 The next item of business is a statement by John Swinney on information sharing provisions in relation to part 4 and 5 of the Children and Young People's Scotland Act 2014. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of the statement. I call on John Swinney. Presiding Officer, improving the lives of all of our children, young people and their families is something that members of this Parliament have been working together to achieve for many years. Getting it right for every child has been the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes and supporting the wellbeing of our children and young people since 2006. Its core premise of offering the right help at the right time from the right people was supported by all parties then, and I still believe now. This Government remains wholly committed to applying the getting it right for every child approach as part of our determination to ensure that all of Scotland's children get the best possible start in life. The foundations on which getting it right for every child is built are the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Above all, it seeks to ensure that public policy and practice decisions are taken in the best interests of the child and delivers the Government's responsibility to protect and support families to nurture their children. The name person service is central to fulfilling the responsibility of Government and the wider public sector to enhance and support children's rights. The name person service is a simple but important concept that came from families themselves, that having a single named contact such as a health visitor or a teacher that you know you can go to for advice, information and support about any aspect of your child's wellbeing is helpful for children and parents. For practitioners, having that same clear point of contact at the core of a team of professionals and services around a child enables agencies and individuals to work more effectively together to better support, safeguard and promote the wellbeing of children and young people. It makes available access to early support for all families because, although it can be clear in some circumstances that help may be required, it is impossible in all cases to predict if or when a family or a child might need extra help. Whether families are faced with difficulties posed by the debilitating cycle of deprivation and unexpected diagnosis of a disability, a breakdown of family relationships or other challenges when circumstances change, there are clearly times when children, young people and their families benefit from a clear point of contact for information and support to help them navigate the system and to get the help that they need. As I made clear my statement to Parliament in September, this Government remains absolutely committed to the name person service as a way to support children and their families. On 28 July last year, the Supreme Court ruled definitively that the intention of providing a named person for every child to promote and safeguard their wellbeing was unquestionably legitimate and benign. The judgment itself did not require current policy to change and did not relate to current practice under getting it right for every child. A local authority or health board can continue to nominate a person to be responsible for the provision of services to a child, and organisations can, within the framework of the existing law, continue to deliver or engage with such existing or developing named person services. I want to reiterate my support for practitioners across Scotland who continue to live up to their commitment to develop and deliver a named person service to families in their local areas within the framework of the existing law. However, the Supreme Court judgment requires us to change the statutory provisions relating to one aspect of the name person service, and that is on information sharing. I believe that the aims of the policy justify broad support, and that, when the way forward on implementation of information sharing is accurately understood, it too will command support. The Supreme Court determined that ministers needed to provide greater clarity about the basis on which health visitors, teachers and other professionals who support families, will share and receive information in their named person role. It ruled that the information sharing provisions of part 4 of the Children and Young People Scotland Act 2014, as they were originally framed, are incompatible with article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and that changes are needed to make those provisions compatible with article 8 to ensure respect for a person's private and family life, his home and his correspondence. The Supreme Court judgment has provided an opportunity, therefore, to revisit the information sharing provisions in the 2014 act, in a way that will not only secure the protection of those rights, but will improve the name person service and reassure parents and practitioners and the wider public that that service will work with and for families. Since the Supreme Court judgment, I have led a three-month period of intense engagement. I have listened to parents, charities, practitioners and children and young people, and from those who support the name person policy and those who have concerns about it. Over three months, that engagement involved over 50 meetings and some 250 organisations and groups. That included around 700 young people, parents and carers, practitioners, professionals and leaders from education, health, local authorities, police, faith communities, unions and charities. Importantly, we listened to those who had concerns about information sharing and were prepared to consider a revised way forward. We reached out to others, including Care Scotland, Clan Child Law, Together and the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, among others. We are grateful to all those who took part in what was a genuinely open engagement. A key part of our engagement was to listen to children and young people, our commitment to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, requires us to uphold children's rights by ensuring that their voices are heard, listened to and acted upon by all those who support them and provide services to help them. On a more personal level, young people recognise the benefit of having access to someone they trusted to help them get support if needed. The Government listened to parents. The name person service provides a point of contact and support who works in partnership with parents and families to help them navigate the wider system. Parents told us that they do not always get the support that their families need, so that they have to tell their stories over and over. Parents also told us that they want the name person service to work in partnership with them and that having a say in the sharing of information about their families matters to them. Their views and their experience reinforce the initial rationale for creating the named person service. The Government listened to practitioners. As with families, nursing and medical professional organisations and trade unions, it told us that information sharing that was rooted in consent, engagement and empowerment of families was the best way forward. