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On 18 October, I wrote an open letter to children and young people to provide an update on the bill, which explained why we are seeking to amend it and how it will apply to them. We are also keen to continue our work on communicating directly with children and young people and, obviously, with stakeholders. We have touched on communicating and working with stakeholders in previous responses but, if Ms Wells would like further information on that, my officials and I can go into it in further detail.

There is a real need for us to work with children and young people and ensure that any communication is child friendly—that is very important. That is one reason why we have the rights-respecting schools award, which is available to all state schools in Scotland. We also have a communications group that is helping us to develop our approach. We have, for example, Young Scot working on a social media campaign for young people, and we are grant funding the Children’s Parliament to help raise awareness of children’s rights among children and young people. We also have a guide for parents, carers and family members that will be updated when, with the will of Parliament, the bill is passed and, as I mentioned, there is the Clan Childlaw funding. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland will play a central role, too, but it will be very much up to the commissioner to decide how to take that forward.

Once the bill becomes an act, the process will become more legalised. Even without the bill being passed, we are taking it into consideration in legislation that we are working through at this stage, to ensure that things are UNCRC compliant. Other members might wish to amend bills in various ways—that is not an issue for the Government—but this is certainly something that the Government is already looking at. The bill brings it into legal focus.

Thank you, convener, and I thank Arden for the question.

Now that we have gone through the bill process, and as we look forward to what will come next, after it is passed—as, I hope, it will be—it is important to ensure that children and young people remain very much at the heart of everything that we do. It is also important that we remain focused on the dialogue that we are already having with children and young people, and that we keep it going. For example, one of my most recent meetings on the subject was with two members of the Scottish Youth Parliament—not the Children’s Parliament, where Arden is—to talk about the issues that are in the bill and, importantly, about the steps that will happen next.

We need to ensure that we give children and young people much greater awareness of their rights, and we currently have a number of funding streams to ensure that that is happening. As I said in my opening remarks, that will, we hope, help Arden and others to look not just at where we have had to change the legislation at the reconsideration stage regarding the compatibility duty but, more widely, at their rights and how to ensure that those rights are being respected and observed.

A great deal of work has gone on and will continue. I and other cabinet secretaries and ministers meet Children’s Parliament and Scottish Youth Parliament representatives, and we have the Cabinet takeover as well. For a number of years, the UNCRC has been one of the issues that they have spoken about. It is for them to decide on the topics that they address, but I would be surprised if that discussion does not continue.

The timetable for the bill is up to the Parliament but, if it is passed by the end of the year, it will commence by mid-2024. By then, public authorities will have had an extra two and a half years to get ready for the compatibility duty, during which time they will have had access to a growing range of national training and support.

I hope that the six-month commencement date is not unreasonable, but it is important that we continue to work with public bodies to ensure that we support them in the process and that we look carefully at their concerns and any implications that there might be.

When the bill was introduced, it did not have a commencement date but, if my memory serves me correctly, I think that it was included at stage 2. It is unlikely that we will be able to amend the commencement date at reconsideration stage, as it is not something directly to do with the Supreme Court judgment, which is what the amendments are all about.

Again, it is up to the Presiding Officer to decide the issue. However, the date is already in the bill, and the parts of the legislation that we are not seeking to amend as a result of the Supreme Court judgment will stand.

Looking into the matter has been a complex process. One of the reasons for that—as I also said in my opening remarks—was very much our wish and desire to ensure that we still had the maximum coverage possible.

That is why we looked at a number of avenues to see the different ways in which the bill could be amended. Those provided, for example, further coverage, but increased the level of complexity in the bill, which—as the committee heard—was a concern. We tried very much to hold to the intentions of the original bill that was passed in order to seek as much coverage as possible.

During the intervening period, there has been careful line-by-line scrutiny in the Scottish Government of the Supreme Court judgment. There has been a great deal of engagement with the UK Government, which initially included engagement with the Secretary of State for Scotland, to see whether there was any willingness to do this in another way—for example, to change the devolution settlement to allow the bill to remain as it was originally passed—but the Secretary of State was not willing to consider that.

