PARLIAMENT: MSP CAUSES STINK OVER TOILETS AND UPSKIRTING IN SCHOOLS
heaneymedia
By Bill Heaney
The pupils’ toilets in the school I went to were appositely named The Stank because the smell in them would have knocked you down.
They were entirely unuseable for the hundreds of pupils who turned up daily at the Penitentiary for their education.
This week concern about the state of the toilets in our 21st century schools was expressed by Tory MSP Pam Gosal.
She asked the First Minister to provide an update on the Scottish Government’s plans to update the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967.
Ms Gosal’s concerns centred more on the behaviour of some pupils in mixed schools than the sanitary condition of the bogs in question.
The First Minister John Swinney told her: “The Government is committed to ensuring that our school environments support every child and young person to reach their full potential for learning.
“The school premises regulations prescribe the broad minimum standards that school buildings must meet.
“They were last updated in 1979. It is therefore the Government’s intention to refresh and modernise the regulations to ensure that they meet the needs of pupils in schools in Scotland. A consultation will take place this year.”
In other words, they would be pulling the plug on the deficiencies which have existed for decades.
Pam Gosal was insistent that her complaints should not be flushed down the toilet.
She said: “Too many times in the chamber we have heard the Scottish National Party dismiss concerns about the safety of women and girls.
“Instead of safeguarding single-sex spaces such as school toilets, the SNP has spent years trying to undermine them, all in the name of dangerous gender ideology.
“The case of Sandie Peggie has revealed that the SNP’s dismissive attitude to women’s safety has well and truly infected Scotland’s public bodies.
“The lack of single-sex facilities puts the rights and safety of women and girls at risk, whether that is through girls being filmed in school toilets or women being forced to share changing rooms with biological males.
Pam Gosal MSP and First Minister John Swinney, whom she questioned on upskirting and the state of school toilets.
“Does the First Minister regret supporting Nicola Sturgeon’s reckless self-identification law? Does he agree that single-sex facilities in schools should be a basic right for female pupils and staff?”
The First Minister replied: “First, the regulations that Pam Gosal has talked about were last updated in 1979. My recollection is that, in 1979, there was a Conservative Government.
“All the issues that are being raised in relation to that regulated environment are in age-old regulations that we need to review. That is what the question was about.
“Secondly, local authorities are responsible for the design of their schools, and they take those designs forward through consultation and dialogue with the school community. I would expect them to do exactly that.
“Thirdly, as a consequence of our investment programme, the Government has increased the proportion of schools that are in good or satisfactory condition from the 62.7 per cent that we inherited in 2007 from the Labour and Liberal Executive to 91.7 per cent in 2024, which is a tribute to the public sector investment that the Government has presided over.”
Top of page: The playground toilets at St Patrick’s High School in the West End were, before they were insanitary, condemned and demolished, are bottom right in this picture.
