Meeting of the Parliament 25 November 2025
The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee raised and reported on that point. The 1980 act does not currently separate those two distinct parts of our education system, but that is something that we might wish to come back to and reconsider at stage 2. There were mixed views in stakeholder consultation as to how that might be addressed, with the parental right to withdraw perhaps not applying to certain aspects in the future. We need to be mindful of that at stage 2.
As Mr Whitfield will know, we are making good progress in this space in the curriculum improvement cycle. All of those things need to be considered in the round.
I turn now to part 2, to which Mr Cole-Hamilton referred earlier. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 requires public authorities to respect and uphold the rights that are set out in the UNCRC when they exercise functions under acts of the Scottish Parliament. The 2024 act places a clear duty on them not to act incompatibly with those rights, and it gives children and their representatives a route to challenge decisions and seek redress. To ensure that that duty operates fairly in every situation, the bill introduces a very narrow exemption: where another act of the Scottish Parliament leaves a public authority with no discretion to act compatibly with UNCRC requirements, the public authority would not be in breach of the duty for doing what the law requires.