We have had a number of periods of stakeholder engagement in which we went through the options that we could provide. The drafting element then came in. There has been very close working about the specifics at lawyer-to-lawyer level, with the Office of the Advocate General, because we were keen to get as much assurance as possible that what we were doing would provide the maximum coverage but would not carry the risk of another Supreme Court referral.

Once I had taken a policy decision on where we wanted to go with the different options that were available, those were tested with stakeholders, and the detailed amendments were shared with the Office of the Advocate General. The two Governments were doing that important work at lawyer-to-lawyer level, because I wanted the bill to have the maximum impact while also reducing the risk of another Supreme Court referral.

I hope that I have talked the committee through the process, but I am happy to go into further detail on any of the steps, if the committee would find that useful.

Thank you and good morning, convener.

I am grateful for the committee’s careful consideration of this important bill. As the committee is well aware, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill was passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament in 2021, but could not receive royal assent due to its referral to the Supreme Court by the United Kingdom law officers. The Supreme Court judgment has significantly impacted on our ability to legislate for human rights in Scotland, although I stress that we very much respect the Supreme Court’s judgment.

In amending the bill to address the judgment, I tried to balance three considerations: protecting children’s rights to the maximum extent possible; minimising the risk of another Supreme Court referral; and making the law as accessible as possible for users. I reached the conclusion that the maximum effective coverage for children’s rights in the present devolved context is for the compatibility duty to apply only when a public authority is delivering devolved functions that are conferred under acts of the Scottish Parliament or common-law powers, which means that it will not apply when powers are delivered under acts of the United Kingdom Parliament, even in devolved areas.

The duty to read and give effect to legislation in a way that is compatible with the UNCRC requirements, and the power to strike down incompatible legislation or to issue an incompatibility declarator, will apply only in relation to legislation originating from the Scottish Parliament. The Supreme Court judgment means that this Parliament’s power to give the courts remedial powers is limited by the mere fact that existing statutory provision happens to be in an act of the Westminster Parliament, even when such powers concern matters on which the Scottish Parliament could—and frequently does—legislate.

That has resulted in a disappointing loss of coverage for children’s rights compared with what we had originally hoped to achieve. Although we have tried to minimise complexity in the approach that we have taken, the Supreme Court judgment means that the duties will not be straightforward to understand, as we had hoped them to be.

However, the bill will still provide legal protection for children’s rights that is not currently available in Scotland or, indeed, in any other part of the UK. We should also remember that, although the sections of the bill that are impacted by the Supreme Court judgment are powerful provisions, other important provisions in the bill will mean that children’s rights are respected in the first place and will help to ensure that our statute book is fully compliant with the UNCRC requirements.

The bill requires Scottish ministers to set out and report on how they are giving further and better effect to children’s rights regardless of whether the compatibility duty applies, and for listed authorities to prepare and publish similar reports.

The bill also requires the Scottish Government to carry out a child rights and wellbeing impact assessment for decisions “of a strategic nature” and, when it introduces any new Scottish legislation, to make a statement about its compatibility with UNCRC requirements.

The more limited scope of the compatibility duty means that it is even more important to create a lasting cultural change about children’s rights. I am confident that we can deliver that as a result of the more widely spread support that we are putting in place. That includes a model child-friendly complaints process that can be used regardless of whether the compatibility duty applies, and a wide range of support, training and guidance for public authorities on taking a children’s rights approach.

In the context of the current devolution settlement, the most straightforward way to give children and young people the human rights protection that they deserve is for the UK Government to incorporate the UNCRC into UK law. We have an important opportunity to lead by example, by passing the bill.

I very much recognise the points made in evidence that was given last week. My officials and I have been having the same types of discussions with public bodies. As I have said previously, I recognise that the bill is a complex piece of proposed legislation, and it will become more complex if the amendments are passed. Regarding the evidence that was given last week, I assume that the request for detailed sector-specific guidance is a request for us to set out how policy and practice in a particular area need to change to become UNCRC compliant. The evidence from Andrew Tickell was very pertinent in that regard. He described how the UNCRC did not lend itself to a list of rules; it is more a list of principles that need to be interpreted, and that makes sector-specific guidance difficult. It is for the Scottish courts to decide, when cases are brought to them, what constitutes a breach in the context in which services are being delivered.

