Campbell (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Let me just dispose of Jack McConnell's accusation that we on the SNP benches are a bit conservative by pointing out that, when I published my head teachers handbook, I said that the only constant in life is the inevitability of change. I said that we had to prepare the kids for that and that the staff had better try to get good at it. That is the game that we are all in just now.

I shall not dwell much on how education descended into this trough. Suffice it to say that the coincidence of Labour's insistence on all-through mixed-ability teaching without the resources it requires and league tables and Mrs Thatcher's scathing attacks on teachers during the 1980s produced a potent and negative mix. Throughout, teachers had to adapt to a whole lot of new courses.

League tables are devastating. I know that Jack McConnell denies their existence, but all the statistics are available: the newspapers publish them as tables and parents read them. Parents take the view that a school that produces perhaps 50 highers in a subject is inevitably and invariably better than one down the road that produces only three. The league table pays no regard to the abilities of the pupil intake or to the abilities of the staff. Aspiring parents take their children to what they perceive to be the better school and, five years later, the number of highers in the latter school has fallen even further and the whole thing becomes a downward spiral. That is the utterly negative effect of the publication of league tables—whether Brian Monteith likes it or not. I know because I was there. I did not find it a funny experience.

One aspect of education when I was a pupil was that people who narrowly failed their prelims did not get to sit the highers—to safeguard their school's record. I wonder to what extent that is still going on at different levels in the education system. Teachers and head teachers always have league tables at the back of their minds.

Mary Scanlon (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

As someone who examined the league tables and chose a school for their children, I believe that it is the right of every parent to choose their children's school to give them the best education that is available. Parents have only one chance to decide on the best opportunity for their children and I find it insulting that Colin Campbell feels that parents should not have that chance.

Colin Campbell (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

I am sorry—I did not say that. Indeed, after much consideration, and for exactly the same reasons as Mary Scanlon, I shifted my second child from school A to school B. However, as somebody who ran a school that did not have a huge academic record, I am conscious that that is exceptionally damaging to schools that are lower down the league table.

When we find pamphlets from the Scottish Executive that talk about value added, as if we were skilfully improving on identical ingots of raw material rather than on people, have we not lost the plot a little? While statistics provide meat for analysts, the recording of the immutable fact that a school may never attain the Scottish average in any subject reinforces people's perception that it is at the bottom of a heap. There is no measure of the number of children who are kept out of jail because a school transmitted positive social attitudes to its students, or the family crises that are avoided because of systematic guidance, yet those are worthy ends for individuals whose life outwith school may be in chaos. They are immeasurable things.

Teachers have always been aware of the need for high standards—and they are proud to achieve them. They are now entrapped in too much assessment. Do folios measure a pupil's worth or a teacher's ability to persuade a pupil down the right road? Should teachers have to spend endless time nagging pupils and writing to parents to get the folios in? Is that not—as has been suggested—a waste of precious teaching time?

We have an opportunity to improve on the recent past. Jack McConnell knows the score—I will give him that. Scotland cares and education is faced with a challenge. With recognition of the inherited difficulties and intelligent attempts to diminish them—and with reason and good will—education will again be a rewarding activity for pupils and teachers. Jack McConnell can change Scottish education for the better. We will support that, but we will criticise Mr McConnell when we think it necessary.

Bill Butler (Labour, Glasgow Anniesland)

I rise to support the amendment in the name of Jack McConnell. It is intellectually coherent and forward looking—in stark contrast to the reactionary nonsense in Mr Monteith's amendment and the somewhat flawed SNP motion.

The SNP motion and the Tory amendment mention league tables. The Tory amendment says that league tables are

"a valuable source of information".

No they are not.

Ian Jenkins eloquently made all the points I wanted to make. The performance of each school should be compared not with other schools but with the past record of that school. The school community should get together and, where there are deficiencies, work to address them.

Brian Monteith (Conservative, Mid Scotland and Fife)

As a parent who considered the league tables of schools in Edinburgh to choose a school for my children, I recollect that it is possible to compare the current performance of schools with that of previous years. That is a valuable source of information. I had no compunction about sending my child to a school other than the one they would have attended because of where we lived. However, I was able to observe whether the school had improved its performance or whether its performance had declined. Surely that is valuable.

