Meeting of the Parliament 24 March 2026 [Draft]
I ask members to note my entry in the members’ register of interests.
As we come to the conclusion of today’s debate, I rise to offer the full support of Scottish Labour for the Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill. At its heart, the bill is about dignity, rights, protection and transparency for some of our most vulnerable children. The purpose of the bill is to minimise the use of restraint and seclusion and to ensure that such practices are used only as a last resort and only when there is an immediate risk of harm. The bill will place a statutory duty on ministers to issue national guidance, to set consistent national training standards and to require the recording and reporting of all such incidents to parents and guardians, ending the unacceptable inconsistency that has persisted across Scotland for too long.
The case for the bill was driven by families, campaigners and organisations that refused to let experiences remain unseen. Reports from the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, “No Safe Place: Restraint and Seclusion in Scotland’s Schools”, and Enable Scotland, “In safe hands?”, have made clear the scale of the challenge and the lack of proper systems for reporting and accountability. The findings are reflected in the fact that Scotland has fallen behind other United Kingdom nations, particularly Northern Ireland, in providing a clear statutory obligation to protect children in schools.
The bill is a culmination of more than a decade of uncompromising advocacy by individuals such as Beth Morrison and Kate Sanger, who fought not for personal recognition but to ensure that no other family would experience what they had to go through. Their tireless campaigning alongside the children’s commissioner, Enable Scotland, the National Autistic Society and others has ensured that children’s voices and their rights are now central to this legislative approach.
The Parliament should be in no doubt that the practices that we are legislating for are serious intrusive interventions that must be governed by robust rights-based and trauma-informed standards. That is what the bill will do. It will establish a clear legal duty, requiring all instances to be recorded and communicated to parents and ensuring that staff have access to high-quality training that is aligned with national best practice.
I will touch on a couple of contributions before I close. The first was from Douglas Ross, who has just sat down. It is always a pleasure to follow Douglas Ross. I note his incredibly useful confirmation that one of my party’s members attended a Conservative group meeting and will file that away.
As a wise parliamentarian, Douglas Ross acknowledged those who support us here. In this case, it was the non-Government bills unit, but there are many people around us who allow us to do our jobs. I will dwell on the comments he made as convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, because it is a tribute to him that he saw, in that committee, the ability to fulfil a role that is crucial for committees in a unicameral Parliament. Those who return in the next session could do a lot worse than to look at some of the reactions and strategies that the convener chose to use to hold the Government to account and consider the legislation that came before the committee.
Finally, I pay tribute to Daniel Johnson, whose determined and principled leadership has brought his member’s bill to its final stage. It seems that he is getting quite good at member’s bills, so let us see what the election brings, in the hope that he will be working on a Government bill next time.