Insult to those who fear for our children
EVEN Nicola Sturgeon admits there are ‘concerns’ about the SNP’s flagship Named Person policy, which will impose a state guardian on every child in the land from pre-birth to 18.
Yet in a blundering intervention Humza Yousaf, the party’s Europe Minister, has accused anyone with worries about the scheme of putting children at risk.
His is the latest SNP name added to an ignoble list of senior party figures backing the project to the hilt based on little more than a scant briefing from spin doctors.
Others more familiar with the detail of the scheme are aghast and Mr Yousaf came off worst when he tried to ad-lib it on BBC Question Time.
While wittering about ‘misconceptions’, Mr Yousaf clearly labours under several. He declared, inter alia, that Named Persons would not worry about what children eat. In fact, official guidance is they should chase up trivia about how children’s bedrooms are decorated and what they watch on TV. The SNP game-plan seems to be more about saving face – it never admits a mistake, let alone correct one – than safeguarding children.
Everyone agrees vulnerable children need protection. Yet the SNP refuses to see that the Named Person plan risks squandering scant resources on competent families to the detriment of genuinely at-risk youngsters.
The Isle of Man introduced just such a high-minded protection system only to find it was – despite massive resources – bogged down by sheer volume of futile work.
And the initial test phase of Named Person has not gone well.
Yesterday the mother of a toddler victim of cot death, repeatedly neglected despite being under the aegis of the scheme, was jailed for ten months.
And one of the first professionals appointed as a Named Person was previously found guilty of child sex offences.
So much for Mr Yousaf’s claims that criticism is mere hyperbole. He would serve the people of Scotland better if he were to look beyond the briefing paper Scotland’s slipperiest spin doctors prepared for him.
This newspaper is no supporter of the policies of Jim Sillars, but the veteran Nationalist has a refreshing habit of escaping the Nationalist hive mind and thinking for himself.
His take on Named Person is instructive. He calls it intrusive and warns it would not survive the line-by-line scrutiny it would face in Westminster.
The trouble is that Holyrood is packed by SNP placemen who are convinced of the party’s infallibility and are too indolent to exercise proper diligence.
Very many fair-minded, decent people whose only interest is the protection of children are very worried about the SNP railroading of this legislation.
Mr Yousaf has insulted every one of them.