The campaign against the Scottish Government’s controversial Named Person scheme has taken its fight to the SNP’s front door.
This week, the No to Named Persons (NO2NP) group has been highlighting its concerns to delegates outside the SNP conference in Aberdeen.
The campaigners recently lodged appeal papers at the UK Supreme Court after Scotland’s highest court, the Inner House of the Court of Session, rejected their concerns last month.
Massive infringement
A journalist from The Guardian approached the activists yesterday to understand their issues with the scheme, due to be rolled out in its full statutory form in August 2016.
Speaking on behalf of the campaign, Tom Hamilton said it is a “massive infringement of civil liberties, human rights, and involves a huge amount of data sharing”.
Identifying at risk children is already like looking for a needle in a haystack – the answer to the problem cannot be to make the haystack bigger.
Tom Hamilton
He added: “There are several glaring problems with the Named Person scheme which the Scottish Government has so far failed to address or even admit.
“It is a mandated intrusion into family life and the grounds for intervention are set at the alarmingly low level of ‘wellbeing’ rather than welfare.”
Disturbing
The Guardian noted that one of the Scottish Government’s guides to the Named Person scheme states that children should have a say in what they watch on television and in how their room is decorated.
Mr Hamilton continued: “There is also the disturbing prospect that appointing a state guardian for every child will massively overburden the social care system, leading to vulnerable children being missed.
“Identifying at risk children is already like looking for a needle in a haystack – the answer to the problem cannot be to make the haystack bigger.”
Appeal
The Christian Institute, CARE, Tymes (The Young ME Sufferers) Trust, the Family Education Trust and concerned parents lodged the appeal against the legislation in the UK Supreme Court last month.
If the Supreme Court appeal is unsuccessful, the case could be taken to Europe.