Hansard

I am pleased to join the welcome in the chamber for the bill, following the committee’s report. As members from other parties in the chamber will, my Labour colleagues and I will support the general principles of the bill.

It is worth spending a little time on the context of the bill. Last year, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of this Parliament, and there was a fair bit of debate about what has been the biggest, boldest or most controversial legislation that we have passed. Actually, a lot of what we have done has been consensual and has been passed quietly but with great care, and a lot of it has been about protecting people, especially children and vulnerable people—although Liz Smith was right to say that such legislation can be complex, even though it is consensual.

The first non-emergency act that the Scottish Parliament passed did just that. The Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, which I had the privilege of taking through Parliament with the Minister for Justice, Jim Wallace—happy days indeed—took incapacity legislation, some of which was centuries old, and replaced it with what was, at the time, the most modern legislation of the type in Europe. It was exactly designed to protect people who are rendered vulnerable by disability, illness or age.

The 2000 act has been notable for two things. First, it created a system that is unique to Scotland and Scottish needs, and secondly, although it is not often acknowledged in commemorations of our work, it has, in the intervening years, been used by almost every family in the country. Sometimes the quietest legislation is the most effective.

Disclosure is a bit like that. Over the years, we have taken the legislation that we inherited—the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Police Act 1997—and built on it through the creation of Disclosure Scotland, the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Acts 2007 and various amendments to ensure compliance with human rights. We have worked, as a Parliament, quietly and without fanfare over time, to ensure that Scotland has the right processes to protect Scotland’s people. It is simply the next stage in that that brings us here today. Like the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, these quiet legislative waters run deep.

The committee heard in evidence from Disclosure Scotland that the PVG scheme now has 1.2 million members. Therefore—this is especially the case for members of the committee—any time that we feel that this is all a bit dry, technical and complex, we need to remind ourselves of how important the system is in protection of vulnerable people in their contact with adults, in both professional and voluntary capacities, through every imaginable aspect of life and society.

As for the consequences of getting that wrong and the system failing, we need only to look across this city to the historical child abuse inquiry to hear exactly what happens when we fail to protect children and other vulnerable groups, and just how much hurt and suffering ensues. Those are not bad things that happened somewhere else—somewhere dangerous. They happened right here in Scotland, and in the very places that were supposed to be places of safety. That is a constant reminder that it is so important that we get the legislation right.

It is no wonder that a bill to modernise child protection laws and to strengthen protections for vulnerable adults has been welcomed—as members have said already—by a broad range of organisations that responded to the consultation and provided evidence to the committee.

As the convener has said, the committee supported the general principles of the bill, but said that

“there are a number of areas within the bill which will require further clarification and consideration”.

The question how the bill will interact with other legislation is crucial—in particular, acts that have recently been passed by the Scottish Parliament, including the Management of Offenders (Scotland) Act 2019 and the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019. We still await answers to that question that will tell us, in detail, how the bill will do that. I think that the minister has, however, made a welcome commitment to lodge amendments at stage 2.

Labour will seek a commitment from the minister to publish an analysis of interactions with other legislation before the bill is enacted—assuming that it is passed into law. Ministers should also look again at the evidence that was provided to the committee, to ensure that the right balance is struck between protecting vulnerable groups, providing information for appointments to sensitive roles, respecting individuals’ rights to privacy, and allowing individuals to move on from offending behaviour. Sometimes the relationships between those things are difficult.

That is why we think—my colleague Daniel Johnson will say more about this—that consideration should be given to there being greater clarity about the principles that are to be applied. Again, I welcome what we heard from the minister earlier about that, although clearly we will have to see the detail on how she intends to try to deliver it.

It is also important that the bill ensures that the proposed changes to the system are user-friendly for organisations and for individuals, but it is clear from the evidence that we received that some work is still to be done. The disclosure system has to be easy to understand—in particular, the relationship between regulated work and regulated roles. As Liz Smith said, that was a clear theme in evidence to the committee.

At stage 2, I would like the committee to examine regulated roles further, so that organisations such as Shared Lives Plus, which supports adult carers, could be given parity with foster carers who care for children.

Next week will see the launch of the care review. Once the bill has been passed—as, I am sure, it will—we urge the Scottish Government to review the impact of the legislation on people who are care experienced. The committee convener spoke about one piece of evidence that we received, but we also heard other evidence about various aspects of the legislation and how they might have particular and disproportionate impacts on care-experienced young people who are building their lives and futures.

All that will be in the detail of the next stage, after 20 years of quietly but effectively improving protection of vulnerable Scots. We are sure that the bill will do that too, so the principle is certainly one that we will support this evening.