Chamber and committees

I thank the cabinet secretary for taking my intervention. Given the point that I made about when an incompatibility issue could be raised—and given that, under the provisions in your amendments, such an issue could be raised only when there were live proceedings—what options will be open to public bodies to raise issues of incompatibility without there having to be live proceedings in place? Could that happen informally? Is there any mechanism for doing that?

I take on board your concern about having a statutory responsibility and about the threat of legal action one way or another, but there is an issue about pre-empting live cases and how we could prevent stuff from going to proceedings.

The child-facing version of the UNCRC states:

“I have the right to be listened to and taken seriously”.

However, the 1980 act allows children to be withdrawn from religious activities in schools without their consent and without their views even being taken into account. That is clearly contrary to the convention, and I welcome the opportunity to correct that with this bill.

However, the bill, as it stands, will allow a young person who has previously been opted out of religious activities by their parents to opt back in, but not to opt out themselves. That directly contradicts the Scottish Government’s draft children’s rights scheme, which states that children should be given

“the knowledge and confidence to use their rights”.

That rightly suggests that children should be able to use their rights proactively, rather than only after an adult has acted on their behalf.

The bill goes against the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, who, in her letter to the committee, explicitly said:

“Part 1 in its current form does not achieve compliance with the UNCRC.”

Her view is shared by others. The committee’s stage 1 report also noted that a majority

“supported amending the Bill to provide children with an independent right to withdraw from RO.”

That majority includes the Scottish Human Rights Commission and Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights). Indeed, Professor Angela O’Hagan of the Scottish Human Rights Commission told the committee that without such a right, the bill will fail to meet its basic aim of achieving compliance with the UNCRC. In the 2023 concluding observations from the Committee on the Rights of the Child in the UK, the UN also called for withdrawal requests by children and young people not to be subject to parental consent.

If all that was not enough, a Survation poll recently commissioned by the Humanist Society Scotland shows that 66 per cent of Scots believe that pupils should be able to decide for themselves whether to take part in religious observance. The majority of supporters of every political party agree.

It is central to the whole notion of the rights of children and young people that those rights should not be subsidiary to the actions of adults. By allowing young people to override their parents’ wishes but not proactively exercise their rights, the bill undermines its central purpose, which is to strengthen the fundamental rights to be heard, to be taken seriously and to be listened to.

I am grateful for the overwhelming support that I have received for my amendments from civic society, including people of faith and people of none. My amendments seek to give children and young people the right to exercise their rights under the UNCRC to choose whether to be subjected to religious observance. I urge committee members to follow the UN committee’s recommendations, the evidence that we heard during stage 1 and the overwhelming supportive information that we have received, and to support my amendments.

I move amendment 1.

I press amendment 9.

Will Tess White take an intervention?

There is a certain amount of irony in the bill, given that, although it brings school religious activities into line with the UNCRC, part 2 provides for a very wide exception to convention rights when there is conflict between the convention and existing legislation, and not just in relation to the religion in schools issue but in relation to any issue at all.

Let us be clear about what is happening. We have just incorporated the convention into law, but we will now allow potentially very broad opt-outs from it. Instead of working out where there are incompatibilities and addressing them where we have the power to do so, we will allow for a blanket carve-out. I wanted to lodge and discuss much more detailed amendments to tackle that issue but, unfortunately, they were ruled to be out of the scope of the bill.

In dealing with the issue, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, Together and the Scottish Human Rights Commission have all warned that there is a need to tread carefully. My amendment 51 would help us to do that. The amendment would require that a body must notify the Scottish Government and the commissioner when it relies on the exceptions to section 6 of the 2024 act. The Scottish Government would also need to report annually on all the notifications that it has received, on how children’s rights have been affected and on the action that it proposes to take.

Amendment 51 would provide safeguards for section 6. It would give us a clear sense of how often the exceptions were being used and why, which would allow us to then address incompatibilities. If we do not agree to amendment 51 or to something similar at stage 3, we will simply be living in ignorance as to how often the rights of children and young people that we have incorporated into law are not being fully upheld.

Amendment 51 has support from a range of organisations. Those organisations have also suggested further improvements, which I welcome. Together proposed that the Lord Advocate should also be notified, and the Scottish Human Rights Commission has asked to be included in the list of bodies that are to be notified. I would like to introduce amendments at stage 3 to give effect to those requests.

Together also advocates a small technical refinement to ensure that public authorities, or relevant bodies that are acting on behalf of children, can bring proceedings to seek a declarator under the relevant sections of the 2024 act. Those improvements would enhance transparency, reduce the burden on children to initiate litigation and ensure more effective oversight of proposed new section 6B in practice.

I note that the cabinet secretary has lodged amendments 7 and 8 to address a similar concern. However, the intimation provision will kick in only where there are live legal proceedings, and we need such a provision to apply prior to that—otherwise, when there are no court proceedings, we will not be aware that public authorities have identified potential incompatibilities. As the children’s commissioner has noted, the cabinet secretary’s amendments 7 and 8 are compatible with my amendment 51, and I urge the committee to support all three amendments.

As it stands, part 2 of the bill makes a mockery of the whole process of incorporating the convention into law. I remain uncomfortable with the whole principle of part 2, but the very least that we can do is ensure that we keep a close eye on how often it is used and then act to address any incompatibilities that arise. My amendment 51 would ensure that that happened.

I move amendment 51.

I thank the cabinet secretary for her comments. I am sympathetic to some of the intention behind Stephen Kerr’s amendments but, like the cabinet secretary, I do not think that the first two in this group are necessary.

I share the cabinet secretary’s concerns about the constraining definitions in amendment 44. What is listed in those two definitions is too prescriptive. We can have on-going conversations between now and stage 3 and see where we get to in that space if we can come to an agreement.

