Chamber and committees

Your final point about spreading awareness and knowledge of the sector in Scotland is very well made. That point has certainly already been put and discussed in our initial discussions at the first meeting of the proposed cross-party group.

If more people were aware that Sitka spruce, a species that is much maligned in Scotland, is an invaluable building material for the houses that everyone knows that we need, people might warm towards that excellent species. Mr Mountain will know that it is well suited to being planted in Scotland’s temperate climate. It has good qualities for use in construction, making it an invaluable part of forestry composition in Scotland.

The group could get the message across that, as well as being good for the planet, commercial forestry is a vital source of material for the construction sector, weaning us away from brick and concrete block housing and on to timber housing. Continental Europe and Scandinavia are far ahead of us in their use of wood.

The second question asked me to say more about the panel products sector. It is part of the larger commercial timber sector in Scotland. It is represented by a trade body, the Confederation of Forest Industries. That body is not part of the group, but we will work closely with Confor, which includes companies such as BSW Timber, James Jones and Sons Limited, Glennon Brothers and Gordon Timber in my constituency.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no smaller manufacturers of panel products. Producing panel products requires very substantial capital investment. It cannot really be done on a small scale; it has to be on a large scale to work. I mentioned the scale of the investment that Norbord has made in Dalcross, which was well in excess of £100 million.

There is an important supply chain. Those manufacturers are important to the whole rural economy. They support tree planting and growing and support tree nurseries. They are part of Scotland’s overall timber sector, which is moving from being a Cinderella in the economy to being at centre stage. That is largely for environmental reasons, but also because of the contribution that the manufacturers make to construction and to more specialist applications such as furniture making.

I hope that we will, as Mr Doris implied, bring others on board to contribute to the discussion. That might include commercial firms that are involved in processing applications for forestry consent. Their commercial knowledge would be very useful in informing the debate about how we ensure a sufficient supply of commercial timber as a proportion of the 18,000 hectares per annum and in building up a consensus about a stable and long-term approach to forestry.

When you plant a tree, there is no income for 30 or 40 years. That sets the industry apart from many others. It is a long-term business. Norbord, Egger and Kronospan would not be in Scotland if we had not been able to satisfy them that we are aware of their needs for long-term, secure and continuous planting of commercial species.

The Covid-19 pandemic took us and everybody else by surprise, which will also be the case for any future pandemic. I recognise and want to thank all the institutions represented today, and local government, for the their valuable work during the pandemic. I am perfectly sure that the Scottish Government will always continue to use a partnership approach as a central way of operating. I do not think that anyone would dispute that.

There seems to be an elephant in the room, however, the presence of which has been so far ignored. In a pandemic there is a need for speed. Although Mr Edward is quite correct that it would be desirable if we could pass the bill after Lady Poole’s inquiry findings are known, as far as I know there is no time limit on the inquiry and it may well be a long time before we reach that stage.

It seems to me that, as democrats, we all want consultation and participation, but we must also recognise that in a pandemic there is a need for speed, and that delay of even a few days can be critical. I put it particularly to Mr Sim and Mr Little that, even if there is substance to some of their arguments—I will be interested to hear what the cabinet secretary says about the granular detail and why the powers are necessary—nonetheless, in principle, if Government cannot act quickly, as it can in England where it already has such powers and has had them for 10 years, surely that must carry with it a very serious risk to public health that none of us should be willing to thole, permit or accept.

With respect, how long will that take? I am advised—it is not a world with which I am familiar—that the decision-making process at universities can be swift—

—but we have seen very serious criticism of both the Scottish Government and the Westminster Government for acting too slowly. Whether those criticisms are well founded or not, time will tell; the inquiry will look into that. I think, however, that many people suspect that the right decisions were taken, but not quickly enough. Are you not proposing a system that will inevitably lead to delay? The Scottish Government process would involve making decisions in close consultation with your member universities, and you would then overlay a college or university consultation process. Even if you did that in a week, surely that would be too late, and that is the whole point.

With respect, what would happen if there were a disagreement? In a pandemic there has to be emergency action. At the end of the day, if the Government did not have power to do something, as Mr Greer pointed out, you could end up in the courts and by that time it would all be too late and thousands more people would have the virus. With respect, although your argument is well intentioned and no doubt discussions can be had about the granular detail—in my experience in Government, officials constantly worked closely with those affected, as I think that you have indicated yourself—surely you must accept, as a point of principle, that the buck stops with the Government. If it does not have the powers, it could end up in a situation in which it could not take the action necessary, on the basis of the public health evidence, to protect public health in Scotland.

