Chamber and committees

Okay—thank you. It does represent a shift in focus for public bodies, where awareness may not be as high as it should be across the board. John Wilkes, who was on the previous panel, said that there might be good understanding of the PSED at the top of certain public bodies but that it may stop at that point and not filter all the way down. However, in our inquiry, we also saw clear examples of where people on the ground understood exactly what they should be doing but they were hampered by processes elsewhere. A shift is needed away from it being a legalistic process.

Minister, you raised this in your opening remarks, but it has been a bugbear of mine for a long time that the fostering good relations pillar is clearly the poor cousin in the three pillars of the PSED. In your conversations with ministerial colleagues, how often do you talk about fostering good relations? Do you talk explicitly about that element of the PSED?

It is possibly indicative that there is no shining example. There might be, but I struggle to find one. If you find one, please let us know.

I will do.

My final question follows on from what you said about having people who can get into the middle of things, as it were. In the community discussions that I have been part of, one of the frustrations that I have heard has been about a perceived lack of awareness and understanding among police officers. Attempts by police officers to balance people’s rights and those of different groups might create more conflict, because people might not see police officers acting on racist attacks on people of colour who just happen to be walking past or on much more targeted attacks. How can we bring Police Scotland into some of this work, because police officers are in every community? How can we ensure that the need for balance is not used as an excuse to do nothing?

What am I trying to get at here? I am not at all suggesting that this is what you are doing, but I think that it is sometimes easy for regulators and for people who are not politicians to say, “Oh, we can’t get involved in the politics of that.” However, as you have just said, it is the job of us all to ensure that we get involved and have those conversations.

I will change tack a bit. You talked about your work in the higher and further education sector and with the SFC in response to, I think, one of Karen Adam’s question. Given that some of the fertile territory for debate and discussion is in institutions in that sector, how do you see colleges and universities understanding the element of the duty to foster good relations? We have seen some pretty poor examples of understanding, particularly around sex and gender-related issues. How does that element feature in your conversations and work with the SFC and those institutions?

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.