Chamber and committees

If anybody has a particularly good example, I would be keen to hear it.

Fiona Collie led us into the theme of financial planning really well when she spoke about unmet need. We have the rise in demand as the population ages and we have pressures on local government funding. I think that we can all agree that only meeting critical and substantial needs is not good enough and that we need to look beyond that. Has the level of unmet need been estimated for those people who fall below the eligibility criteria? How much would it cost to meet those needs?

The policy aim is to eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap in the next four years. Obviously, that goes much wider when we are considering poverty—the baby box, the 1,140 hours of early learning provision, the best start grant, the Scottish child payment and keeping the Promise. All of those things will come into it. Covid has had a massive impact, too.

Is it realistic, in that case, to aim to close the poverty-related attainment gap over the next four years? If not, what would the panel consider to be a success in the next four years?

I was looking through our papers to try to find the quote but, at some point, there is mention of the importance of parents’ mental health and the impact that it automatically has on the children.

North Lanarkshire Council is implementing a hub model in which lots of services, including school and nursery provision, will sit side by side. I spoke recently to the council’s chief executive, Des Murray, who told me that there will be multidisciplinary teams in the hubs and that the council is considering giving them shared funding and decision-making powers. Is that happening elsewhere? How effective is that model?

I am aware of the recognition that has recently been given to the importance of cash. Given all the problems with energy costs and the loss of the universal credit money, the issue is really coming into play.

My final question is for Laura Robertson. You said that specific groups of children and young people have been most affected by the attainment gap, and I would highlight Gypsy Traveller communities and children with additional support needs. What collaborative work is taking place to provide support to those young people?

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Laura Robertson first, please.

My next question is for Emma Congreve. The last thing that we want a lone mum to do after dropping a child off at nursery or school is to go home and be isolated, so we need to try to engage her with something, whether it be education, a coffee shop, health, sport and exercise programmes or advice services. We need to keep parents there and get them involved. How important is that collaborative and community-based support?

That is great. Thanks very much.

It is good to see you this morning, cabinet secretary. I note from our papers that the Scottish Government has done significant stakeholder consultation around virginity testing, perhaps most importantly with third sector partners that have expertise relating to honour-based violence or the wider violence against women and girls agenda.

I will roll two questions into one. First, how will the virginity testing provision be enforced? Secondly, is there a potential risk of criminalising that practice? If so, how would that be mitigated?