Well, let me take her up on that offer and ask her to abandon the policy which sees 50% of Scotland’s children denied their full, two year nursery entitlement simply because they have a birthday in the wrong month.

Currently, children who are born between 1st March and 31st August receive the full, two years legal entitlement to nursery provision, whilst those born between 1st September and 31st December receive 18 months and those born between 1st January and 29th February receive only 15 months.

In detailed academic work undertaken by Reform Scotland, it was pointed out that this situation means that the provision may vary by up to 317 hours or by £1033 towards the cost of a partnership provider.

This anomaly exists because the Scottish Government persists with a policy which determines the child’s right to nursery provision by the term after they turn three rather than by a fixed point in the year which is what happens for primary and secondary schooling.

It is an anomaly which is grossly unfair and one which should be abandoned immediately. Discrimination of this sort should have no place in modern Scottish education.

There is an added issue, however.

As we know, the Scottish Government has already announced that there will be an expansion in provision from 475 hours to 600 hours and, this week, the new First Minister said that she hoped the SNP would go into the 2016 Holyrood Election on a platform of an extension beyond that.

In principle, that is a welcome commitment which, I am sure, will gain cross party support, but it will only work if, at the same time, Nicola Sturgeon brings forward legislation to close this unfair loophole.

The more she extends the number of hours under the current system, the more she will entrench the discrimination since the gap between the March to August cohort and the September to February cohort will only get bigger.

If this expansion did take place, the updated statistics from Reform Scotland suggest that some children could end up with 800 hours less provision.

It could also mean a difference of up to £2800 to parents using a partnership nursery. Common sense tells everyone - with the exception of the SNP - that this is wrong.

At the time of the Children and Young People’s Bill going through Parliament a year ago, there was the opportunity to sort this problem, but, for reasons known only to themselves, the SNP was the only party, both in the committee stages and at Stage 3 in Parliament, to vote against Conservative amendments to remove the discrimination.

The Labour Party, the Liberals, and the Greens all supported the Conservatives but it made no difference. The SNP used their overall majority to block any change.

Worse still, they could not come up with any good reasons as to why the current policy should be retained.

I would suggest they still can’t come up with any good reasons and that is because there aren’t any.

If social justice really is to be at the centre of this new First Minister’s political agenda, then she knows what to do; stop discriminating against children who happen to have been born in the wrong month!

As an MSP for Mid Scotland & Fife I am always available to help local constituents with any problems and can be contacted on the following: Elizabeth Smith MSP, The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, EH99 1SP Tel: 0131 348 5000 Email:elizabeth.smith.msp@scottish.parliament.uk’