Named person act provides safety net

Sir, Alastair Redman and the Tories ought to be ashamed of themselves. Child protection is far too serious an issue for political games and ill-informed scaremongering when we are considering children experiencing neglect or emotional, physical or sexual abuse.

The named person (NP) scheme is not about state guardians, Mr Redman. And nor is it taking away the rights of parents to raise their children.

It provides a go-to person to protect children from harm, because the uncomfortable reality is that the majority of harm occurs within the family home.

The truth is that any child can be at risk. Which is why all of Scotland’s major welfare groups plus the teachers’ union, the EIS – in other words, the professionals working with young people – have supported the Scottish Government’s roll-out of the scheme across Scotland this August.

The Tory party did not oppose the NP scheme when it was passed by the Scottish Parliament.

Their newly discovered opposition has more to do with old-fashioned hypocrisy and Tory political opportunism, whipped up and facilitated by a rabidly right-wing media, who think they can trip up the newly elected government, regardless of vulnerable children.

Here is a novel suggestion, Mr Redman. Rather than looking for political angles, how about giving a thought to the children at the heart of this matter? Ron Wilson, Secretary Kintyre branch SNP.