Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee 16 December 2025 [Draft]
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.