Meeting of the Parliament 14 January 2026
I have to make progress.
We are working with the UK Government on the best way to proceed. As I said, if progress has not been made by November 2026, we will review pre-devolution UK acts in devolved areas. However, I do not want to wait for that process to conclude before making progress on legislating so that, when people leave care, they have a legal entitlement to aftercare, with that being planned for before they reach 16. I also want us to do more to recruit and retain more foster carers, and I want more children to benefit from foster care. That is why we are legislating to create a new national register of foster carers.
I recognise that many people have called for the bill to do more for kinship carers, who do so much for increasing numbers of children, often with minimal amounts of support; for babies and very young children, whose voices are often impossible to hear or easiest to ignore; and for children who need their care to continue beyond their 18th birthday so that they have rights to expect that and do not find themselves on their own in young adulthood. People have also called for family decision making to be an entitlement, which could be a key intervention in preventing more children from moving into care or at least in allowing them to maintain contact with their families.
I reassure members that I am listening to and carefully considering all those asks and more, so that the bill that we pass before the parliamentary session ends is the best that it can be, given the time that we have to improve it and the resources that we have to deliver it.
However, the bill has ambition. It will make a huge difference to the lives of children and young people now and in the future. Through the bill, we are expanding the right to aftercare to more young people, giving every child in care the right to advocacy and ensuring that that right is a lifelong one, limiting the ability to profit from providing care, and requiring private foster agencies to be registered as charities in order to operate in Scotland.
The bill also seeks to transform key elements of the children’s hearings system—that uniquely Scottish approach, which we are all so proud of, that involves taking a community-based approach to supporting children who need support the most—so that it is fit for the demands that the 21st century is making of it. Crucially, the objective is to reinstate some of the system’s founding principles by trying to make it more streamlined and child centred.
I know that, in its stage 1 report, the Education, Children and Young People Committee set out some robust views on whether our measures in chapter 3 of part 1 of the bill will succeed in that aim, and I am considering what more we might do in that regard to address those concerns. I remain wholly committed to building on the work of the hearings system working group, under the leadership of Sheriff Mackie, and the on-going efforts of the children’s hearings redesign board.
In part 2 of the bill, we seek to extend the legislative requirement to be involved in children’s services planning to the integration joint boards. That will emphasise the importance of holistic, whole-family support by strengthening the relationship between children’s and adult services to plan for appropriate support for children as they transition into adulthood, which is particularly important for children who leave care and for disabled children.
This year, we will mark 20 years of getting it right for every child. That groundbreaking approach is as relevant to the work of national Government, local authorities and voluntary organisations now as it was 20 years ago, and it underpins the bill and our wider work to keep the Promise. We need to get it right for those children who need our support the most. The bill does not fulfil all our aspirations in that regard—no piece of legislation ever could—but it is more than a good start.
I will continue to listen, engage and reflect, including on what members say in the debate today. However, I hope that members across the chamber can come together to agree to the bill at stage 1.
I move,
That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill.