Chamber and committees

Ross Greer touched on the subject of council tax. I take your point about not wanting to make dramatic changes, but do you accept that people living in poorer areas have tended to lose out because their houses have gone up less in value while houses belonging to people living in richer areas have gone up more, and that a revaluation would therefore hit the richer and help the poorer?

We have mentioned capital debt already. I understand that, by the end of 2025-26, our debt will be about £2.7 billion, which is approaching the upper limit. Is that going to be a problem?

I am sorry to keep on interrupting you, but is “influence” a word that we could put in legislation? That would be quite difficult, would it not?

Okay. Some of my colleagues may come back on that, but that is fine.

Can you give us a little flavour of that? You used the word “engage”, which can mean quite a lot of things. Do you just sit down and have a friendly chat, or do you really challenge the SQA quite hard? How does it work?

I will start with Ms Farr, and then I have another question for everybody.

You have said that you are dissatisfied with the current system and how much children are involved, and so on, but you also said that there has been some improvement. Could you explain a bit more about your role in that? Have you been challenging schools and the SQA?

Are you happy enough with the powers that you have and not looking for more powers in relation to this? Would you just like to continue what you have been doing?

That suggests to me that this is a lot about ethos and attitudes, rather than what is written down in the bill. Would that be fair?

Ms Farr, you have given us a lot of information and you have referred to some of the articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. You have spoken about how you want children and young people to “participate”—using that word. I looked at article 12 of the convention, and it refers to young people expressing their views, those views “being given due weight” and their “opportunity to be heard”. It does not actually use the word “participate”. How do we get balance there?

Can you clarify that for me? A reform team was set up, but nothing much was happening, so in effect it is not there any more.