To wrap up, my amendments fulfil the committee’s recommendation to separate religious observance and RME. They focus on the existing parental right to withdraw from RO and will no longer allow parents to withdraw their child from RME as a curriculum area. That recognises the value of RME as objective, critical and pluralistic and important in supporting young people to learn about and from different faiths, beliefs and world views.

For those reasons, and because of the wealth of evidence that we heard in this space in our stage 1 evidence gathering, I urge committee colleagues to support the amendments in my name in this group.

All the amendments in the group are trying to do similar things in reporting on the exercise of rights to withdraw. It is right that we monitor how rights are being used and respected, and I support the intention of all the amendments in the group.

My amendment 43 is the most comprehensive in the group. Not only does it allow us to monitor things; it updates us on the use of religious observance. Some schools have followed Scottish Government guidance and have adopted a time for reflection model of religious observance. That more inclusive approach is less focused on prayer and religious worship and more on reflecting on a moral issue without being led in a particular way of thinking.

Schools tend to invite a range of speakers from different faith and non-faith backgrounds. However, research from the Humanist Society Scotland shows that, in some non-denominational schools, RO is still wholly or largely delivered in a Christian manner. Assemblies are held in church and involve religious worship, prayers and hymns. Non-inclusive practices such as those can isolate and discriminate against pupils, parents, guardians and teachers who do not hold Christian beliefs. That is why it is important to monitor how RO is taking place in our schools, which is covered by paragraph (a) of subsection (2) in the new section that my amendment would insert in the bill. Where students do withdraw from RO, it is crucial that high-quality alternative provision is put in place so that those young people are not disadvantaged. That is covered by paragraph (c) of subsection (2). I hope that the committee will support my amendment so that we can ensure that the rights that we are creating in law are being used effectively across our educational system, and that religious observance in our schools is delivered in a way that is appropriate and inclusive and understands that we exist in a multifaith society.

I thank everybody for the helpful debate. There are still issues that we can explore further before stage 3, and I am not sure that I agree with the cabinet secretary’s judgment on the potential consequences of my amendment 51, but I hope that there will be room for manoeuvre in the coming weeks.

Amendment 51, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 52 not moved.

Amendment 53 moved—[Tess White].

Thank you, convener, and good morning to the minister and officials. Thank you for being here this morning and for the conversations that we have had about the bill in recent months.

Before I turn to my amendments, I want to briefly outline the approach of the Scottish Greens to the bill as a whole. Last year, we enshrined the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Scots law. Doing that was not the end, but the start of a process of protecting the rights of children and young people. We have committed to ensuring that every service that we provide for a child or young person, from school to social security, or from care to the children’s hearings system, should put their rights under the UN convention front and centre. Where we have failed to do so, children and young people should be empowered to speak up and call for change, and we, as policy makers, should have to respond.

The bill before us today reflects what Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights), the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and others have been saying about the Scottish Government’s approach to children and young people’s rights more generally—namely, that it comes from a place of the best of intentions but does not go nearly far enough. It is fundamental to the convention that the rights of children and young people should exist independently of those of adults, yet the bill allows for children to opt out of religious activities in schools only once their parent or guardian has already made a decision. Indeed, part 2 of the bill creates a framework for adults to override the convention only a year after it has come into force.

If we are truly to enshrine the convention, not only in law but in the everyday practice of the services that children and young people receive, we need to look again at quite large parts of the bill.

I turn to the amendments in this group. The principal amendment in my name is amendment 9, to which my other amendments are consequential. Like the original Education (Scotland) Act 1980, the bill conflates religious observance with religious education. Religious observance involves acts of worship, especially when one faith is prioritised over another. It should have no place in state schools. The Scottish Green position is quite clear: there should be a separation of church and state.

The Scottish Greens accept that, in many ways, the situation that we have in Scotland in which, as you outlined, we have such denominational positions, is almost unique. Although denominational schools exist, we need to have very clear mechanisms for ensuring that children and young people’s rights are protected, regardless of where they go to school. It is the principal position of the Scottish Greens that we should have a total separation of church and state.

The 1980 act conflates religious observance with religious education, also called religious instruction. Religious observance comprises those acts of worship when one faith is prioritised. Religious and moral education—RME—is quite different. Learning about diverse religions and belief systems is an essential part of a broad education in a diverse society. Children and young people have a right to a well-rounded education, and their parent or guardian should not be able to override that. Young people cannot withdraw or be withdrawn from maths, science, history or English. That is for good reason—those subjects provide key knowledge bases and the skills that young people need to be successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society, as the curriculum for excellence wants them to be.

Religious and moral education is similarly vital in our view, and teachers agree. Dr Douglas Hutchison of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland said:

“religious and moral education should be seen as a curricular subject in the same way as any other subject.”

He continued:

“the idea that in a liberal democracy there is no place in the curriculum for religious education and there should be a right to withdraw from it does not make sense in 2025.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 7 October 2025; c 27.]

I am aware of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland’s queries about how some of the amendments are worded, particularly in relation to the word “instruction”. The commissioner refers to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s general comment 20, which distinguishes between religious education and “religious instruction”, and states that there should be a right to withdraw from the latter, not from the former. The wording of amendment 9 was worked up collaboratively with the Scottish Government—for which I am grateful—but, ultimately, it reflects the original language of the 1980 act, and, as a consequence, the bill’s approach of amending that language rather than the alternative approach of re-legislating, which is proposed by the commissioner. I share some of those concerns about language, but I ask the committee to support the principle of my amendment 9 and its consequential amendments. I will work with the committee and others if we need to fix any wording for stage 3.

I move amendment 9.