Bill Butler (Labour, Glasgow Anniesland)

That is valuable information, but it is not found in league tables. Where I find fault with the SNP's motion is that the Scottish Executive does not publish league tables—the media compiles them. Mike Russell said that we should be careful about what information we publish. That is not a very transparent approach. I was somewhat bemused when he said that publishing so much information displays a Stalinist or centralist tendency. Two characteristics of Stalinism were cruelty and secrecy. I do not accuse Mike Russell of cruelty, but he seems to leave too much to secrecy—I find that unacceptable.

The only league table that has any credibility and that I pay any attention to is the Scottish second division—the top of it in particular. The Executive amendment is about the real challenge that faces Scottish education, which is the need to build on the overwhelming acceptance by the teaching profession of the pay and conditions package reached in the fruitful negotiations with the minister. As a recent practitioner, I am pleased with the minimum salary increase of 23.1 per cent, which is a recognition—not before time—of the expertise and commitment of the teaching profession. I do not often use hyperbole, and I am not using it when I say that that recognition comes after years of being treated abominably by the Tories. The new chartered teacher grade will allow experienced classroom teachers to remain in the classroom—that is vital.

Mary Scanlon (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

As someone who has also spent the past 20 years in the classroom, I welcome the salary increase for teachers, which recognises their service. What is Mr Butler's view on further and higher education lecturers, who also have to work extremely hard and whose contribution to education is equally vital?

Bill Butler (Labour, Glasgow Anniesland)

That is not part of today's debate, but my view—and it is a pretty obvious answer to Mary Scanlon's question—is that it is up to the lecturers unions to negotiate with the proper authority.

It is vital that classroom teachers remain in the classroom, because we need experienced practitioners. Hitherto, teachers who wanted to get the remuneration that their experience and dedication merited had to move out of the classroom and into senior management. That was a loss to children and to education.

I welcome the other innovations, including the 4,000 additional teachers, the new winding-down scheme and the 3,500 additional support staff who will be employed. I believe that the Executive amendment is correct to say that

"world class education is essential to give every child the best possible start in life".

That is a laudable objective and I commend the amendment to the Parliament.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

This morning we have heard the usual utterances and the troglodyte approach to centralisation of education from the SNP. The SNP has a fear of selection, creativity, local diversity and, most of all, parental choice. That has been accentuated today time and again. All of that was from Mr Russell, who constantly bangs on in the chamber about the richness of diversity in Scotland and how that should not be stifled. We hear that on every subject under the sun until, miraculously, it does not apply any more when he is speaking on education.

I just could not understand why, in Mr Russell's 17 minutes and what sounded like 4,500 words, we heard absolutely nothing about action, targets or outcomes for education. I hope that when she winds up for the SNP, Irene McGugan will address some of those issues. We heard nothing about a policy framework and nothing about resources to bring about the transformation in Scottish education that I think Mr Russell was hinting at. We heard nothing about how the SNP would involve parents and nothing, as the Labour party has pointed out, about how the progress of the child through the system can be monitored or about the response that should be made to any problems that are picked up in that process.

Does the SNP actually think that the current system is responsive enough for the needs of every individual child in Scotland? That is what the debate should be about. I was very worried to hear Jack McConnell talking about the needs of children. What about the needs of the child? That is what parents are concerned about and that is what the long-term future of education is about. It is not about delivering a mass product of the same uniform blandness. It is about helping people to be creative, self-supporting and able to move on and grasp opportunity with the basis of a decent education, which many of us received from the state system in Scotland.

At the school that I went to, Trinity Academy, we were streamed according to ability, but not just on the basis of a simple examination system. We had commercial courses, technical streams and academic streams, and pupils were often moved between them. I do not know what the idea is nowadays about dumbing down. We have not heard anyone referring this morning to the postcode lottery in Scottish education. This is the SNP's debate, but its members have not addressed that problem. It exists, but what will the SNP do about it? We have heard nothing.

Ring fencing merely supports central control.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

I would like Mr Davidson to address central control. We have spoken about it before, but I understand that the Conservative policy in Scotland is to centralise decision making in an education centre here in Edinburgh. Can he confirm that?

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

You have just over a minute of your time left, Mr Davidson.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

We will have that debate on another occasion. If we are looking at the real, meaningful application of educational opportunity in future, we must encourage parents to become responsible. School boards work. When I was a councillor, I started many school boards and they were successful. We should try to link parents, teachers and local councillors, if they are the people from the community who are supposed to know about things. We should consider a budget for a cluster of schools and ask whether it delivers for local children. Parents have a responsibility to get involved in that process. That is not centralisation. Central Government has a function in setting standards, but their delivery must be designed locally with the involvement of parents.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Will Mr Davidson give way?

