Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, February 1, 2018

Official Report 507KB pdf

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Cross-party Group

Good morning. I welcome members to the second meeting in 2018 of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.

Agenda item 1 is the taking of evidence on one proposed cross-party group: the proposed cross-party group on shared parenting. I welcome to the meeting Ivan McKee MSP, who is the co-convener of the proposed group, and invite him to make an opening statement about the purpose of the group.

Thank you very much for inviting me to talk to you.

The intent is to set up a cross-party group on shared parenting. There are two main areas that we want to cover, the first of which is to do with gender stereotyping, which pervades society and has many manifestations. In the area of parenting, assumptions are made that we think are not helpful and which are part of the wider gender stereotyping that we see across society. If we understand the issue a bit better, that will put us in a better position to make some progress on that part of the agenda.

The second area that we want to cover is the existence of academic research that shows that children who spend time with both parents post-separation or post-divorce have better life chances. We see the work of the group feeding into the closing the attainment gap agenda and think that it can make a positive contribution in that regard. Children seeing both parents after separation also helps to challenge gender stereotypes at a very impressionable age, so we think that it is positive from that point of view, too.

The group has held an initial meeting, and I have been very encouraged and surprised by the amount of interest that has been shown in its work by organisations and individuals. Members will see from the documentation that we have cross-party participation in the group, and a dozen or so organisations expressed an interest in its work or managed to get along to the first meeting.

We would like the committee to approve the group so that we can move forward. Our work programme will involve exploring research in the area. We intend to invite speakers to address the group. Some Scandinavian countries and US states are much further advanced in the area than Scotland is, and we would like to learn from their experiences. International speakers could make a great contribution in that respect. We are open to suggestions about other external groups that anybody thinks should participate in the CPG, because we want to involve as many people as possible in it.

Thank you, Ivan. I invite members to ask questions.

There is a great cross-section of support for the group, from organisations as well as individuals. Do you intend to look at individual topics and home in on some of the research that you mentioned has been done in other parts of the world?

Yes, for sure. We have given an indication of what we would want to look at. We would like to bring in people who have experience at a senior level in the legal system. We could also explore the research in more detail and bring in academics who have done work in the area, as well as people who have experience that we could learn from of how shared parenting operates in other countries.

Good morning, Ivan. I have read your application. You say that, as well as talking to young people who have experienced shared parenting, the group will

“consider shared parenting situations where there isn’t conflict as role models of best practice”.

Do you envisage that you will also consider the experience of young people in situations in which there has been conflict?

Yes. The reference to situations in which there has not been any conflict was included because an assumption is sometimes made in discussions about the area that it is situations in which there has been conflict that will be looked at, and members of the group felt that it was important for us to look at outcomes in the round. In many cases, there is no conflict, and those cases often have a low profile.

However, we are keen to talk to and engage with groups that have experience of situations in which there has been conflict. Prior to the setting up of the group, I met Scottish Women’s Aid to find out its perspective on it. Scottish Women’s Aid does not want to join the group at this stage, but I had a very constructive and fruitful discussion about its perspective on the high number of cases in which, unfortunately, there is not just conflict but domestic abuse.

Do you think that members of the proposed group, such as the Spark, would assist with that?

Absolutely. As I said, we are open to inviting other organisations to join. We had a discussion about who else should be included. The committee will hear from Engender later. It is one of the organisations that we plan to approach to find out whether it would be interested in joining the group. We think that Engender’s perspective on gender stereotyping could be very helpful. We want to have as broad a perspective as possible.

You talk about gender stereotyping and the roles of mothers and fathers, but in society today we have different family situations. I am thinking of same-sex parents, for example. You specifically mention mothers and fathers, but would you also include—

That is a very good point, which I will take back to the group. We would be more than delighted to hear from such parents. That was not raised at the initial meeting, but we should include same-sex parents. I am sure that the group would want to have a session specifically on same-sex couples and the situation post-separation.

As members have no further questions, I thank you for coming along. The committee will consider whether to approve the application under agenda item 3, and we will inform you of the outcome of that discussion.

Thank you very much.

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for a changeover of witnesses.

09:36 Meeting suspended.  

09:38 On resuming—