Chamber and committees

Will the minister give way?

I absolutely acknowledge the points that Fulton MacGregor has made this afternoon. However, the issues with the Bellshill Sharks and the Sir Matt Busby centre arose during the pandemic, when the council was suggesting that the centre might not be able to be reopened, because of the combined effect of the pandemic and budget cuts.

The Bellshill Sharks are just one example of clubs across Scotland that will be worried about their futures should councils be unable to keep their facilities open. That is why I am backing my colleague Liz Smith’s motion tonight and our save our pools campaign.

Thank you for your warm welcome to the committee, convener. I have no declaration of interests to make now, but that could change in the future. If it does, I will alert you to that.

The First Minister will be aware of the recent decision taken by North Lanarkshire Council to let go of 130 teachers before the summer holidays. Education chiefs emailed 80 primary and 50 secondary teachers last Friday to tell them that they could no longer offer them temporary or fixed-term contracts from August. The Educational Institute of Scotland has rightly condemned the decision, as many teachers will be looking for jobs over the summer holidays. The council has responded, saying that Scottish Government funding for teacher recruitment has fallen substantially. Indeed, in the past two years alone, there has been a £1.8 million reduction.

Cuts to education budgets mean cuts to teacher numbers. What reassurance can the First Minister provide to the 130 teachers who will be really concerned and upset by the decision that has been taken by North Lanarkshire Council?

I recently held an event in Parliament with the Miracle Foundation to raise awareness of the incredible work that it does to support children and young people with bereavement and trauma. It advised MSPs in attendance that it is proving extremely hard for families in the Motherwell area to access support services as a result of high costs associated with private counselling and therapy services and of waiting times of more than 24 months for NHS and child and adolescent mental health services.

Despite the pilot programme, the latest figures show that almost 1,600 children and young people are currently on a CAMHS waiting list in Lanarkshire. With charities and third sector organisations stretched, what strategy has the Government put in place to tackle mental health backlogs for children and young people in Motherwell and across Lanarkshire involving those vital organisations?

Detective Chief Superintendent Sam Faulds, who is the head of public protection and Police Scotland’s national child abuse investigation unit, has said:

“Behind every image of abuse shared online is a child. These images are viewed and shared thousands, if not potentially millions of times around the world. This is a horrific trade in trauma and misery.”

That is an extremely powerful statement yet, all too often, such crimes are not punished severely enough. The Scottish Sentencing Council has confirmed that a person who is caught in possession of indecent images would likely attract a community sentence, despite public opinion favouring a lengthy prison sentence. Will the cabinet secretary commit to publishing data so that the public are aware of the reality of sentencing in such cases?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to Police Scotland’s latest quarterly performance report, which found that there were 1,928 recorded crimes of online child sexual abuse during 2022-23. (S6O-02435)

I am becoming increasingly annoyed by the Government and its inability to legislate. It has been 834 days since Parliament passed the UNCRC bill and 630 days since the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the UK Government’s challenge to the bill. That means that the Scottish Government had 630 days to decide whether to write a letter to the UK Government about the UNCRC bill. No wonder nothing gets done in this place.

Instead of making the necessary changes to the bill, the Scottish National Party has deliberately provoked grievance, continued to politicise children’s rights, played constitutional games and prioritised a debate on independence this afternoon. However, the SNP has been found out. If the Government really cared about children’s rights, work would have progressed by now. If this was really about young people, members of the Scottish Parliament would have something to scrutinise today, but it appears that the Scottish Government has done nothing. We still do not know when the bill will come back to Parliament. What on earth has the Government been doing?

Why did the Scottish Government not do its homework before introducing the bill to Parliament? When will the bill finally be brought back to the chamber?

I take the minister’s point, but Sue Webber’s point was that linking the bill to that information would have been more appropriate so that we would debate the proposed legislation with better costings than we have. My concern is that agencies and key bodies that will be imperative to the bill’s implementation do not know whether they will be able to implement what it asks them to do.

I will now consider issues relating to the children’s hearings system.

At present, the system is stretched to breaking point. It is a volunteer system, but there are areas, including Aberdeen, that find it difficult to recruit volunteers and have to rely on people from other areas to fill the gap and deal with the backlog of cases. If the changes in the bill are approved, the children’s hearings system would need to recruit an additional 270 panel members. That would be a challenge, given the current recruitment issues.

However, former panel members have also raised serious concerns about the culture and behaviour within the children’s hearings system. It has been reported that panel members have had their reputations ruined because of the internal complaints system within CHS, and people have called for an investigation into behaviour within the organisation. I would be grateful if the minister could meet the group of former panel members to hear their concerns before stage 2, if she has not done so already, because the bill proposes extending the measures that may be included in a compulsory supervision order, which would give the children’s hearings system greater choice when deciding on which measures are suitable for a child’s individual needs.

The Education, Children and Young People Committee also raised concerns about section 3 of the bill, when considering victims and trauma. Section 3 could put the onus on victims to avoid people and locations that are harmful to them, so I agree with the committee that the Scottish Government must consider the wider needs of victims and how they can be met, especially when they are navigating the criminal justice system and the CHS.

I have not even touched on the bill’s intention to clarify the test that is to be applied when a children’s hearing or sheriff is considering secure accommodation or a compulsory supervision order, the introduction of an interim compulsory supervision order, cross-border placements, or care-experienced young people.

My last point—I understand that I need to close my remarks—is on the severity of crime and information that can or cannot be shared. There will be some nervousness among members about what is classed as a severe crime. Of course, there are the obvious examples of murder and rape, but we need to tread carefully with regard to where a young person is detained, especially in respect of crimes that are so severe.

I will conclude my remarks, Presiding Officer. There is merit in the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, but I feel as though there have been many missed opportunities. We will no doubt get to those at stage 2.

We have had review after review of our education system—I think that we have had enough reviews to last this Parliament a lifetime. However, there is no strategy as of yet. From today’s statement, I understand that more reviews will be undertaken before any direction will be given by the Scottish Government.

I understand that the cabinet secretary has inherited a mess after 16 years of Scottish National Party Government: there is too much bureaucracy and too many education bodies, and reforms that could bankrupt councils should this Government not fund them correctly.