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Do I have time to take another intervention, Presiding Officer?

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I shall stretch your time limit, Mr Davidson.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I think that Mr Davidson should answer Mr Rumbles's question, which was about the centralisation of control for education. Contrary to everything that Mr Davidson has said in his speech and everything that Mr Monteith said in his, the Conservative party's policy is to centralise decision making about the allocation to schools of resources, staff and equipment, and about the overall management of schools, here in Edinburgh, cutting out the elected local authorities. If that is the Conservative policy, will Mr Davidson confirm that?

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I think that we should be asking the minister whether he will abandon the ring fencing that guarantees that schools have no flexibility. He gives them only a tiny amount of flexibility. He is the one who should answer the question. Will he stop ring-fencing? We will certainly change the mould from what has been going on until now. We will get parents and staff involved and give them the proper role that they should have had.

Classroom assistants are a typical example of Mr McConnell's policy. He ring-fences money for classroom assistants, but that puts resource pressure on being able to employ staff. Some schools have actually said that they will have to get rid of teachers to accommodate Labour's policy. When the Executive gets its act together, Mr McConnell can start lecturing us.

We simply must get the debate up a gear. Mr Russell has failed to do that. The debate is about how we can look at the needs of the individual child and the better allocation of resources and opportunity in education. I support Brian Monteith's amendment.

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

In a former, former life I was a secondary school teacher, and I remember the halcyon, pre-comprehensive days. I was opposed to comprehensive education when it was introduced, but I soon converted and saw its huge advantages—in justice for children in the education system, who were able to move freely as their talents developed, either up or down, and also in social justice. I will not say more about that now, because the Conservatives will never be in power, so we will never have to deal with what their amendment says.

The SNP welcomes the McCrone report. However, we must look forward to a period of stability in Scotland's classrooms. Teaching was a hard enough job when I did it and I know that it has become a darn sight harder with the blizzard of paperwork that teachers have to do and the huge assessment input that they have had to submit to the Scottish Qualifications Authority. There should be a period of quiet and consolidation now, and I congratulate Jack McConnell, whose old teacher genes are coming through, thank goodness, on agreeing a reasonable pay award that recognises the professionalism and skills of the class teacher. Good teaching is at the heart of developing an educated and, perhaps more important, compassionate society.

I want to say something about assessments. I have received correspondence from headmasters in the Scottish Borders. They say that one set of data on the assessment and attainments of candidates would be sufficient. I know that the Executive is looking into submissions of data. Those headmasters want submissions of data to be earlier. I understand that information was requested during the summer holidays, when key personnel were not available, and the headmasters hope that that will not recur.

I wrote to the Executive on that matter. The reply, dated 28 December 2000, indicated that the SQA is conducting a feasibility study with regard to implementing a simpler system of assessment. Will that feasibility study include consultation with head teachers associations and representatives of the profession? As they are being asked to deliver, it would be suitable if they were part of that feasibility study.

I am pleased that there will be financial recognition of the role of markers, although we know that many teachers have said that they undertake marking as a form of professional training for themselves. I am sure that the minister will confirm that inexperienced teachers will never again be appointed to mark papers. The discovery from a series of questions to the minister that that had been the case was astonishing. We must return to the previous status quo, which was one of security in our exam system and its results.

I want to move quickly to league tables or, as Mr McConnell would call them, publications of statistics. In my view, they are an anathema to a healthy education system because, as Mr Jenkins said, they falsely drive the teaching agenda. They make us start teaching to the test and return to the horrible days when—believe it or not—I was young and we taught to the old qually. Children spent term after term working on old papers to try to push up their marks. That is not education.

Of course, schools must maintain standards. We have Her Majesty's inspectors of schools. I am pleased to hear that the minister is separating the role of inspection from the role of policy. HMI drove the higher still programme, which was a real conflict of interest. There are school reports and school handbooks, but best of all, there is the word on the street—parental word of mouth—about a school's real value.

Finally, my colleague Mr Russell referred to the spectre of privatisation the Blair way: pitching school against school and breaking the homogeny of our school system and the curriculum within it, which—this is not a contradiction—allows schools to develop their own educational personalities and specialisms.

As far as I am concerned, we cannot build a high enough Hadrian's wall between the English education system—I say that, and my mother is English—and the democracy of the Scottish system.

