Chamber and committees

There is a big area to explore there.

I have one final question. School inspectors will assess schools, and you recommend that they should be completely independent, but who will inspect the inspectors?

I have been listening with great interest all morning. A lot of what you said resonates with my experience and that of the teachers I speak to. I welcome the fact that mainstreaming of the learner voice throughout the educational landscape is at the heart of the report. Teachers and parents have wanted that for a long time and we do not always see it.

I will carry on asking about inspections and open that topic up a wee bit. Having been through inspections, I declare an interest. The process can be, and often is, stressful. It can cause enormous anxiety and extra burdens on schools and pupils. How can the school inspection system be more supportive of continuing quality improvement ? How do we make it so that it is not just an event that happens, which people put everything into and then recover from? How does inspection become more integral to quality improvement?

I agree with a lot of what you said, especially on the make-up of the inspectors. We should be mindful of the need to have people who have not been out of the classroom for too long and who have credibility among the workforce. It is easy to forget what teaching is like, so we need to retain that connection.

On mainstreaming the learner’s voice and wanting to put learners and teachers at the heart of everything, one student said:

“I think if students had an opportunity to be involved in the inspections it would look a lot different”.

I want to explore that. How can we incorporate that in an inspection system? Is there scope for young people to co-design a future inspection system or its remit?

Moving on to an area of interest for me, I have been speaking to students from the eight institutions and the many student accommodation premises in my Glasgow Kelvin constituency. I have to say that the experience of students was very variable over the period in question; in fact, it was quite difficult to hear some of their experiences of lockdown. I note that the bill talks about

“reasonable steps to restrict or prohibit access to the establishment for a specified period”.

What is the intention behind the power to put a duty on the manager of such an establishment to restrict access to accommodation?

I have a couple of questions on the issues that have come up so far. I will then move on to my main questions, which are about student accommodation.

The committee has heard from students whose experience during the past couple of years has been variable across the country and across local authority areas. How far would the powers help to ensure that there was consistency if there was another pandemic and they had to be invoked?

It is reassuring to hear that. Some of the stories that I heard from students were about support. Many students were away from home for the first time and were in lockdown with strangers, so they did not have those connections and support mechanisms. Also, food was an issue. There was patchiness in the availability and quality of food, and there were also issues with the dietary requirements of students with certain religious affiliations.

Last week, we heard evidence about boarding schools, which will also come under the measures. I am sure that there will have been some consideration of that, but can you shine some light on the consideration that was given to putting those two different types of accommodation together? Obviously, they are slightly different scenarios.

That is good. I am reassured that we will take account of the different scenarios and will be able to respond accordingly, having learned lessons from previous events.

I should say that I was not here during the previous parliamentary session, so you will forgive me if my questions seem obvious.

We are in the scrutiny period for the bill. What assurances can you give me that, whatever form the legislation might take once and if it is passed and if the powers were then to be used, the Parliament would still be able to scrutinise it? Will regulations be revised every 21 days? I would be concerned on behalf of the public and, indeed, anyone else about the Parliament being able to talk about this and, I suppose, follow the journey if an emergency situation were to arise.

I am sorry—I cannot—[Interruption.]

Dr Robertson, did you want to come in?