Hansard

PE2139, which was lodged by Maria Giordano, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce automatic expulsion for children who are charged on suspicion of committing a crime against another child.We last considered the petition on 28 January, when we agreed to write to the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. At that meeting, it was noted that the commissioner had not provided a response to the petition, but, following the meeting, the clerks became aware that a response had been provided, and, due to administrative error, the response had not been processed or provided to the committee in advance of the meeting. Mention of that was made at the meeting subsequent to the one when the petition was last considered.The response states that the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland shares the petitioner’s concerns about the potential for children who have been harmed by a peer to find themselves in the same classroom as the person who harmed them. The commissioner’s view is that such situations should be carefully managed to ensure that that does not happen and that, in some cases, it might be appropriate for an accused child to be excluded from school. The submission states that such situations require careful balancing of the rights of both children and that any decision should be made following multi-agency discussion, with an equal emphasis on the rights of all the children involved. That would require individual consideration, so the commissioner’s view is that a policy of automatic expulsion or exclusion would not be compatible with children’s rights.The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland has previously raised concerns about the lack of support that is available to child victims. The submission states that there is a lack of specialist support available in many areas, which can leave children feeling unsupported, particularly when contrasted with the type of close support that children who are in conflict with the law receive.I note that that aligns very much with the evidence received and the concerns that were raised during the committee’s consideration of petitions relating to youth crime, during which we undertook on-site visits to various parts of Scotland and met many young people—and their families—who had been affected in that way, all of whom felt that the attention was very much on the perpetrator, whereas they had very much been left to fend for themselves.In the light of the commissioner’s response, do colleagues have any suggestions as to how we might proceed and how the issue might be taken forward effectively in the next session of the Parliament? It is my view that there is an issue.