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The Scottish Greens accept that, in many ways, the situation that we have in Scotland in which, as you outlined, we have such denominational positions, is almost unique. Although denominational schools exist, we need to have very clear mechanisms for ensuring that children and young people’s rights are protected, regardless of where they go to school. It is the principal position of the Scottish Greens that we should have a total separation of church and state.

The 1980 act conflates religious observance with religious education, also called religious instruction. Religious observance comprises those acts of worship when one faith is prioritised. Religious and moral education—RME—is quite different. Learning about diverse religions and belief systems is an essential part of a broad education in a diverse society. Children and young people have a right to a well-rounded education, and their parent or guardian should not be able to override that. Young people cannot withdraw or be withdrawn from maths, science, history or English. That is for good reason—those subjects provide key knowledge bases and the skills that young people need to be successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society, as the curriculum for excellence wants them to be.

Religious and moral education is similarly vital in our view, and teachers agree. Dr Douglas Hutchison of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland said:

“religious and moral education should be seen as a curricular subject in the same way as any other subject.”

He continued:

“the idea that in a liberal democracy there is no place in the curriculum for religious education and there should be a right to withdraw from it does not make sense in 2025.”—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 7 October 2025; c 27.]

I am aware of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland’s queries about how some of the amendments are worded, particularly in relation to the word “instruction”. The commissioner refers to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s general comment 20, which distinguishes between religious education and “religious instruction”, and states that there should be a right to withdraw from the latter, not from the former. The wording of amendment 9 was worked up collaboratively with the Scottish Government—for which I am grateful—but, ultimately, it reflects the original language of the 1980 act, and, as a consequence, the bill’s approach of amending that language rather than the alternative approach of re-legislating, which is proposed by the commissioner. I share some of those concerns about language, but I ask the committee to support the principle of my amendment 9 and its consequential amendments. I will work with the committee and others if we need to fix any wording for stage 3.

I move amendment 9.

I thank the cabinet secretary for taking my intervention. Given the point that I made about when an incompatibility issue could be raised—and given that, under the provisions in your amendments, such an issue could be raised only when there were live proceedings—what options will be open to public bodies to raise issues of incompatibility without there having to be live proceedings in place? Could that happen informally? Is there any mechanism for doing that?

I take on board your concern about having a statutory responsibility and about the threat of legal action one way or another, but there is an issue about pre-empting live cases and how we could prevent stuff from going to proceedings.

The child-facing version of the UNCRC states:

“I have the right to be listened to and taken seriously”.

However, the 1980 act allows children to be withdrawn from religious activities in schools without their consent and without their views even being taken into account. That is clearly contrary to the convention, and I welcome the opportunity to correct that with this bill.

However, the bill, as it stands, will allow a young person who has previously been opted out of religious activities by their parents to opt back in, but not to opt out themselves. That directly contradicts the Scottish Government’s draft children’s rights scheme, which states that children should be given

“the knowledge and confidence to use their rights”.

That rightly suggests that children should be able to use their rights proactively, rather than only after an adult has acted on their behalf.

The bill goes against the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, who, in her letter to the committee, explicitly said:

“Part 1 in its current form does not achieve compliance with the UNCRC.”

Her view is shared by others. The committee’s stage 1 report also noted that a majority

“supported amending the Bill to provide children with an independent right to withdraw from RO.”

That majority includes the Scottish Human Rights Commission and Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights). Indeed, Professor Angela O’Hagan of the Scottish Human Rights Commission told the committee that without such a right, the bill will fail to meet its basic aim of achieving compliance with the UNCRC. In the 2023 concluding observations from the Committee on the Rights of the Child in the UK, the UN also called for withdrawal requests by children and young people not to be subject to parental consent.

If all that was not enough, a Survation poll recently commissioned by the Humanist Society Scotland shows that 66 per cent of Scots believe that pupils should be able to decide for themselves whether to take part in religious observance. The majority of supporters of every political party agree.

It is central to the whole notion of the rights of children and young people that those rights should not be subsidiary to the actions of adults. By allowing young people to override their parents’ wishes but not proactively exercise their rights, the bill undermines its central purpose, which is to strengthen the fundamental rights to be heard, to be taken seriously and to be listened to.

I am grateful for the overwhelming support that I have received for my amendments from civic society, including people of faith and people of none. My amendments seek to give children and young people the right to exercise their rights under the UNCRC to choose whether to be subjected to religious observance. I urge committee members to follow the UN committee’s recommendations, the evidence that we heard during stage 1 and the overwhelming supportive information that we have received, and to support my amendments.

I move amendment 1.

I press amendment 9.

Will Tess White take an intervention?

There is a concern that the plan could have been more ambitious. If the local plans have that ambition, that may be more effective. I do not think there is disagreement about government setting the standards that are expected, but there needs to be an understanding that different public bodies and different listed authorities will need to work through those differently because of geography, rurality and all sorts of different things. It will be interesting to see progress on that in subsequent years.

I will leave it there because I know that others want to come in with questions on specific details.

In your opening remarks, Deputy First Minister, you talked about the national plan, how it is not static and how it needs to evolve and be built on as we go through. The correspondence that you sent the committee notes comments that we heard during the inquiry, which we highlighted in the report, about how the second national plan appears to be watered down. You partially accept that, but you give the space for building and evolving. Do you want to make any comments on the robustness of the plan? How do we make sure that it actually delivers and does not feel as though it is not as ambitious as it should be?

Yes. You talked about the engagement with BSL users during the development of the plan. That happened, but they were still disappointed when the final plan was developed. They thought that certain conversations had gone further than were reflected in the plan. The implementation advisory group that you talk about is one mechanism of ensuring that we cannot just tweak the plan, but make the next few years as ambitious as possible. We might tick all the boxes, but those boxes have to deliver meaningful change. I accept your point about education.

You highlighted this morning the high-level priorities of engagement and the reviewing of qualification guidance, which was really good to hear.

This may follow on from Paul O’Kane’s question. Given the need to support other public bodies, what is the role of engagement between the Government, other public bodies and BSL users? How do you see that triangle working? Where there will be disagreement or frustration because of resource allocations and so on, what is the role of engagement in making sure that the plan delivers for BSL users?

The rhetoric and the comments from so many people in this building and beyond—from duty bearers and those who support duty bearers—are about wanting to make the change and make the shift. I appreciate that you have not yet done your assessment of the position 12 months on from “Tick Tock”, but is there something that you can put your finger on now? I suppose that, if you could answer yes, you would have done that by now.

Is something blocking the cultural shift—the move away from the review, recommend and repeat cycle—in detention and so many other areas where that cycle applies? We know—or think that we know—where we want to get to, but there seems to be no pathway and there is a reticence to publish an attempt at that pathway. Eleven months on, we still have no response from the Scottish Government, for example. Can you put your finger on something or is it just that the cultural change—the refocusing and reorienting towards rights realisation in everything that we do—is a very big thing, so it takes time? The situation is incredibly frustrating.

Thank you. We look forward to reading that report.