Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2026 [Draft]
::I will begin by picking up on what we have heard this afternoon, starting with the Education, Children and Young People Committee’s work, which has been very important. We have heard it referred to throughout the contributions, including those from members of that committee. I was not a member of the committee when it took evidence on the bill. However, it is clear to me—particularly now that I have been inducted into the committee’s lengthy meetings on Wednesday mornings—that the committee spent a lot of time looking forensically at the detail of the evidence that was presented, and that is reflected in the report. We also heard about that work from Willie Rennie, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the committee’s convener.
That was about ensuring that there was strong scrutiny of the bill—Daniel Johnson was put under that scrutiny so that he would explain how he felt the bill would progress—and that the voices of campaigners were heard, as we have heard already, as well as those of teachers and other school professionals who have concerns. I know that Daniel Johnson will turn to those points in his closing speech, but we also have an opportunity, as the bill progresses, to address some of those points more fully.
In reflecting on some of the process that sits around the bill, what Daniel Johnson said about the non-Government bills unit was correct. That unit is the unsung hero of Parliament in ensuring that bills are well drafted and well considered and that they can be brought to Parliament for scrutiny and for us to discuss the issues, decide on the general principles—as we will this afternoon—and then move forward into the subsequent stages.
In opening, I reflected that I worked for Enable Scotland for seven years. In my time there, we produced a number of important pieces of work and reports on seclusion and restraint in schools and the abuses that have happened, which we have heard reference to this afternoon. However, Enable tried to look more widely at the school experience of children and young people who have a learning disability, autism and neurodivergence. We tried to reflect on their experience and, crucially, how we could make it better for them and for their parents.
I remember a statistic that came from the report “#IncludED in the Main?!” At that point, the hundreds of parents and carers of young people with a disability whom we surveyed said that they found their experience of the school system stressful and a battle—those were the words that were used—and that they felt alone and cut off from decision making. That is probably what has been reflected most in this afternoon’s debate.
We are trying to set things right for children and young people who have experienced the inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint, but we are also trying to support parents and carers who face daily challenges and often find it hard to get to the truth of what is happening to their children and young people and to move beyond that to build a strong relationship with those who, as Daniel Johnson said, are in loco parentis.
I hope that, as a result of agreeing today that the bill should proceed and as a result of the work that we will do to progress the bill to stages 2 and 3 and put it on the statute book, when we return to Parliament in the next session, we can look back and reflect on the work that will be carried out in our local authorities, in the hope that we will have reduced the burden that parents have felt. We hope that there will be fewer parents who describe their school experiences as stressful or a battle or who feel alone or cut off.