Meeting of the Parliament 19 March 2026 [Draft]
I pay tribute to Scotland’s care-experienced community. We would not be here without the incredibly powerful political movement that they built, which was ultimately impossible for politicians, Parliaments and Governments at all levels to ignore. That is the only reason why we are here to pass the bill.
The bill is not everything that our care-experienced community deserves, but it makes huge progress. We will need to return to the issues and there will need to be at least one more bill in the next session. As members have highlighted, in general, child law is pretty hopelessly fragmented. At the very least, the great many acts that have been passed by the Parliament, and by the Westminster Parliament before the Scottish Parliament was formed, will need to be consolidated. I am still frustrated that the review of legislation on the care system will come only after the bill is passed, when there could have been an opportunity to make a great many of the obvious changes that I think will be in the review’s conclusions.
Nonetheless, the Scottish Greens are proud to support the bill. It is a stronger bill because of the Parliament’s work. It establishes the right to independent advocacy, which is huge progress. I am glad that we succeeded in defining what that means in the amendments that I lodged at stage 2, as well as the amendments from Nicola Sturgeon and the minister at stage 3. I believe that we now have a far more operable and effective definition.
Yesterday, we added non-instructed advocacy for children’s hearings. It cannot be right that, for reasons of age or incapacity, some children who cannot speak for themselves are at risk of missing out on advocacy in the most critical of settings.
Ministers will now be required to publish corporate parenting guidance, which will need to include information on the provision and renewal of training. Although that sounds dry, it is incredibly important when we think of the critical role that councillors will play in delivering the Promise. Councillors are the leaders of local government and have direct responsibility for looking after so many children in our society.
We can all acknowledge that we came to a relatively untidy solution on UNCRC compliance, but it was the right solution. Everything that we do in the Parliament must be underpinned by, and compliant with, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I am glad that we came to the decisions that we did on that.
I thank the minister for the work that she has done throughout the process in agreeing to take forward work to look at the situation of estranged young people across Scotland. Not all estranged young people are care experienced. In fact, many find themselves, in the first moments of adulthood, almost totally ineligible for any form of support, or they might be unaware of what support they can access. In that regard, I pay tribute to Councillor Blair Anderson. As I said yesterday, there are no organisations left in Scotland that are dedicated to representing the estranged community—only Blair Anderson plays that role. As a result of the work that he has done, we have a commitment from the Government to take forward work on the issue. That must be on the agenda in the next parliamentary session.
Before I close, I thank the minister for her work and her willingness to collaborate on the bill, as well as all the work that we have taken forward together throughout her portfolio. There is no doubt about how deeply she believes in the mission to make Scotland the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up. I wish her and her family well in whatever she chooses to do after she leaves the Parliament.
I also thank Nicola Sturgeon for her leadership in this and so many causes that are core to what many of us believe that this country can be. Being the then Deputy First Minister’s temporary bag carrier in 2014 was possibly the most nerve-wracking job that I have ever had or will ever have, but I am grateful for everything that Nicola Sturgeon has given to Scotland and, in particular, everything that she has given to our care-experienced community and the impact that that has made on them.
The bill is one more step towards meeting the Promise to Scotland’s care-experienced community. It is an opportunity for the Parliament to prove that love is a verb. Above all others, we have a duty to show love to Scotland’s children and young people. For far too long, the state failed to show that love to care-experienced children and young people. The past 13 years have been a journey to make amends for that, and this is just one more step on that journey. Although it is far from the final step, it is an important one. For that reason, the Scottish Greens will be proud to vote for the bill at decision time.