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Colleagues will have looked at the financial memorandum; the concern that has been raised is not our understanding of how the provisions will operate in practice. It is worth saying that, in effect, the changes will align legislation with the existing guidance. To our mind, the current guidance does not provide that protection; that is why we are amending the legislation. However, we do not expect there to be an increased workload as a result.

I remind members—I know that you have taken extensive evidence on this—that we are not removing the parental right to withdraw. We are introducing a child’s right to opt back in. If anything, we will see more young people opting back into religious observance and RME, for example, so we do not expect that the bill will drive a workload in that regard, because we could have fewer young people opting out than has been the case in the past.

However, I link the member’s point to the points raised by Mr McLennan, because I am pretty sympathetic to the view that has been expressed to the committee that not all parents are aware of their legal rights under the 1980 act. Taking the bill through will help to draw attention to those rights, as will the updated guidance, and that will help to inform different approaches to policy and practice in schools and communication with parents.

The committee heard evidence on that point from Connect, which is the national parents organisation that the Scottish Government funds. I am happy to engage with Connect on those issues, because parents being aware of their rights around withdrawal is important.

Going back to the evidence that the committee has taken—I have heard a number of stakeholders express views—colleagues around the table will be aware that the policy memorandum looked at the issue. It is fair to say that views diverge on it, as the committee has heard is the case on a number of topics that the bill considers.

As part of the changes, we looked at removing parents’ right to withdraw a child from RME, which is what has been done in the equivalent curriculum area in Wales. In particular, we looked at the benefits of RME as an academic discipline for all pupils, as well as its important role in helping to promote community cohesion. However, during stakeholder engagement and in consultation responses, many different concerns were raised about restricting parental rights, so we decided that there was not sufficient support for such a change at this time.

Ms Chapman can correct me if I am wrong, but she made a point about putting RME on a statutory footing, which is not how the curriculum is currently delivered in Scotland. We have curriculum for excellence and our eight curricular areas, but we do not mandate certain parts of the curriculum. If we were to do that, the bill would be a much bigger piece of legislation than what is currently proposed, which is a bill that is very focused and technical in nature.

I am not diminishing Ms Chapman’s points, which cover an important issue. I discussed the matter with the Scottish Catholic Education Service yesterday, and I am more than happy for us to look at some of the work on it as part of the curriculum improvement cycle, which I mentioned to Mr McLennan earlier. I am usually in front of the Education, Children and Young People Committee talking about the cycle, which is led by teachers and involves updating our whole approach to the curriculum. I am more than happy to look at Education Scotland’s role in providing greater clarity on the issue, which I know has been raised in evidence sessions.

I do not think that I would have been allowed to introduce it if it was not compatible, so yes—and I have just checked with the lawyers. We will obviously have different opinions on these things, but what you have said is not our understanding.

We could have done that—it is fair to say that. The committee is probably aware that a range of areas were considered in relation to where some items would sit in the legislative space. The Government has decided to postpone the human rights legislation; there was another legislative vehicle that could have been used.

The bill that is before us represents the first opportunity and, as the minister, I do not think that I am permitted to sit back and make us wait. It is important that we act as soon as we are able to in this regard. I take the member’s point that there are different ways of doing things. Officials may wish to say more, but we view the bill as the first legislative opportunity to resolve the issues in the way that we have done. The committee has heard evidence on that.

For all the reasons that we have discussed this morning, we cannot wait—we need to make progress in this area. That is why we have a short, truncated bill. It is technical in nature, and it is very focused. I appreciate and accept that it could have done lots of other things, but there will be further work in relation to the UNCRC, as the committee will be aware.

I might pass that one to Joe Smith, as that sits within his team. I had to do quite a lot of engagement with the UK Government on the Education (Scotland) Bill, and I have to say that we worked very well together on sharing information and on the crossovers between reserved and devolved competencies. The dissolution of the Scottish Qualifications Authority was possible only because of that cross-Government working.

As cabinet secretary, I would say that that approach is applied to where we are in terms of children’s rights and the UNCRC, but I will defer to Joe Smith and the on-going work that is being led by Ms Don-Innes at the ministerial level.

I have been struck by the evidence that the committee has taken. Yesterday, I was looking again at the evidence sessions that the committee held. There is a wide variety of views on the subject.

I have been clear about why we need to act on the issues. As I have set out, part 1 of the bill is about the issues with the current legislation on RO and RME and the Scottish Government’s UNCRC obligations. On the one hand, we could go for the independent right to withdraw, which might appease some stakeholders that the committee has heard from, but it would not appease them all. I have therefore had to take a pragmatic approach that maintains parental rights to opt their children out of religious education or religious observance and puts the views of children into law. At the current time, that is not in legislation, and there is an issue around whether children’s views are listened to.

I was discussing with the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Catholic Education Service how headteachers deal with this all the time. They speak to and engage with parents and carers and, in my experience, that is a natural part of how schools engage with home. Headteachers are good at having such conversations, listening to views and balancing them, but the legislation is required for the reasons that I have set out. We have to chart a middle ground, which means looking at how we can bring stakeholders together.

In reflecting on the evidence that the committee has taken, I think that most of the stakeholders have been supportive of the bill being introduced. That is welcome, and we will continue to work with those stakeholders as we make progress with the legislation.

It is important to remind the committee that we are not proposing to provide young people with an independent right to opt out. If anything, the bill is about providing them with the right to opt in, because opting out can be driven only by parental decisions, which we are not changing.

Some of those issues are quite technical in nature, so I will ask my officials to answer with regard to the legal points.

I have engaged directly with the Humanist Society Scotland, and I am more than happy to sit down with Angela O’Hagan, too. I have been struck by some of the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s evidence, and I am more than happy to engage with it on these topics. I think that that would be a sensible route.

What I have been trying to do throughout all of this is find the pragmatic route. You are never going to appease everyone when it comes to some of these issues, because they are, by their nature, quite challenging, but we have to chart a course, for all the reasons that I have set out. We have already discussed part 1, but part 2 is about future proofing where we are. I am happy to engage with the stakeholders that Ms Gosal has mentioned, and I have already engaged with a number of stakeholders that the committee has heard from.

There have been conflicting views on part 2; indeed, that has been a theme that has run through the committee’s evidence-taking sessions. The member just cited evidence from Fraser Sutherland and the Scottish Human Rights Commission, but there was other evidence that countered what they said. For example, Together, which the committee also heard from, was quite supportive of the provisions in part 2 with regard to strengthening children’s rights.

I am quite surprised by the commission’s position on this, but I suspect that it might link to wider work in relation to the delaying of the human rights bill. Although I am sympathetic to the points that it raised, I think that this bill is needed and will lead to an improvement in children’s experience of their rights in education, which I would have thought that the commission would support.

Let us come back to the purpose of what we are doing. We are trying to stop a situation in which a public authority is forced to choose between two statutory duties—in other words, when it would breach either the compatibility duty or another legal obligation. That would mean in practice that, to avoid acting incompatibly, a public authority would have to pause or stop delivering a vital service.

We are not aware of any legislation that would require any incompatible action to be taken, but we are trying to future proof our legislation and make sure that such an issue does not arise in the future. The bill not only future proofs the frameworks but recognises that only the courts can determine whether legislation is compatible with UNCRC requirements.

I hear some of the critique that has been made, but we need to balance it with the opinions that were heard from other stakeholders.