Meeting of the Parliament 14 January 2026
I am pleased to speak in the stage 1 debate on the Children (Care, Care Experience and Service Planning) (Scotland) Bill—or the triple C ESP bill, as it was described to me the other day.
As much as the bill is a welcome addition to the plethora of just-in-time bills that are being introduced in the final weeks before we break up for the election, it would be remiss of me not to say that, although it first held so much promise, it is unfortunately not what we hoped for. Collectively, we were hoping for a Promise bill that made all the legislative changes required to fulfil the actual Promise, but alas, the bill in front of us is a little lacklustre with regard to that initial goal. I make no apology in saying that, as much as the bill is a step in the right direction, I cannot help but see the potential that was omitted from it, which unfortunately hides its good intentions.
We all know that the next Parliament will need to introduce another bill to make good on our agreed cross-party position to make the necessary changes to keep the Promise by 2030. As I said, however, the bill is a step in the right direction.
Before I speak on the bill in depth, I thank the Education, Children and Young People Committee for all the work that it has done to produce the stage 1 report. I give thanks, too, to the clerks and other staff and to everyone who came to give evidence. It is a comprehensive report that stands us in good stead for the next stages as the bill progresses. I am sure that members know that we on these benches will support the bill at this stage and will vote for it in principle at decision time. However, we have some concerns, which we have already spoken to the minister about. I put it on the record that I thank the minister for the welcome engagement that she has had with us in that regard.
The bill needs strengthening as it goes through the stages—and certainly at stage 2—otherwise we will again miss an opportunity to take us towards that 2030 deadline. The Promise says:
“There must be an approach to care and support that is based on early intervention and prevention”.
I fully believe that, which is why I am concerned that the proposals in the bill are not sufficient for the very youngest in the process.
In its briefing for today, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children provided the most sobering of statistics. It stated that, of the 503 children with child protection order referrals received by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration in 2024/25, a quarter were under the age of 20 days—less than a month—at the date of receipt, 37.6 per cent were aged under one and 44.5 per cent were aged under two.
Working with babies is profoundly different from making decisions about adolescents with agency—indeed, babies are uniquely vulnerable.
The NSPCC further stated that
“the Bill as it stands does not account for the unique and specific needs and rights of babies and very young children. There must be specific and focussed attention given to meeting the needs of babies and very young children as without amendment to this Bill in a number of crucial areas, the rights of some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children will ... go unmet.”
We know that if brain development is properly nurtured in the earliest years, that will greatly enhance a person’s chances and prospects in later life, and that any delay to that is acutely detrimental.
The independent care review recommended a right to independent advocacy for care-experienced people, and access to independent advocacy in the children’s hearing system must be strengthened. That is essential. The Promise Scotland would like to see earlier access to advocacy for children. It states that
“to keep the promise, the Bill must include an extension to the offer of advocacy beyond the entry point to the Children’s Hearings System to children where voluntary measures are in place and provide clarity about the definition of ‘independence’”.
That is paramount. We need to know what the definition of “independent advocacy” is.
The briefing from Barnardo’s tells us that uptake of its own form of advocacy support, when the offer is made directly to the child or young person, is over 90 per cent and that advocacy needs to be offered at different stages of the process.