Chamber and committees

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.

I have a question. I understand what you say about the pragmatism in that approach, but drafting the bill in such a way as to ensure that compatibility with the UNCRC was not, or could not be, entertained seems odd—it is odd at best and problematic at worst. This is the first opportunity that the Scottish Government has had to expand children’s rights and to do so in a way that allows the test against UNCRC compatibility to come into play, and you have chosen to take a different route. Can you give a little bit more understanding of why that was the case?

Amendment 40 has the same aim as my other amendments this morning and the same aim as the original bill had for the rights of children and young people. It would ensure that young people can be heard on any decision that is made by their parents to withdraw them from religious observance. However, the key difference is that the provision would be enacted as a stand-alone provision, rather than as an amendment to the 1980 act. Together argues that that places the bill outwith the scope of the 2024 act. It means that children will have no direct route to challenge breaches of their rights in relation to the new provisions, given our current situation with UNCRC incorporation. As well as the separation of religious education and observance, and the independent right to withdraw, that is one of the three key changes requested by Together in its letter to the committee of 13 October 2025 that are designed to ensure that part 1 of the bill fully aligns with UNCRC.

Although I appreciate that the commissioner has not taken a position on amendment 40, she has made the same call as Together for this right to be established separately from the 1980 act, for the reasons that I have outlined above.

I move amendment 40.

I will be brief. It is worth stressing my and many others’ disappointment that, by choosing to amend the 1980 act, the cabinet secretary has ensured that the provisions covered by the bill are out of scope of the compatibility duty in our own United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. That sends a worrying signal to people with an interest in this space. We should have taken the time and care to ensure that this legislation was in that scope. If that meant taking longer to do it, that is what we should have done.

However, given that we are where we are and we have this bill in front of us, we need to bring these rights into the scope of the UNCRC incorporation act. Therefore, I press amendment 40.

Following on from what Paul O’Kane said, I would say that there were a lot of unknowns in the stage 1 evidence. A lot of the figures are projected or estimated. It is guesswork, quite frankly, because we do not have a picture of what is happening now, never mind when new rights come into play. What data-gathering mechanism do the cabinet secretary and the Scottish Government suggest would help us understand what is going on in this area?

No young person should be forced to pray, and no young person or child should be forced to participate in activities of worship against their will. That is the principle to which the amendments speak.

Young people in Scotland’s schools are still compelled to participate in acts of religious observance. With the right to withdraw being reserved exclusively to parents, some school pupils and young people are denied the right to be heard and are forced to pray against their own beliefs. That was the clear conclusion of the “Preaching is not Teaching” report that the Humanist Society Scotland published. The report also found that RO is still exclusively Christian and worship based in many non-denominational schools.

Twice, the UN has recommended that children and young people in Scotland be supported in exercising their rights by giving them the right to withdraw from RO. My amendments seek to answer that recommendation that the UN has made to us twice in the past eight years.

All the human rights experts who we heard from in committee were very clear: children and young people should be able to exercise their right to freedom of belief and expression. Faith groups, legal experts and human rights bodies have all told us that denying pupils the independent right to withdraw amounts to a breach of their human rights. My amendments seek to address that breach and to enable children to exercise their right to freedom of belief and expression.

I will press amendment 1.