I support the motion.

Donald Gorrie (Liberal Democrat, Central Scotland)

It is a pleasure to take part in a debate that is a sensible discussion about real issues and in which there is a wide band of consensus across the Parliament, although some people would like things done in different ways. That is real politics. We suffered yesterday from the tactical ineptitude of the Executive and earlier this morning from the tactical ineptitude of the SNP. It is a pleasure to take part in a real debate.

My colleague Ian Jenkins covered matters well from the point of view of the Liberal Democrats. As one of the wicked dual members—who will soon cease—I can say that my English colleagues have great concerns about many of the educational ideas that are promoted in England. There are some good things, but there are a lot of dangerous and bad things. It is relevant to mention them, because history shows that because the English are so much more numerous than we are, ideas do cross Hadrian's wall in a northerly direction. We must express great concern about some of the things—although not all of them—that the Administration in England is doing.

I want to broaden the subject out to include education outwith school hours, which—with all due respect to teachers, of whom I was one for 10 years—is far more important than education within school hours. When young people learn from their peer group—they learn far more from them than they do from baldies like me—their enthusiasm, whether for the school orchestra, the chess club, drama or sporting events, gives them character and interest throughout life. That is developed after school hours. We must have a much better system of paying teachers and non-teachers to support such after-hours activity in schools.

We must also properly support our whole youth and community education system, which is still going down and is not a high priority of the Executive, although it should be. One has to search industriously in Executive documents to find constructive ideas about youth activities and to find any money that is being given to them. It is important that we provide good activities for young people. Many good things are being done. To take a simple example, last Friday I visited a youth centre called Terminal One, in Hamilton, which is now supported by the local authority. It was not before, so that is good. The project is particularly good at training people in all sorts of music, not of the sort that I go in for, but of the sort that young people go in for. The project does not get funding for that because of some bureaucratic hang-up. That is the sort of thing that we must cure.

We must support really good activities for young people. We must give them interests and enthusiasms and help the people who have skills to teach them. That will soon pay for itself by reducing the necessity for police, jails and all that. It is the preventive medicine argument: if we produce good things for young people to do, not only will they create less trouble and therefore cost less, but we will create human capital—happy people with a future and a life that they can look forward to enjoying, which is what we are here for. That is not happening, because of the persistent denigration of and cuts to community education and youth activities that there have been over many years.

I call on the Executive to have a system that helps more after-hours activities in schools and gives greater support to youth clubs, sport, drama and other such things across the country. We will then build on the good work that is being done in schools—Jack McConnell deserves credit for the progress that he has made so far—and we might start to create a Scotland of which we can all be proud.

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

Today's debate has been quite odd, in particular the approach taken by the SNP. There were three main strands to it. First, there was the welcome for the McCrone settlement, which we can all unite on. The second strand, which was particularly odd, was the fact that the SNP wanted to spend some of its valuable time in Parliament debating potential changes to the English education system. I do not know quite what that demonstrates. If Mike Russell wants to give advice on the English system, he should perhaps join his lost leader, Alex Salmond, in standing for election to Westminster. The other major strand of Mike Russell's speech related to a plea to abolish league tables which, as Jack McConnell has emphasised time and again, do not exist—they are not published by the Scottish Executive.

It is not clear to me quite how the SNP aims to achieve that. I share many of the concerns expressed by Ian Jenkins, Bill Butler and others about league tables representing schools in a way that can be misleading and distorting. I ask the SNP to clarify how it intends to stop the information getting into the public domain. Does it want the information not to be released?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

First, I congratulate the member on his change of shirt and tie, away from the yellow and red of yesterday.

Let me make it quite clear, as I did to Mr Monteith and Mr McConnell—if the member was not listening, I will make it clear to him again—that I believe that school handbooks, which contain that information and a range of other information, should be published as widely as possible. All of them should be on the internet, as the non-league tables—the ones that do not exist—are. Then we will have a rounded view. We will also encourage parents to go and see schools. That is the best way to do it.

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

I remain puzzled as to quite how Mike Russell intends to stop the Scottish media publishing league tables of performance data. Does the SNP want restrictions on the freedom of the press?

