Draft Education (Scotland) Act 2025 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2025

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 General Committees

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. This instrument follows the Education (Scotland) Act 2025, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament in June this year and gained Royal Assent in August. As the Minister set out, that Act dissolved the Scottish Qualifications Authority, established Qualifications Scotland to replace it, and established the role of His Majesty’s chief inspector of education in Scotland. This statutory instrument enables that Act by amending references to the SQA in UK legislation, ensuring that the qualifications are recognised throughout the United Kingdom. Importantly, that allows the body to operate and be adequately recognised throughout the UK, which is outside the scope of the Scottish Parliament; hence we are here today.

I take this opportunity to thank my MSP colleagues in the Scottish Parliament for their work in challenging the Education (Scotland) Act and holding the Scottish Government to account on poor educational outcomes. I pay particular tribute to my friend Miles Briggs, the Scottish Conservative MSP for the Lothian region, for highlighting the limitations of the Scottish Parliament’s Bill. There are significant questions about whether the legislation makes progress on the wider educational reforms that are so desperately required. We believe that it is a missed opportunity to enact genuine and meaningful reform of Scottish education.

While the order we are considering today is unobjectionable, it would be remiss of me not to take the opportunity to raise the state of the Scottish education system. Once the pride of the country, the Scottish education system has suffered poorer and poorer outcomes. The Conservative legacy in education saw students in England climb the international league tables from 27th to 11th in the world in maths in 2022, while Scottish students continued to slip down the programme for international student assessment rankings in maths and science under the Scottish National party Government—it is a shame that none of its Members could join us this afternoon. Earlier this year, the head of Scotland’s second-largest teaching union said that “education is broken” and that the school system

“has passed the tipping point leading to crisis”.

The “Curriculum for Excellence” is anything but.

At the core of this is the Scottish National party’s desperation to be different for difference’s sake. It is exceptionalism gone too far, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Scottish education system. For once, the SNP Government should take a look at what works south of the border, put their pride and politics aside and emulate best practice for the sake of Scottish students. The SNP has something—lots—to learn from the Conservative party’s legacy, especially in the English school system. However, that is a debate for another day and another place, so I will leave it at that. His Majesty’s Opposition will not stand in the way of this instrument.