Convener, I do not want to interrupt, but I am aware from previous work with Paul Little of the good work that he does in his college; I applaud him for that and I value that. However, with respect, that is not what we are here to talk about. It is very important, but it is not the question that I asked. Behind you, to your left, there is a plaque, which I assume is yours, which has the Latin motto “Semper Paratus”, which as I understand it means “Always Ready”. My point is that Governments must be always ready and unless they have emergency powers they cannot act swiftly.

That is the point. We will not be semper paratus. We will be unprepared and without the powers that may be necessary because, in a future pandemic, the problems that we have may be slightly or entirely different from the problems that we face in the Covid pandemic. History does not repeat itself precisely in many respects, so surely we need to be ready for the future. That is what I asked. It was not about the other problems that you face. I am not in any way denigrating your raising them, but they are not relevant to today. With respect, I think that both you and Mr Sim have protested too much and have not accepted the absolute fundamental principle that Governments—this is the case with the UK Government; presumably you would support that, convener—have to be able to act swiftly.

Does Professor Little not accept that Governments must have powers to act swiftly and it is not possible to know in advance precisely what action must be taken? At the end of the day, it must be the Government that has the powers, otherwise we are not able to protect public health.

I thank the witnesses for their evidence and for what they do. Over the years, I have had occasion to work with some of the charities that are giving evidence today, and I recognise what Mr Wallace said earlier—that what they do is, in many ways, not instead of but complementary, additional or supplementary to what the state does through its agencies. It often does that work in a different way, and it is not necessarily all about money. I just wanted to make that point. I do not think that we should start from the premise that, if we had a perfect social work department, a perfect state and perfect schools, we would not need the third sector. I think that, actually, we need the third sector in addition. It is easy to get sidetracked by regarding money as the proxy for everything, but it is not that.

Over the years, I have been struck by the position of many charities—even leading ones such as Aberlour, Barnardo’s and the Prince’s Trust. As I understand it, they all have various funding streams, including funding from the state, the private sector and philanthropic donations. All of those are important, but each of the charities has certain funding from the state. The impression that I get is that many charities spend as much time chasing the money, which is granted on a very short-term basis from year to year, as they spend performing their function, which is to provide support—in this case, to the most needy.

I have often thought that, if the funding was guaranteed on a three or four-year basis, that would alleviate the pressures on major charities—or, really, on all charities—quite considerably. Of course, some might lose funding altogether, which is, I am afraid, just something that will happen in life.

I am sorry that my question has been a wee bit long winded, but have I analysed that in a fair way? Do people in the charities spend a lot of time chasing the funding rather than providing the services for young people that they get up in the morning to provide—in this instance, to tackle the hardship of poverty?

I will ask you one final question and then, to be fair to the other witnesses, I will invite them to comment on the specifics of any of the topics that I and others have raised and to tell us whether they think that we should be making specific recommendations about some of those matters.

I will go back to the national versus local issue, which, Professor Ainscow, you have raised as your main point. As an example, if we take the kids who need a bit more assistance in learning because they have fallen behind, or who need tutoring for whatever reason, surely there needs to be a national prescription that that requirement cannot be neglected, and it must be dealt with. How that is implemented is then a matter for headteachers and local education authorities. However, dealing with such issues cannot be left to random acts.

To take the example of children who need tutoring, I think that there is a strong case for doing something more about that. There needs to be a national prescription on that. Otherwise, we are leaving it entirely to decisions that are made at a local level, and we end up with—although I do not like the phrase—a postcode lottery, which was alluded to earlier.

The late songwriter Johnny Mercer wrote a song that is still sung that said:

“Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative”.

I mention it because, perhaps unintentionally, there is a risk in discussions such as the one that we are having that we run into doing the converse: that we eliminate the positive and accentuate the negative. I hope that we all recognise—I expect that we do—that, every day, our teachers work hard and put effort, enthusiasm and expertise into the job that they do. I have been an MSP for 22 years and I receive vanishingly few complaints about our teachers. It is correct to put that on record—not that the discussion has been unduly negative.

I also put on record the fact that the Scottish Government is, I understand, putting in £215 million of Scottish attainment challenge funding this year as well as protecting free tuition for higher education. That has not been mentioned, but it is key to addressing the problems of the poverty-related attainment gap.

The discussion has been interesting, but it tends to be of a general nature. There are lots of abstract nouns, but it is more difficult to get concrete actions. That is perhaps understandable but, following Mr Rennie’s line of questioning, I will try to drill down. Will Professor Ainscow say exactly what he meant when he said that headteachers require control over their budgets? Will he give me three examples of what headteachers might do in practice to make things better and tackle the poverty-related attainment gap?