I want to move forward, because very little in the SNP's contribution today tackled standards in Scottish schools, which is the key issue and the one that we should focus on. As has been said, the amendment lodged by the Executive raises the aspiration of developing a world-class education system in Scotland. What have we done since the Parliament was elected? The first major bill that was passed was a bill on raising standards and attainment levels for every child in every school in Scotland. Through McCrone, we have achieved a settlement, as a result of much hard work in negotiations between ministers, the teaching unions and local authorities, which it is widely recognised will make a major contribution to recognising the professionalism of Scotland's teachers, the need to remunerate them accordingly, the need to attract new graduates into the profession and the need for continuing professional development throughout teachers' careers. The deal, which was supported overwhelmingly by teachers in the ballot whose result was announced this week, will build a solid partnership between the Government and the teaching profession to improve our education system.

What have we done on resources? Labour has made education a top priority throughout its time in office and has allocated additional resources. I will draw on some examples from my own area. This year, the education budget in West Lothian will rise by £6 million from £90 million to £96 million, even before additional resources have been allocated through the excellence fund.

Extra resources are being made available to develop the new community schools programme. Since the inception of West Lothian Council in 1996, the Labour local authority has made investment in the fabric of schools a continual priority. Perhaps I should mention an example of the SNP's priorities. The SNP's guidance to the newly elected West Lothian Council was to spend some of its resources on a deluxe golf course. I enjoy a game of golf, as does the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs, but I think that we would both prefer deluxe schools far more than deluxe golf courses.

There is already clear evidence that attainment levels are rising throughout Scotland. In my own area, levels have risen in four out of the five major categories in which attainment is measured for standard grades and highers. In primary schools, measured against the five-to-14 curriculum, there is a continued improvement in reading, writing and mathematics, which mirrors the improvement throughout Scotland.

There is still much to be improved in the Scottish education system, including—as other members have recognised—the rebuilding of confidence in the examination system. However, I believe that there is also clear evidence that we are making substantial progress and taking substantial steps towards building the world-class education system that is mentioned in the Executive amendment.

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

I indicate my support for Michael Russell's motion and in particular for what he said about league tables, which fail to value the work of students and teachers in our schools and also in our universities and colleges. It is about time that league tables were scrapped.

I also welcome Michael Russell's comment that the real debate about what education is for can now begin. The Executive has laid the foundations for that debate by accepting the McCrone report.

I will pull together what Donald Gorrie, David Davidson and other members have said about education focusing on the child, the whole child and the development of our pupils. Universities and employers throughout Scotland complain year on year on year that, when our pupils arrive at university and in employment, they suffer—however well qualified they may be academically—from lack of confidence in themselves and their abilities. That must have something to do with the present ethos of our education system: its drift towards more concentration on assessment and qualifications and away from what the ethos of schools used to be.

I had the good luck to teach in a school in Buckhaven called Braehead; it was a small junior secondary with 400 pupils, which was led by the late and great R F MacKenzie. It had four art teachers, four music teachers, a full-time teacher of outdoor education including climbing, and three teachers of outdoor education from other departments, who would take pupils gliding, sailing and so on.

Those ideas fed through into the Scottish education system for many years. By the mid-1970s, every school in Lothian region had an outdoor education teacher.

I ask the Executive to consider, first, what has happened to outdoor education in Scotland, because it is one of the principal methods of getting pupils to work together and of developing confidence in a whole range of abilities that sitting in a classroom can never address.

The second debate that must be opened up is the place of environmental education in Scottish education, because I do not think that it is highly enough valued. A lot of lip service is paid to it and it is mentioned everywhere, but it happens in very few places.

The third point is the place of music and art. Why do we have to have specialist schools? Broughton is a wonderful school, but why do we not have other schools with similar opportunities for children who are musically gifted and schools that enable students to take advantage of similar levels of teaching in art?

We must have a debate about the shape of education in Scotland, about what schools provide for pupils and the way in which we need to extend the possibilities for pupils to do other things in our classrooms.

MacKenzie campaigned against any kind of examination system. Although I will not say anything like that in the chamber, I invite members to take away this idea. If we can imagine Scottish education without any exams or assessments, we can begin to think about what education should be about.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

I am not—and never have been—a teacher. However, I am a parent and consumer and believe passionately in a system of comprehensive education that can deliver for every child in every community.

I am delighted to sum up the debate on behalf of the Labour party, because time and again, Labour has put education at the heart of the agenda. When Mike Russell started his speech by saying that he had three points to make, I thought that he had fallen back into his previous position as lay preacher. Perhaps if he had, his comments might have had some vision; however, this time, he fell short of his aims.