However, I recognise that we need to support public authorities, and there are a number of ways in which that will be done. There will be non-statutory guidance on taking a children’s human rights approach, which will be available by the end of the year for those involved in public service delivery in Scotland. We are updating external child rights and wellbeing impact assessment templates and the external guidance, and the UNCRC innovation fund is available. By summer 2024 we will have a national child rights, skills and knowledge framework in place, which will provide a single point through which to access new and existing training resources on children’s rights for a wide range of sectors.

There is also the statutory guidance that is contained in the bill. The bill requires Scottish ministers to issue guidance to support public authorities to comply with the compatibility duty and to promote children’s rights and respect in practice. A group has been convened to consider the development of that statutory guidance, and that will include a framework for reviewing compatibility. We cannot consult on that draft guidance until the bill is finalised, but we are keen to move on that at speed afterwards. So, we have some non-statutory guidance, the statutory guidance and some of the work that we are funding—for example, in the Improvement Service—to assist local authorities.

I very much recognise the concern about the complexity as it stands. We are keen to work with COSLA, SWS and others to see what more can be done in that area. It may not be sector-specific guidance, as they talked about, but we recognise the concern and are keen to work with everybody to deal with that.

I think that that question may be from one of the members of the Scottish Youth Parliament that I met last week. Forgive me if it was not but, if there are not two Ellies involved, I think that it was. We talked about that issue last week, which is a really important aspect of the process. We recognise that some acts are in scope and that some are not. At that time, we talked about looking at what is most important for children and young people, and I was keen to pick up on their suggested ways forward. Myriad acts will be outwith scope and we have to think about how we best take the work forward and what the priorities for children and young people are. If we are looking at moving acts into Scottish parliamentary debate and therefore within scope, that will not in any way involve a short time period.

As I said last week, we will continue with our suggestion that we work together to look at where, for example, there is a potential for greater inequalities to arise if we have some acts that are outwith scope, and at where the priorities are for children and young people. We are keen to start the work in that area. I am sure that we might get on to further questions about audits and so on in due course, but, as part of that work, we need to involve children and young people right from the start and find out what their priorities are, because that will take some time—and much longer still after that to then implement. I am keen to work on their priorities and to put them at the front and centre of what we are doing.

As I mentioned to Mr O’Kane, decisions on future funding will be a matter for the budget process as we go forward, and I look forward to the committee and, indeed, all political parties coming forward with suggestions—preferably costed—to see whether we can move on this area as well as on others.

However, the question, again, highlights a very important point. I will not repeat myself, convener, as I think that I touched on some of this in my answers to Mr O’Kane, but it points to recognition of the fact that, just because the act has been passed, that does not mean that this is all over. When I met the members of the Scottish Youth Parliament last week, it was explained to me that this is, in many ways, only the beginning—although it might not feel like that to some of us who have been around this process for some time. We are keen to look at the range of support that is in place to ensure that it is working effectively, and we are also keen to work with children, young people and public bodies to ensure that we are looking at what more needs to be done.

I have already mentioned the UNCRC implementation programme. Clearly it will need to continue as the provisions in the bill are commenced—I hope, next year—and we will continue to work with public bodies, children, young people and their representatives to build on the comprehensive support that has already been provided, for example, through the rights-respecting schools awards, the funding for Clan Childlaw and the funding for the Improvement Service.

We have recognised that putting the bill into practice once it becomes an act is important. A piece of legislation is just that: it is a piece of legislation. How we support children and young people and public bodies so that it becomes genuinely meaningful is the important part.

In my previous answer, I talked through some of the funding work that is already in place to support that. Obviously, work on implementation will need to continue once the bill becomes an act, if Parliament sees fit to pass the amendments. We are very clear that that work will have to continue.

Budget discussions will take place as part of the normal discussions that we do in relation to the budget, but we are keen to work with local authorities and other public bodies to ensure that we get the maximum effect out of the bill and that it is genuinely meaningful once it becomes an act. I recognise that that work does not stop if and when the bill is passed.