Meeting of the Parliament 18 March 2026 [Draft]
Advocacy plays a vital role in enabling people to express their views and make informed decisions. It supports children and young people, and adults, to navigate complex systems and have their voices heard.
At stage 2, I lodged an amendment to ensure that care-experienced people are offered advocacy at the earliest appropriate opportunity. The committee agreed to the amendment, and I am grateful for members’ support for constructive engagement with the Minister for Children and Young People and The Promise since then.
Today, thanks to the help of the minister and her officials, I introduce amendment 116, which preserves the intent of the amendment at stage 2 but sets out further detail to strengthen how the provisions will work in practice. That requires regulations under section 4(1) to specify how care-experienced people will be made aware of the right to access advocacy. It also places a duty on the Scottish ministers to have regard to the desirability of a person being able to exercise their right at the earliest appropriate opportunity.
The principle of earliest appropriate access is important, but effective delivery depends on the practical details: deciding who informs the care-experienced individual, and when and through which channels, of their right to advocacy support; putting awareness-raising arrangements into regulations; and placing a duty on ministers to consider the desirability of early exercise of the right.
I recognise the diverse routes by which people enter, experience and leave care, and seek to support a flexible framework that can adapt as practice evolves.
Amendment 117 is consequential to amendment 116.
Care-experienced children and young people and adults must know about their right to access advocacy support at the right time. Ensuring early information and clear routes to early advocacy support is key to securing the right support up front. I believe that amendments 116 and 117 build on the amendment in my name that was agreed to at stage 2, and is an important step in our journey to keep the Promise in relation to the care community having the right to have their voices heard. I welcome the minister’s support, and I ask members to support the amendments.
On amendment 24, I lodged a similar amendment at stage 2 and received support from both the minister and many of my colleagues at the committee. However, through the vagaries of whip-controlled voting, the amendment was voted down by the committee—a mistake that needs to be rectified in the chamber at stage 3.
At stage 2, there was a great deal of discussion about the pros and cons of an opt-in model versus an opt-out model for advocacy services. Indeed, even those in the third sector, who have been instrumental in helping us to shape our views on this matter, have been split in their views. However, it is my belief, which I think is shared by the Government, that advocacy services should be offered on an opt-in basis for children in relation to care experience. I will briefly outline the reasons why, in my view, children should always be made fully aware of their rights and options but advocacy should never be forced upon them.
If we go for an opt-out model, children might feel pressured to have to share their story with yet another individual—a stranger whom they do not know and have no connection with. I have heard repeatedly in meetings with charities that work in the sector that children do not like having to tell their story multiple times, as that can cause upset, confusion and fatigue. It should, therefore, be a right—a choice—for a child to decide if they wish to use the services of an independent advocate, but they should never have to do so against their wishes.
Advocacy helps people to express their views and make informed decisions. Advocates help children and their families to navigate the complex landscape, and support them to make their own choices. To force advocacy on a person goes against what advocacy sets out to achieve, and it would be viewed with suspicion and not entered into fully or willingly. Making advocacy an opt-out would change the power dynamic, taking the power and choice away from the child, and many children might feel unable or uncomfortable when it comes to saying no to the advocacy that is offered.
Another reason for opt-in being the preferred model of service delivery is that opt-out could create a forced demand for the service of advocates. Aberlour, a national organisation that has been supporting fostering families since 2004, says that insisting on advocacy will add more professionals to a cluttered landscape—something that would be detrimental and would have negative rather than positive effects.
I say again that I am grateful to the minister for her meetings and for helping me with this, and I ask members to support my amendments.