Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 02 September 2020
I whole-heartedly agree with Jamie Greene that there will be “myriad technical ... questions”. I have wrestled with many of them in the course of the past couple of years, as we have prepared the bill.
The bill has been designed to try to avoid all the challenges that Mr Greene has set out; I stress the word “designed”. Parliament will have to scrutinise aspects of that to ensure that we have got the design architecture correct.
Mr Greene will know that by virtue of the Scotland Act 1998, this Parliament’s legislation must be compatible with the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention on human rights. That is a requirement of the Scotland Act that we cannot breach. We are required to act in a certain way, and the bill is designed to be compatible with that requirement.
There will, of course, be a range of issues in relation to which we cannot fully incorporate the provisions of the UNCRC because of reserved powers. There are a number of technical examples of that which, of course, we will happily explore with Parliament as we proceed with scrutiny of the legislation. However, we have designed a bill with the intention of enhancing protection of the rights of children and young people in our society, in a fashion that is compatible with the legal framework within which we must operate.
I will make a final point. Mr Greene talked about the role of the courts. I suspect that that will be an issue of some controversy, because members will be anxious to avoid legislation being challenged in the courts. However, in all honesty, one of the powerful elements of the bill is that it creates the opportunity for children, if there is the view that their rights are being infringed, to challenge legislation in the courts. That is an essential part of the approach that we are taking in the bill.