Hansard

I remind the chamber that I am the past convener of Together, the Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights.

As deputy convener of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee it is a privilege for me to open the debate on our report on prejudice-based bullying and harassment of children and young people in schools.

I offer the apologies of the convener of the committee, Christina McKelvie, who cannot be here today for personal reasons. I thank James Dornan and the members of the Education and Skills Committee for agreeing to make this a joint debate on our report and their recommendations on personal and social education which, as we will hear, is vital if we are to help children understand what healthy relationships and respect look like. The committees liaised closely during their work—an excellent example of how our parliamentary system can work to uphold the rights of young people in Scotland when we work together.

The debate is timely, as it takes place during national anti-bullying week. It is also set against the backdrop of recent revelations of bullying and sexual harassment in public life. Those revelations are uncomfortable, but they are important. They offer us the opportunity to make this moment a turning point in the life of our country, if we have the courage and the commitment to grasp it.

Last month, when speaking about those revelations, the Deputy First Minister said:

“it is the conduct and behaviour of men that need to change if we are to end ... sexual harassment”.—[Official Report, 31 October 2017; c 3.]

I agree with that entirely. The painful truth, however, is that we are only now reaching a critical mass of public debate around the issues, because of their recent exposure in the high-profile worlds of entertainment and politics. If we are to address that toxic culture, we must see the problem in its entirety.

As our inquiry shows, prejudice, bullying and sexual harassment are commonplace in our education system. It would be dangerously naive of us to think that our behaviour as adults in society is somehow unconnected to the learning environment in which we first began to socialise with others. Prejudice, bullying, harassment and the trauma that can result from them pose an enormous risk to the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s young people. That is why the aim of the committee’s inquiry was to put the voice of children at the centre of our public debate on those problems.

We heard from many brave young people who told us of their experiences at school, and the picture that they painted for us was a harrowing one. Like all pupils, they hoped for a school experience that would help them grow to their full potential, both academically and socially. However, for all too many the reality is that school life is an experience to be endured and from which significant trauma can result. They fight a daily battle in classrooms and corridors, on playing fields and online. Their primary goal is merely to survive their education, emotionally and psychologically, and then to come to terms with the trauma that they have been left with.

Our inquiry heard stories of racism, sexism, disability prejudice, religious and ethnic intolerance, homophobic bullying, hate speech, and physical and sexual harassment. Shockingly, we heard of many cases that included serious criminal offences, such as hate crime, assault and rape, taking place in the school environment. We were concerned to hear that many professionals in the education sector seem unequal to the challenge before them, but most troubling of all were the examples in which some teachers condoned or incited such behaviour among students, or were even the cause of it.

We received evidence that 27 per cent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex children in Scotland have attempted suicide because of bullying and homophobia. The measure of the task that is ahead of us is great and it is laid out in the representations that we received: One study showed that more than half of the requests made by disabled young people seeking additional support identified bullying as a contributory factor to their needs. Another study found than more than half of all Muslim children in Edinburgh encountered Islamophobia in school, with one third of them experiencing it directly in their community. Girlguiding Scotland told us that 59 per cent of its members aged 13 to 21 reported experience of some form of sexual harassment in school. All of that was reinforced by evidence that we took from organisations such as Rape Crisis Scotland, Children in Scotland, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights and LGBT Youth Scotland, and it should sound an alarm bell for us all.

Protecting the human rights of our children is central to their development. We should adopt a rights-based approach in all aspects of our education system. That is why our committee’s report called for a fundamental shift in the way we view this problem. Put simply, there is a children’s human rights deficit in our midst. We must meet that challenge head on and seek to build an adequate response to trauma recovery for those who have already suffered because of it.

Irrespective of the setting, be it council-run, faith-based, or independent schooling, it ultimately falls to the state to protect the rights of our children as they learn. We must recognise that the cost of failure is fast becoming a major public health and wellbeing problem. We must work collaboratively to address the problem with the same energy and cross-party commitment that we would for cancer care or domestic violence.

Failure to meet this growing challenge will be measured in increased calls on the public purse. We have already seen in the news that the United Kingdom Government might face litigation for its failure to prevent peer-on-peer abuse in schools in England.

The social cost of inaction is greater still through the loss of life chances, lower economic productivity, increased rates of depression, self-harm and suicide. All told, our report made 29 recommendations. I am pleased to say that the Government responded positively to them all, for which I thank the Government.

We are grateful to the Deputy First Minister for agreeing to put on hold the update of the national anti-bullying strategy, respect for all. That allowed us to undertake our work in a way that could influence the refresh of the strategy. We also welcome the Government’s commitment to keeping the strategy up to date and to refreshing it at least every five years.

However, we note the Government’s silence on our call for the public and the Parliament to be involved in the process. The committee is therefore anxious that, in today’s debate, the Deputy First Minister should provide clarity on how the Government will lead on driving change with the wider public and Parliament.

We also welcome the Government’s support for our call to make the reporting of bullying and harassment mandatory across Scottish education, and for all schools to have an actively inclusive culture. However, we fear that, although many key players, such as education authorities or the General Teaching Council for Scotland, might see the need for change in their individual silos, some might fail to grasp the full size, scope and urgency of the problem that is now facing Scotland.

This is why the committee believes that the full incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law would help to focus minds on driving the cultural change that we need to see in our society and give children access to justice when their rights are denied to them.

We also welcome the Deputy First Minister’s support for our call for all teachers to receive training on how to deal with bullying and harassment, and for children to be taught about consent, healthy relationships and equalities from their early years and throughout their school lives. I am sure that that sentiment will speak to the many contributions that we shall hear from colleagues on the Education and Skills Committee this afternoon.

The Equalities and Human Rights Committee will continue to hold to account all those who are responsible for protecting the rights of our children. We will assess progress on our recommendations as part of our work in 2018. I thank all my fellow committee members, our clerks and those who gave evidence.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the findings and recommendations in the Equalities and Human Rights Committee’s 5th Report, 2017, (Session 5), It is not Cool to be Cruel: Prejudice-based bullying and harassment of children and young people in schools (SP Paper 185) and the Education and Skills Committee’s 7th Report, 2017 (Sessions 5), Let’s Talk about Personal and Social Education (SP Paper 148).