Hansard

I am sure that the Presiding Officer does not want me to be so flexible that I take up the next two hours.

I begin by thanking everyone who was involved in the bill, from the policy development and consultation stages through to the preparation of the draft bill and the detailed scrutiny of the bill. In particular, I thank the bill team for steering the legislation through, and the Education, Culture and Sport Committee for engaging so fully in the process by scrutinising the bill in detail with the Justice 1 Committee. Once again, we have seen an example of how the Executive and committee members can work to improve legislation at each stage and ensure that we have a bill that is fit for its purpose.

The stage 1 debate demonstrated that there was unanimous support for the general principles of the bill. We have worked hard since then to resolve concerns about specific provisions. I am certain that members will want to comment on those issues during the afternoon's debate.

It is important to stress again why the bill is so important. Those of us who have worked in child care and who have followed the course of some recent inquiries, or those of us who have taken an interest since becoming members of the Scottish Parliament, will be all too aware of shocking cases of child abuse in which the perpetrators have been free to move on to other child care posts. We simply had to find a way of stopping that.

Despite other measures that have been put in place to improve safeguards for children—such as increased access to criminal record checks and the establishment of the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care and the Scottish Social Services Council—there was still a loophole that allowed some unscrupulous people to move freely from post to post. The bill will plug that loophole.

The protection of children is our top priority. However, during the stage 1 debate we acknowledged the need to achieve a careful balance of protecting children from abuse and protecting adults from inappropriate referrals. That is a difficult balance to strike and I hope and believe that the bill has done that. As I said in an earlier debate, it is a balance that many people who work in the front line of child protection must strike daily.