Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary has kind of answered the question that I was going to ask. The reality is that Mr Kerr, Mr Marra and Mr Rennie have all asked for extra money. Surely the cabinet secretary’s role in the budget process is to argue in Cabinet for as much as she can. At that stage, the Scottish Government has to say, “This is the money we’ve got, and this is how we’re going to spend it. If you want to spend it in any other way, please tell us where you’re going to get that money from in the budget.” There has been no sign of that from any of the three previous speakers.

Good morning. Like most education stakeholders, I look forward to the announcement that you will make in May regarding the multiyear funding plans for further and higher education. How can you ensure that those packages, whatever they may be, will support the colleges and universities in addressing long-term sustainability challenges such as rising staff costs and pension costs?

Before she does so, is your point about companies cherry picking workers from the supply chain a reason why you are in favour of the apprenticeship grant? I take it that those companies were not participating in that, as they were just taking staff from elsewhere.

I see that Sharon Drysdale wants to comment.

On that point and on Katie Hutton’s points about flexibility and people being able to move from one field to another, is the funding flexible enough? If the training has to change slightly, will it be easy for the funding to follow that?

My next question touches on the role of SDS. How do you gauge what the future demand and the future market will be? How has that been impacted and changed by what has happened over the past two years? Has there been a rethinking of the types of apprentices that we will need, how many we will need and in which markets?

I have a question for Allan Colquhoun. How does SAAB ensure that its membership is representative of industry in Scotland in respect of both the current labour market and expected or emerging demand? Particularly after Covid, how do you recognise what the demand will be?

I see that Frank Mitchell wants to comment.

If forecasting was easy, I would have won the pools some time ago.

It seems that, in some sectors, people do not realise that there are good opportunities for apprenticeships, future progression, good learning experiences and so on. How can you fill that hole?

Can we confirm that this is not about letting someone leave the barred list but is only about allowing them to make an application? There seems to be some confusion here. It is as if we are saying that people would be automatically free from the bar after five years.