Chamber and committees

I would echo the comments of the convener, that it is extremely helpful to have this additional information that we have not had on previous occasions. I also thank you, minister, for the letter that you sent me on 16 November 2021, when I asked various questions regarding the autumn budget revisions, particularly on the education front.

I will stay on the education theme for a minute. One of my colleagues wants to ask you about this in a bit more depth, too. Could you interrogate the figure for student loans? It seems to be pretty high.

Are those Covid-related changes? Obviously, there may be more students who are—

That is correct, so can we take this a little bit further? In a Covid scenario, when we obviously want to increase the amount of money that is available to Scotland in order to get ourselves back on our feet—there has been additional money, which has been drawn from reserves—is it your view that the process of applying that spending has great difficulties if it is at the behest of the UK Government acting on behalf of Scotland rather than being held and disbursed by the Scottish Government?

And of this committee.

It would be helpful to the committee if we could get a little detail. As you say, it is obviously very technical. I am sure that Michelle Thomson wants to come in on that.

I have another couple of questions, Michelle, so if you want to come in on that bit—it is up to the convener.

Mr Mackay is quite right—the matter is exceptionally technical. I am interested in the prediction that it will be more difficult in the years ahead to draw back as much money on student loans, because more people have gone through great difficulties after Covid. Is that really what you are saying?

I understand that, but that aspect is very important because it has an effect on the numbers of students. We are trying to widen access, which we have made good progress on, so it has a big implication for future spending.

Minister, I want to ask you about your helpful table towards the end of your brief about the differences between the Covid and non-Covid spend on education. We had Alastair Sim at committee last week, who made the point that he is concerned that higher education is not sufficiently high up the Scottish Government’s list of priorities when it comes to future spend. The figure for higher education student support in that table is £15 million. I have asked about that before, but I ask again: specifically, what is that figure for?

The broader point, minister, is that we can agree or disagree with Mr Sim about the future spend on higher education, but a serious issue has been presented to the committee from a lot of witnesses, which is that higher education really matters for the skills that we need if we are to address some of the problems in the economy. What is very helpful about the information that you have provided is that we have a better breakdown of that spending. I am interested in things such as student support, because that is an important aspect of encouraging younger people into higher education.

Thank you.

Thank you.