Naming and Shaming – the Named Person Debacle
by David Robertson, Christian Today:
[…] It is wrong for anyone to claim that the Named Person scheme is “dead in the water”. I realise that when money, time and effort has been invested in a particular action there is a temptation to talk it up, for ourselves and our supporters, but we still have to be honest and measured. The fact is that, barring a significant change in circumstances, the NP scheme will go ahead. The Scottish Government has a clear majority in the Scottish Parliament and now this has been made a point of principle and pride, they will not back down.
Given that SNP MSPs are forbidden from disagreeing with any aspect of party policy and that their party discipline is so tight it is unlikely that any MSP will break ranks. So the government will change the legislation, tighten it up and then pass it in a form that the court will allow. At most, unless there is a major change of heart, the most that will happen is that it will be delayed for a few months.
However, this may turn out to be a real Achilles heel for the SNP, because it is a deeply unpopular policy and the court’s ruling will not help that. Hence the almost desperate spin being put on it by the Scottish Government.
It is also wrong for the Scottish Government to claim that the Supreme Court decision was in any sense a victory for them. By a majority of five to zero (which given that fact that cases that come to the Supreme Court tend by definition to be highly contested and controversial is itself extraordinary), without any dissent, the Court has declared that one of their Acts is illegal. This was as great a victory for the Scottish Government as Culloden was for the Jacobites, or Pearl Harbour for the Americans! The denial of their defeat and the attempt to spin it as victory does not reflect well on the SNP.
What is even more concerning is the potential harm that this legislation could have been used for. This is what the Supreme Court recognised. In a stunning citation as part of their judgment they declared: […]
Here we have the Supreme Court warning the government that it is in danger of behaving in a totalitarian manner. Why? Despite Nicola Sturgeon suggesting that the Named Person scheme is voluntary, it is not. It is a compulsory scheme. Every child in Scotland has to have a Named Person, whether they want it or not. This is not about targeting particular needs or dangers; it is about attempting to identify them by making it compulsory. A case can be made for this if it was only about preventing child abuse. But the Scottish Government has made the scheme about much more because they have made the NP responsible for ‘child well-being’. This creates an open door for abuse, because it is so ill-defined. This would not be the first time that well-intentioned legislation ended up being used for harm. What if the Named Person wants to enquire about what kind of values and views the child is being brought up with? Let me give one example.
In June of this year I was asked by Barnardos if my church would be willing to partner with them on the question of adoption. I was very interested in doing so and looked forward to the discussion, when I got a somewhat embarrassed phone call from their representative saying that they had been instructed from higher up in the organisation not to partner with us because we did not accept Same Sex Marriage. Imagine that. A child welfare organisation were prepared not to provide adoptions because of their ideology on same sex marriage! So much for the welfare of the children needing to be adopted.
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