Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 22 Feb 2000

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 22, 2000

Official Report 153KB pdf

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Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Bill

Turning now to the draft ethical standards in public life bill, I have met the conveners of the Local Government Committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee. The Local Government Committee is the lead committee, but this committee and the Equal Opportunities Committee have expressed an interest.

Annexe A of the report that you have in front of you gives the names of the people who will be asked for written evidence. Annexe B includes proposals for oral evidence. It is suggested that this committee seek oral evidence from the Scottish School Board Association and the Scottish Parent Teacher Council.

I am happy to talk to the SSBA and the SPTC, but I think that we should take evidence from teachers, possibly through the Educational Institute of Scotland, unless anybody can think of another organisation.

I agree. We need to speak to teachers.

The teaching body that comes before us should bring evidence in relation to guidance, not just sex education, because discussion of homosexual sexuality or any other sexuality does not crop up only in sex education classes.

Scottish independent schools should be asked to provide written evidence. They are not governed by section 28, or section 2A, and they might have some useful contribution to make in regard to how they deal with the issue.

We should have written evidence, at least, from the anti-bullying network that was established by the Scottish Executive. It has a great deal of information on bullying and makes recommendations about how to deal with all types of bullying. Its evidence would be interesting.

I was hoping that, by the time we reached this discussion, we would have had the chance to consider Fiona McLeod's useful report on consultation with young people. Apart from teachers, who have been mentioned, the group that is most directly affected by this is school students. As members of the committee will recall from last week, there is a students forum in Aberdeen that actively represents all secondary school students in Aberdeen. If not unique, that is certainly unusual in Scotland. As we have not had the chance to address the wider question of consultation, what consideration can we give to ways of consulting young people at school? Specific issues for young people at school arise for young people in general.

I agree with Lewis Macdonald's point. Some of the most poignant letters that I have received in relation to this campaign have come from young people who have experienced homophobic bullying in school, and who feel that section 28 played a part in that. It is important that we consider the views of young people. It will be difficult to do that in a way that enables those young people to express themselves.

We must speak to Save the Children or some other organisation that can help us to do that in a non-threatening way. If someone is experiencing homophobic bullying, the last thing they want to do is put their head above the parapet and talk about it, especially in a public arena such as this. This may be one occasion on which we should take evidence in a private session, and not necessarily in the committee. We might visit a school to talk to some of those young people.

I ask the clerk to include Unison among the trade unions, as particular staff who are involved with young people are not teaching staff but community education staff. They see those young people out of school as well as in school, and we should consider asking them to give evidence.

I am not entirely sure that I agree with Lewis Macdonald's suggestion. I urge the committee to display a great degree of caution and sensitivity when seeking evidence from children. Prior to discussing this issue, we have dealt with issues of which children already have an understanding. There is a difficulty in determining who has responsibility for children. I would be concerned if parents felt that we were interfering in areas for which they have responsibility and seeking to elicit information, judgments and views on matters that children do not yet know about.

It is important that we take account of that when determining the ages of those that we approach. Although people who have gone through school can write letters about their difficult times at school, they have since become less naive and have made judgments. The difficulty is in eliciting useful information and opinions from children who do not yet know what they are talking about.

Lewis Macdonald makes a good point about consulting young people. Such consultation is essential. We may choose to consult young people rather than children. However, I see no reason why we cannot get Save the Children to help us to facilitate something along the same lines as last week. I see no problem at all with that.

I also strongly support Brian Monteith's suggestion that we take evidence from independent schools. As he rightly says, independent schools are not covered by section 28 and, as far as I am aware, nobody has said that homosexuality is promoted in independent schools. In fact, the evidence of independent schools may go a long way towards reassuring people that the removal of that section will not lead to the promotion of homosexuality. The suggestion is therefore an excellent one.

That is a very good point.

I concur entirely. My worry about what Brian Monteith just said is that it flies in the face of all the principles that we are here to uphold, and would mean that we would not hear from the people who would be most affected by the repeal of section 28. We have seen the letters and we have talked to young people, but Brian Monteith would have us exclude them from giving evidence to the committee in case we interfered with them. The real interference would occur if we made judgments and decisions on their welfare and future without listening to what they have to say. I strongly support what Lewis Macdonald says, and believe that we must find the mechanisms by which that can be done.

The important point is that we are not talking about children, which is the word that Brian Monteith used. We are talking about young people in their teens dealing with very difficult questions of sexuality. As Brian will know from the representatives of the Aberdeen students forum and from the other secondary school pupils whom he met last week, they are often very articulate people with a clear understanding of the world in which they live and of the issues that they face. I do not think that we should in any way be shy of raising difficult questions with young people.

We have to think carefully about the appropriate mechanism for doing that, whether it is in writing or in person, and whether it is private or public. I think that we should stick to the principle.

I am not the only one to have used the word children. There is a distinction between children and young people. The convener has already suggested, and others have concurred, that we examine what was carried out last week.

The young people that I spoke to last week were in primary 6. This is where we should urge caution in our approach. Parents do have legal responsibilities. We have to take cognisance of that and of the stage of maturity that young people may be at when we seek this evidence, if we go ahead. That seems entirely a matter of common sense to me. If there is to be any value in the information that we elicit, we must ensure that it is from people with an understanding of what we are discussing. I do not see that as controversial or patronising to the young people concerned.

I had the same point as that of Lewis Macdonald. We cannot underestimate the knowledge and understanding of young people. We cannot take evidence on this matter and not include young people. I agree that we need to consider how we achieve that, with regard to working with Save the Children and some youth organisations. We must ensure that we listen to young people about this issue.

In a funny way, I agree with what Brian Monteith is saying, the direction of which is not, in essence, controversial. We have said it and said it again: there must be ways of listening to young people. We must trust the organisations that deal with children and young people in a non-statutory and informal way. We must use the agencies concerned as a conduit.

We are not interested in big, public, show-trial-type events. Provided that we can do it sensibly, we can come to an agreement. I accept Brian's reservations, but the committee must—absolutely must—try to get young people's views on this matter.

Is there an association of guidance teachers, or of teachers involved with sex education, which could give evidence to us? There are often associations of subject teachers. That might be useful to find out about.

There is one for guidance teachers.

That would be a useful contribution for oral evidence.

We will consider that.

I suggest that we take on board the points that members have made. It is important that we, as a committee that has tried to set a standard of including comments from young people, do not shy away from that on this occasion. It is obvious that that would need to be done sensitively, and that we would need to take advice on it.

I am happy to discuss that further and then return to the representatives from each party grouping, to ensure that we take this forward in a way that members would feel appropriate.

Item 6 is the conference—

Before you move on, convener, I know that we have asked for written evidence from the teaching unions. Are we asking them to present oral evidence to us as well?

I felt that the committee had asked that we include them for oral evidence. Is that not the case?

Could I ask that we try to get the written evidence in advance of the committee meeting, so that we can go through it, read it and will then be able to ask more informed questions?

It will be quite a tight time scale, as we are suggesting coming back on 7 March. I am sure that the unions will try to be as co-operative as possible.

Are we likely to take the evidence on 7 March?

Yes, that is the date that has been suggested. The meeting is in the afternoon.