Bills and Laws

Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill

Overview

The Bill as introduced aims to improve opportunities for disabled children and young people as they grow up. This Bill considers children to be under 18 and young people to be between 18 and 26.

Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP introduced the Bill because she thinks disabled children and young people need extra support to help them transition to adulthood. This will help them have the same opportunities as other children and young people.

The Bill would require:

the Scottish Government to have a strategy explaining how they are going to improve opportunities for disabled children and young people
a Scottish Government minister to be in charge of improving opportunities for disabled children and young people moving into adulthood
local authorities to have plans for each disabled child and young person as they move into adulthood

Johann Lamont introduced this Bill in Session 5, however the Parliament was not able to complete its consideration before session 5 ended and so could not come to a decision on whether or not to pass the Bill. This meant that the Bill fell.

Because of the short amount of time between the scrutiny of the Session 5 Bill and the introduction of the Session 6 Bill, the Education, Children and Young People Committee has agreed to consider the evidence received in Session 5 as part of its scrutiny.

The Bill fell at Stage 1 on 23 November 2023

Overview
Introduced
Stage 1 - General principles
Bill Falls

Stage 1 - General principles

Committees examine the Bill and gather views. They produce reports before MSPs debate the Bill in the Chamber. MSPs then decide on the purpose (“general principles”) of the Bill.

The Bill ended Stage 1 on 23 November 2023

Committee Examination

The lead committee for this Bill is the Education, Children and Young People Committee

Find out more about this committee

Submit your views

The Committee gathered views on the proposals in this Bill in four ways.

The surveys and consultations closed on 27 October 2022.

Read the responses to the call for views

Read a SPICe summary of the findings of the shorter survey (133KB, pdf) posted 06 January 2023

Read a SPICe summary of the findings of the detailed call for views (222KB, pdf) posted 06 January 2023

Read the response from the Scottish Government

Evidence to previous committee

In Session 5, the Education and Skills Committee took evidence for an earlier Disabled Children and Young People (Transitions to Adulthood) (Scotland) Bill. This Bill fell at the end of the session.

Evidence submitted for that Bill has been considered by the Education, Children and Young People Committee as part of its scrutiny of the Bill reintroduced in Session 6.

Read the evidence submitted to the Education and Skills Committee

Who spoke to the lead committee in the Parliament

MSPs met with people in committee meetings to discuss what the Bill will do.

Minutes of 1 February 2023
Minutes of 8 February 2023
Minutes of 22 February 2023
Minutes of 1 March 2023
Minutes of 26 April 2023 (in private)
Minutes of 10 May 2023 (in private)
Minutes of 17 May 2023 (in private)
Minutes of 13 September 2023 (in private)
Minutes of 4 October 2023 (in private)

In January and February 2023 the Committee held informal private engagement sessions with with Divergent Influencers who have been through the transition from child to adult services; and parents and carers whose children have been through the process and a visit to Buchannan High School in Coatbridge, meeting senior school pupils who will soon be leaving school; and the some of the transitions team who are supporting them, including teachers, social workers and the Home Link Education Officer. Links to the anonymised notes for these sessions and the visit are listed below.

Notes from the session with parents and carers, ARC Scotland (195KB, pdf) posted 13 February 2023

Notes from the session with young people (divergent influencers) hosted and supported by ARC Scotland (188KB, pdf) posted 21 February 2023

Notes from visit to Buchanan High School Coatbridge (156KB, pdf) posted 21 February 2023