Chamber and committees

Good morning. I think that we have had this discussion before, but will the Scottish Government change the legislative basis of the best start foods payment so that it is covered by the statutory duty to uprate for inflation?

We will come on to this more fully later but, as we are discussing it now, I am interested to know how long it takes between someone making an application to Social Security Scotland and getting a decision. Perhaps John Halliday knows the answer to that.

Secondly, I have a concern about rural areas where there might be only one firm of undertakers. There is a multitude of choices in the cities, but what would happen in a rural area when a family has a bad reputation? From your experience, what would happen if a local undertaker in such a situation said no?

I am the convener of the cross-party group on funerals and bereavement. I also put it on the record that I have many friends who work for William Purves Funeral Directors and I know the family who run that business.

I want to go back to Andrew Purves’s point. If the bereavement charities were here, I think that they would say that we cannot go down the issue of direct funerals. They have done a lot of work since Covid on what happened when people could not meet and we could not have funerals.

It would be a retrospective step if we suddenly said that, because someone does not have the money, they have to have a certain type of funeral. We definitely want to make it clear that, first, however the payment is made, it is up to the family to decide which funeral director they go to. They should not have to go to this one or that one; it is about how the money is paid. Secondly, they must get the opportunity to be able to say their farewell to their loved one, however they want to do it, and that should not be restrained by finances. We are seeing a lot of the stale legacy of Covid funerals that did not happen. If we were to suddenly say that, because people do not have money, they cannot have what everybody else has, it would be quite a regressive step in society.

Does the minister not see the provisions as a backstop? If, for whatever reason, in a one-in-whatever-number case, a child has not been informed already, that would be the final opportunity for them to be given the knowledge that they are allowed an advocate. That is the purpose of the amendment. In other words, it should not be seen as establishing what should happen as normative; it would be used when a child has fallen through a gap, for whatever reason.

My amendment would serve as a belt and braces. You say that its provisions are already in place. If that were the case, the amendment would not necessarily be needed. However, as solicitors, social workers and others will have experienced, not every case goes smoothly. History tells us that kids miss out on that information. The amendment would therefore be an appropriate backstop to ensure that every child gets the advocacy that they might require, even if it is at the last moment.

We have had a long debate on this and I do not want to rehearse all the comments that have been made. However, we need to look at some kind of backstop; I appreciate that it is already there, but it needs to be looked at.

Going in the other direction, Barnardo’s is very clear that advocacy should be there at the point of referral. I appreciate that that will be the situation in many cases, but I am concerned that, for different reasons, a number of children will fall through that system. I will not press amendment 80 this morning, but I would like to discuss both the backstop and referral at the earliest opportunity.

I make the following point as much to myself as to anyone else who has not been through care experience—I have on one side, but not on the other side. Often, as they get older, children do not have very positive role models and they do not have people who are advocating for them. As Mr Mason pointed out, they often have very poor experience of what adults have done to them and, allegedly, for them. We need as many opportunities as possible, and as many doors as possible, to allow advocacy to take place. Even if we have things that might happen only one in 100 or one in 1,000 times, it is nonetheless important that they are there and that they are being used as often as possible, because we are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

I will not press my amendment this morning, but I would welcome further discussions about a backstop and the earliest possible time to refer.

Amendment 25 simply seeks to ensure, by way of regulation, that the chair’s role will not be altered, enhanced or materially changed by the fact that it will now be a paid position. There is consensus among committee members and stakeholders that it is the right time for chairs to be paid. However, from my discussions with groups and charities, particularly the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, it is clear that remuneration is not about enhancing the chair’s role but about improving the quality of the chair.

By paying the chair, we would be able to recruit people with sufficient skills and experience to improve the quality and consistency of the chair. Again, that is in no way a reflection on those who have been carrying out that role for many years, but we live in a changing world where things have become more complex and difficult. I do not think that we want to go down the route of making make the chair’s role more onerous and more complex, and the danger is that we are going to. The chairing members need to remain independent and impartial.

Ensuring that remuneration is put into regulation would allow for changes to happen quicker once we have seen how it works in practice. Children’s Hearings Scotland, which is devising the new paid chair changes, needs to be mindful of the organisations that are concerned about the possible change in nature and focus of the role of the chair. That is what I am trying to do with amendment 25. I recognise what the minister has said and I will reflect on her comments today.

Finally, I would like to pick up on the exchange between Martin Whitfield and the minister on what the Scottish Government sees as the role of one-member panels if they are only to sit on hearings for uncontroversial things. What the minister has said today seems to be quite a big move. If that is where the Scottish Government is minded to be and to go, I would be interested to hear in the minister’s summing up whether she would be open to some kind of amendment at stage 3 to crystallise that in the bill. At the moment, that is not how I read the system. My reading is that it would be up to the chair to make the decision on any case that it is appropriate for them to look at. If the minister is saying that that would only be for a fairly basic docket that everyone is happy with, that is different from where we are at the moment. I would suggest that that would require a change at stage 3. It would reassure me and others that there was not potential for an overreach of the role of chairs.

Amendment 50 seeks to ensure that clear regulations are drafted on what can and, perhaps more importantly, what cannot be said in a pre-hearing discussion with the principal reporter. That would ensure consistency in how those meetings are conducted, so that any issues of substance are not swept under the carpet and that they are documented or recorded appropriately. The amendment deals with children’s hearings and pre-hearing meeting provisions as set out in proposed new section 69A of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, which sets out that the principal reporter must

“offer the child and each relevant person in relation to the child an opportunity”

to meet with the principal reporter ahead of the hearing.

I think that that meeting should follow a meet-and-greet format to help the child to understand what is going on, to deal with any anxiety and confusion, and allow them to have a real-life experience of such a setting before the hearing goes ahead. That type of meeting should not discuss details or the grounds for the hearings. As currently drafted, the bill indicates that the “statement of grounds” can be discussed at those meetings. My question is about what would happen if the child has questions: should those be noted or dealt with, or should that wait until everyone is in the room together? At present, there is no stipulation that the meeting will be noted or recorded. Therefore, what evidence would there be of what has gone on? It is really important that everyone understands what those meetings are about and that, across the country, there is a consistency, whether someone is in the Borders, the Highlands or anywhere in between.

Amendment 53 seeks to ensure all regulations laid in respect of changes to the grounds hearing system—namely changes to the role of the principal reporter and changes to the process of putting grounds to a child—are subject to the affirmative procedure, to ensure that the appropriate level of scrutiny is applied to these fundamental rights of a child. The amendment would ensure that any regulations that are drafted under section 14 of the bill would be subject to the affirmative procedure, which would allow for proper parliamentary scrutiny. I ask the committee and the minister to support my amendments and look forward to hearing the remarks.

I move amendment 50.

I welcome that the minister accepts amendment 115. I will not press amendment 77 today or move my other amendments, and I will take the opportunity to consult with the minister and others before stage 3.

I am not absolutely sure that I agree with everything that the minister has said today about legal representation. There are still gaps in the system and many young people are not getting the appropriate representation that they deserve, but we can have those discussions in private and at stage 3.

Amendment 77, by agreement, withdrawn.