Scottish Government’s Named Person Scheme belongs in the dustbin of history

The proud Scottish Government will be the last to concede defeat in any plan they propose – even their most bizarre and ridiculous – so let usdoitforthem. Yes,theyhave finally brought forward new legislation after its Named Person proposals were declared unlawful by the UK Supreme Court in July 2016.

No, they will never declare the reality that their original draconian Big Brother proposals were a complete and utter shambles. Under their radical proposals, every child in Scotland was to be assigned a state guardian to monitor their “wellbeing”. This constituted a state-sponsored intrusion into family life – directly undermining the parent-child relationship… but they refused to see it.

The crazy scheme was approved by Holyrood as part of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, but an appeal against it was mounted by charities and individuals. Their campaign was successful when, mercifully, this grotesque Marxist scheme was thrown out the windows of Holyrood.

When it reached the Supreme Court, some 12 months ago, the sitting judges said specific proposals about information-sharing were “not within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament”. They ruled that some proposals breached rights to privacy and a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights, so quickly sent the Government homewards to think again!

Let us not forget one other claim which the judges made. They said that Scotland has been saved from a totalitarian curse! In their own words: “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in theirrulers’viewoftheworld… Within limits, families must be left to bring up their children in their own way.”

Let these words echo loudly in the ears of Holyrood politicians: families must be left to bring up their children in their own way. One wonders what our children would be like if they were left to be brought up in the ways of the Scottish Government. The scary thought belongs to the dustbin. The brown one at that.

DONALD J MORRISON Old Edinburgh Road, Inverness