Learning is crucial

In my address to conference, I made Labour’s case for investing in education to reverse the SNP cuts and reduce the growing attainment gap.

For early years learning and childcare, only a flexible, all-age, all-year, wraparound system that is affordable will do for Scottish Labour.

While we welcome the increase in free hours to help parents get back to work and save some money, the reality is that simply increasing the hours will do little to tackle the attainment gap and help parents into employment if the system is not flexible or affordable.

The recent Audit Scotland report of the SNP childcare pledges shows that the strain on local government funding will worsen in order to meet the additional hours of free childcare. We need to fully fund councils across Scotland to deliver such commitments, unfortunately the SNP have cut £1.5 billion from councils in the last decade.

As important as they are, literacy and numeracy shouldn’t be the sole focus of education. We need to place health and well-being on a level playing field. Only then can we offer every child the same opportunities, regardless of background and wealth.

Children who go to school hungry, or are refused additional support or mental health services, will not flourish in school and we know that in the more deprived communities, these issues are prevalent.