Chamber and committees

Thank you very much for giving evidence today. That concludes the public part of our deliberation, and we will have a two-minute break to allow our official report and broadcasting colleagues, and witnesses, to leave.

Lastly, when I was at school, my twin sister went to Faskally and had a fantastic time. The teachers just said, “You, you and you are going,” and I was not one of the ones who were chosen, so I never got to go. However, when my son went to Castle Toward, he found it deeply distressing; he had never been away from home before and was very upset. Although the pupils were not supposed to phone home, he was allowed to, and as I have said, he was really upset. So, it is not always the boon that some people think it is.

I have to say, though, that when I was 16, I went with my Latin class to Athens and Pompeii and had a fantastic time. John Mason’s comments about overseas trips should be considered, too, because you can be wandering around Epidaurus, Mycenae and Marathon when you are 15. I have always been interested in classical Greece, and that kind of thing can be quite inspirational, too.

Thank you very much for that. Your evidence has been really helpful, Liz. As you know, the committee will deliberate on the matter in due course.

We will have a five-minute suspension so that we can change over the witnesses and give colleagues a natural break.

Thank you for that comprehensive opening statement. I can more or less wind up at that, I suppose, given that you have answered most of the questions.

Everyone on the committee appreciates your passionate commitment to the bill and the topic that it covers, so we will focus specifically on financial matters—which, according to the submissions that we have received, as you will be well aware, are significant.

Paragraph 6 of the financial memorandum says:

“The Member acknowledges that what mechanism the Scottish Ministers use to allocate funding required for this Bill is a matter for them.”

In addition, paragraph 11 says:

“Under this Bill, the responsibility for funding for the provision of residential outdoor education rests with the Scottish Government, thus ensuring blanket provision”.

You mentioned PEF in your opening statement, but what do you believe would be the most appropriate vehicle for the Scottish Government to fund the provisions of the bill, and do you believe that that funding should be ring fenced?

You mentioned such a trust in your opening statement. How would that work? For example, would the Government have to put in some seed money to draw in additional funding from elsewhere, in order to make the trust work?

Pupil equity funding is important, but the point about it is that teachers can decide whether to spend it on outdoor education, books, computers, additional staff or whatever. Is it not therefore a rather unreliable source? You want outdoor education to be baked into legislation so that it is mandatory that every pupil gets to go at some point. Is the approach of relying on PEF to deliver that not a bit fragile? It would surely only ever be additional funding rather than core funding.

What about the cost of cancellations due to adverse weather or pupil illness, for example? The assumptions do not appear to consider what the intent would be on how costs would be met if trips were cancelled or if a pupil was ill.

That is excellent. I was heartened to see that Revenue Scotland’s compliance activity secured £35.5 million in tax, compared to £10.4 million in the preceding year. That is a 241 per cent increase and it represents almost five times the cost of running your entire organisation for a year, so well done. Can you talk the committee through how you achieved that and say whether there is room to increase that further?

Tell us.

Before I bring this love-in to an end, do you have any final points that you want to make to the committee? Is there anything that we have not touched on that you would like to emphasise?