Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 August 2020
I remind members that I am a practising solicitor and hold current practising certificates with the Law Society of Scotland and the Law Society of England and Wales.
With the exception of amendment 35, we will vote for all the amendments in group 1. Amendment 35 is clearly well intentioned, as were Alex Cole-Hamilton’s amendments throughout stage 2. However, I am not persuaded that, in reality, it would serve a child’s interests in the way that the member believes that it would. First, a key pillar of the bill is that it seeks to improve a child’s opportunities to provide their own views whenever possible. My concern is that, by emphasising the importance of the child’s views on their
“personal relations with family members”,
amendment 35 risks positioning those views as being more important than any other views that the child might wish to express. My second concern is that, as with other amendments at stage 2, I am not convinced that amendment 35 is necessary, given that section 12 of the bill already includes reference to consideration of the child’s “relationships with other people”.
Given those points, it appears that, at best, amendment 35 is unnecessary and, at worst, it risks creating what Children 1st and Scottish Women’s Aid described as
“an inappropriate ‘hierarchy’ of views”
that any given child might like to express. Therefore, I encourage Alex Cole-Hamilton to withdraw amendment 35. If he does not, we shall vote against amendment 35 but for the other amendments in the group.