Meeting of the Parliament 06 November 2024
I thank all members for their considered contributions throughout the debate. I am encouraged to hear that cross-party support to keep the Promise remains strong.
I will begin with Miles Briggs’s speech, the tone of which I welcome. He spoke about engagement on the proposed Promise bill, and I can say that, as with my work on Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, I am fully committed to engagement with other members on the legislation. If they have not already done so, they should receive an email inviting them to discuss it with me.
I fully appreciate the story that Miles Briggs recounted about kinship carers and the Social Justice and Social Security Committee—in fact, I think that I was sitting on the committee that day and heard those issues live. Those are issues that I hear regularly in discussions with kinship carers.
Kevin Stewart also mentioned kinship carers and the fear that they feel about asking for help. As I said, that theme has come up in conversations that I have had—most recently in my meeting yesterday with the Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland. I assure members who have raised the issue that I am determined to ensure that kinship carers feel supported and able to ask for that help. I know that Gillian Mackay was looking for an update on that. In the interests of time, I would be happy to provide that update following the debate.
I thank all members for their contributions, which were positive and, at times, challenging, as I expected. On the issue of siblings being kept together, I know that we still have work to do, but it is important to say that we are seeing an improvement in the number of siblings who are being kept together: an increase of 3 per cent demonstrates that we are moving in the right direction. However, as I have said, I know that we have further to go.
On inconsistency in local delivery, I am aware of the issues in that regard and am committed to improving the situation. I have seen the good things that are happening, but we need to ensure that they are happening all across Scotland.