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Keeping you up to date on the progress of the Named Person scheme and the NO2NP campaign.
Good news! Scot Gov finally scraps Named Person scheme
Posted 5 years ago
This afternoon Deputy First Minister John Swinney announced that Named Persons, with powers to grab and share your private information, will finally be scrapped.
The statement comes following the news that Mr Swinney’s ‘expert panel’ was unable to find a solution to fix the unlawful information sharing aspects of the Bill, which were struck down by the UK Supreme Court three years ago.
In a statement today Mr Swinney told the chamber:
“I am therefore giving notice of our intention to seek to repeal Parts 4 and 5 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, using a suitable legislative vehicle in due course.
“I believe that today we have taken an important step forward in providing families and practitioners with certainty about how information sharing can support wellbeing in a transparent way which respects the rights of everyone.
He confirmed: “The mandatory named person scheme for every child – underpinned by law – will now not happen. We will withdraw our Bill and repeal the relevant legislation.
“Instead, existing voluntary schemes that provide a point of contact for support will continue under current legal powers, where councils and health boards wish to provide them and parents wish to use them.
When pressed in the chamber to apologise to families across Scotland, Mr Swinney refused.
NO2NP spokesman Simon Calvert said: “We mustn’t forget that the Supreme Court ruled that Mr Swinney’s legislation breached the human rights of families, and he’s never apologised for that.
“He’s eventually done the right thing, but he has done a lot of damage to public trust over the last couple of years by trying to prop up the Named Person scheme.
“Nevertheless, this is good news for families all across Scotland and it’s a great relief for a lot of people.”
He continued: “The question now is what is the Scottish Government going to do to unpick all of the legally inaccurate training that it’s been giving to local authority and health board officials over the last five years?
“There’s a big job of work to do to make clear to those people that they don’t have the powers that the Scottish Government wanted them to have.”