Chamber and committees

I do not disagree at all with Ruth—she is bang on the money. The fact that more than 30 per cent of our children have additional support needs should be mentioned in the discussion, because the issue affects so many parents and families.

It has been fantastic to hear from you all. When we have been out speaking to headteachers, my experience has been that they have been really confident in their own expertise. They have talked really enthusiastically about the positive work that they are doing and how they can build on it.

I have seen in parent councils—in my own children’s parent councils, for example—a real shift to talking about wellbeing all the time. It is not about going on a little school trip or doing the school fair anymore; wellbeing is central. The Child Poverty Action Group’s cost of the school day reports, which were mentioned earlier, have been massive in that. Parent councils have been given a toolkit.

You have talked about the initial funding allowing exploration, laying the groundwork, being able to trial different approaches to learn from and produce evidence on them, and being able to measure them better, which I found really interesting. I am particularly interested in how local authorities measure progress on health and wellbeing.

I appreciate that, on the ground in our schools, the improvements that are being made to our children and young people are very clear. However, how can we measure that on the ground? How can we ensure that those measurements cut across different schools and different local authority areas and are made at the national level so that we can consider whether we are investing money in the right places, what we need, and how we can ensure that we are giving every support that we can?

I will start with Ruth Binks and Gerry Lyons, as you guys were part of the approach.

That is great. Thank you very much. I am aware of the time, so I will pause there.

I agree, because mandating local authorities, headteachers and teachers to teach in a specific way is quite concerning. I have neurodiverse children, and having a wider range of options means that we can work with what is best for children as individuals.

Does the Scottish Government have any concerns about the periodic and exceptional reviews and how they are triggered? Are you quite happy with that area?

We certainly know that it is an incredibly powerful industry. Are you pre-empting any new arguments or do you expect them to be similar to last time? The evidence shows that what the industry predicted would happen did not happen. Have any new ideas, concerns or evidence that it might rely on been brought to the table?

Good morning, minister. I will ask about the industry. Previously, there were arguments around concerns that it would go to the wall, that people would head down to England to fill their boots up with lots of alcohol, and that people would turn to other drugs. None of those things seems to have happened, which is obviously really good and positive. Has there been any indication from industry that there would be a challenge to any further increase in minimum unit pricing?

How will the Scottish Parliament and other stakeholders be able to contribute to the review process? Has a process for that been set up yet?

A couple of weeks ago, we heard strong evidence about the importance of the single electronic patient record and the need for easy, seamless and secure access to shared health and care records at the point of care. We were told that the single electronic patient record will improve continuity of care and ease frustration for patients and workers. Last week, we heard evidence from digital professionals, and good progress seems to have been made on a central cloud-based platform that will allow different systems to talk to one another. There was also mention of pilots in the data strategy engagement programme.

Can you provide a bit more information on the positive progress that we have made towards creating a national digital platform? Will you commit to keeping the committee updated on that work?

Changing how the public access primary care is key to making this a reality: alternative pathways must deliver for patients. In evidence, we have heard about long waiting lists that can encourage patients to default to going to the GP. How will the Scottish Government improve staff capacity and reduce waiting times? Is there enough investment in recruiting staff to deliver the Scottish Government’s vision?