I will respond to some of the main points in the SNP motion. I am happy to talk about Labour's achievements such as the significant investment in education. However, the issue of education requires more than investment. As a result, we have introduced nursery places for all three and four-year-olds as well as the early intervention scheme to tackle children's literacy and numeracy problems. We have also abolished the assisted places scheme to ensure that money will no longer be given to people who can afford it to take their kids out of the comprehensive system; instead, money will go back into the system once and for all. Brian Monteith would have us reverse that policy.

One of the debate's key issues is the ethos by which education can develop and survive. I want a system in Scotland in which schools no longer underachieve. Indeed, we must be honest with each other and say that some schools still underachieve. It is quite simple to measure such underachievement; it happens when any child in a school does not achieve their full potential, and the Government, the Parliament and the Education, Culture and Sport Committee must take measures to ensure that every child in school achieves that potential.

There is much consensus in the debate. We must examine the types of information that are supplied and whether it is the right information. Although I think that it is important for parents to have information, it must be qualitative as well as quantitative information. People need to know whether a school is in an area with a high incidence of unemployment where family members have never aspired to go to university or into further education. Siblings will have the same lack of aspirations and opportunities.

Margo MacDonald (Independent, Lothians)

I wonder whether the minister agrees that there is a point—

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

Promotion!

Margo MacDonald (Independent, Lothians)

Well, of course. I recognise quality when I see it.

Because we are so affected by the ideas that are promulgated by the UK media, it is difficult to persuade Scottish parents that Scottish schools have a different ethos and outlook. Instead of saying that we will withhold information from parents, we should be considering more imaginative ways of getting positive information. How will we overcome the hurdle of the terrible embarrassment of Blair calling the educational shots in England?

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

Margo MacDonald has made one of the most coherent and constructive comments that I have heard from the SNP today. Perhaps her leaders should think about using her more often.

What we are debating today is the issue of devolution and of making policies for Scottish education. Tony Blair and the English Government can introduce policies for England and Wales—

David McLetchie (Conservative, Lothians)

The British Government.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

I apologise. I am a unionist and proud to be part of the UK, as David McLetchie well knows.

Bill Clinton said, "It's the economy, stupid!" I think that the comment should be, "It's devolution, stupid!" We should not be obsessed with the education system in England and Wales; instead, we should be obsessed and paranoid about the Scottish education system and drive continually to ensure that Scottish standards are as high as possible. We must ensure that what we do is exactly right for Scotland.

Mary Scanlon (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

Will Karen Gillon give way?

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

I am in my final minute.

Some good initiatives are being implemented in England and Wales. I recently visited a sports college in Manchester, which provided an excellent example of what can be done to raise the level of achievement of young people—an initiative to help underachievers through sport. That initiative could be introduced in Scotland. Every member of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee signed up to having that investigated as a possibility—even the SNP members.

Some positive things are being done in England, of which we can leave the worst and take the best, in the interests of Scotland. That is devolution. That is what I want us to do. I hope that members will support the Government amendment.

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

I did not see Mike Russell leading the celebrations to mark the 100 th anniversary of the death of Queen Victoria. On the evidence of today's performance, he might well have done that. If Queen Victoria were to return, the aspect of society that she would recognise most clearly would be our schools, which have changed little in the past 100 years while every other aspect of society has undergone radical transformation.

We are rightly proud of our education traditions, and we should respect our education system as a great asset in the modern world.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Will David Mundell give way?

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Not just yet.

As Alan Cochrane pointed out yesterday in The Daily Telegraph, we should not be complacent. Maintaining the status quo and suppressing innovation and radical change is wrong.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Will David Mundell give way?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Will David Mundell give way?

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Not yet.

Successful economies around the world are experimenting and are willing to undertake radical change. We must be open to the same approach. The former Deputy Minister for Children and Education visited a school in Finland—a country about which we hear much from the SNP—where there are no teachers. I do not think that the Educational Institute of Scotland would sign up to such a proposal.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

rose—

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

rose—

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

I give way to Mr McConnell.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I apologise to Mr Russell.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Age before beauty.

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Mr Russell will never be called to speak.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Mr Mundell should acknowledge that there have been changes since Victorian times, which have been based on the choices that still exist. Comprehensive schooling, compulsory schooling, equal schooling for boys and girls, a school-leaving age of 16 and nursery schooling that is funded from the public purse have all been introduced progressively by Labour and Liberal Governments over the past century. All were opposed by Conservative Governments.