Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee 16 December 2025 [Draft]
I thank colleagues for their amendments in this group and for allowing us to have a wider debate about the scope of withdrawal rights and whether those should apply to religious education.
No issue in the bill better represents the complexity of the issues that have been brought up in the process. It is frustrating that we are having this debate at stage 2 and at a point where we have only three months of legislative time left in this session of Parliament given that it would have been preferable to work through the details more broadly.
I recognise, as I am sure many colleagues do, the frustration felt by many religious, moral and philosophical studies teachers at the idea that their discipline is somehow unique and that it is acceptable for a pupil to be withdrawn from that academic subject when that cannot happen with other subjects that are taught in school. Those teachers are subject professionals and are educating our children and young people with vital knowledge about religions and belief systems and about the encounters that those young people will have with those systems in the wider world, while equipping them with the skills to interrogate different moral and belief systems.
All of that is true in non-denominational school settings, but my significant concern is that the amendments do not seem to take cognisance of the different religious education that is offered in denominational settings. In Scotland, we find that predominantly in the Roman Catholic sector, although we find it in the Jewish and Episcopalian sectors as well.