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as where the risk of harm was present, should we consider departing from those core principles. Practitioners highlighted that professional judgment and discretion remains vital in working with families to decide whether, when and with whom, information should be shared. The Care Inspectorate highlighted to us that sharing of relevant and proportionate information in relation to the wellbeing of children had improved as organisations prepared for the implementation of the named person service. Joint inspections of services for children and young people in 2014-16 showed that most community partnership areas had developed mechanisms for sharing information about individual children with relevant services while working within the requirements of data protection legislation and duties of confidentiality. Therefore, reports also show that practice remains inconsistent across services in localities and between localities, meaning that families will experience different levels of support. A recurring issue in tragic cases has been a failure to share information when remedial action could have been effective. Putting the findings from the extensive engagement and Care Inspectorate reports alongside the ruling of the Supreme Court makes clear what needs to be remedied. We must provide consistency, coherence and confidence in the approach to sharing information below the threshold of risk of significant harm. That is where the named person's role is so important for support to families to get the assistance when they need it. I propose to bring forward a bill that will include new provisions on when and how information can be shared by and with the named person's service. The new provisions will ensure that we address the Supreme Court's judgment, live up to our objective of supporting children and young people and giving them and their families reassurance that their rights are fully respected. I intend to introduce the bill ahead of the summer recess, and I will work with Parliament to agree a timetable to enable commencement in 2018. Without legislation, there is a risk that the benefits of a coherent and consistent approach, which is delivered through good practice in some places, are not made available to all families. That means a longer timeframe for commencement than I originally anticipated, but I believe that given the significance of the issues that are involved, Parliament must be given the full and proper opportunity to legislate on those issues. That approach will involve replacing some of the provisions in the 2014 act that the Supreme Court was concerned about, with new provisions requiring named person's service providers and others involved with children and young people to consider whether sharing information would promote, support or safeguard the wellbeing of the child or young person, and requiring them to consider whether sharing that information would be compatible with data protection law, human rights and the law of confidentiality. Only if information can be shared consistently within those legal constraints will there be a power to share it and the legislation will make this clear. That approach aims to promote good and consistent practice by imposing an explicit duty on named person's service providers and others to consider whether or not to share information, whether that would promote, support or safeguard the wellbeing of a child, while making it clear that that might only be done when there is compatibility with data protection law, the law of confidentiality and human rights law. Through both practice and legislative framework, the importance of involving families in the sharing of their personal information will be central to how the named person's service works with families. There is also a crucial balance to be struck. We must ensure that the 2014 act supports children, young people and families to access support easily if they need this. However, we must also strive to ensure that the amendments to the 2014 act do not result in unnecessary bureaucracy or a burden on services. I have reflected on this point very carefully. To support implementation of this approach, it is proposed that a new section be added to the 2014 act to provide for the making of guidance, specifically on information sharing, designed to address the Supreme Court's judgment. The guidance will be an important resource that will assist practitioners to take a systematic approach to information sharing in appropriate cases. It is envisaged that the guidance could incorporate suitable case studies to assist understanding by practitioners and it will also help to address the concerns expressed in the Supreme Court judgment about the question of proportionality. The approach supports the ambitions shared by practitioners for enabling continued improvements in working together while leaving appropriate scope for practitioner judgment and discretion. I would intend that draft guidance will be presented to Parliament as early as possible during the bill's passage. I am aiming for a draft to be available at the same time as the introduction of the bill ahead of the summer recess. This Government will also work with practitioners and organisations to enable them to implement the new legislation. We will work with key partners to develop and deliver national training and capability building programmes to ensure that proportionate information sharing that works for and with families is the norm. We will engage key partners in the inspectorates, the statutory, third and independent sectors to develop resources for robust self-evaluation and review mechanisms for use by practitioners. I also recognise that, after a campaign that is involved a lot of misinformation about the named person service, it is important for Parliament and the country to have confidence in the getting it right for every child approach. Ensuring the trust of families and young people across Scotland is critical in ensuring the future success of the named person service. The legislative process will create the opportunity to do this. We will also deliver public information campaigns with partners that provide accessible information for children, young people and parents on their rights and entitlements, embodied in getting it right for every child. I want to reassure Parliament that we have taken very seriously our responsibility to provide an appropriate response to the Supreme Court judgment. We have sought advice and listened to a wide range of views and experiences. We now intend to put in place measures so that the aims of the named person service as supported by Parliament and described by the Supreme Court as unquestionably legitimate and benign is compatible with data protection law, human rights and the law of confidentiality. By making those changes, we will respond to the Supreme Court ruling in a way that improves the named person service and gives families, practitioners and the wider public greater confidence that information sharing for named person service purposes will be in line with the founding principles of getting it right for every child and will respect their rights fully. The approach that I have set out today seeks to bring consistency, clarity and coherence to the practice of sharing information about children and young people's wellbeing across Scotland. It also seeks to achieve something more fundamental, to enable us to work together as Government and Parliament to deliver the original aims of a policy journey that began over 10 years ago. Let us agree today to ensure that we get it right for every child. There now comes the opportunity to put questions. I would ask any member or invite members to press their request-to-speak button, if they wish to do so, and I call Liz Smith. Cabinet Secretary, every single opinion poll that has been conducted on the named person policy shows that the majority of the public and a very large number of the practitioners who you mentioned in your statement do not want named persons. Can I ask on what evidence you have decided not to abolish the whole idea? Secondly, you mentioned that the Supreme Court said that the named person policy intervention was unquestionably legitimate and benign, but to be precise, there is a very significant difference between a policy of caring for wellbeing with benign intentions and a named person policy that had at its heart, potentially disproportionate and intrusive data sharing, which was ruled unlawful. Does the cabinet secretary accept that key difference, something that he has not recognised in his statement, and will he confirm if wellbeing, in its term, will be defined in the new bill? Thirdly, has the cabinet secretary recognised that the most recent statistics tell us that the vacancy rate among health visitors, who are the key deliverers of the policy, is rising as is the age profile? Is this not a real problem for the implementation of the policy? First of all, on the question of the policy intention, the Government was elected on its policy commitments, and the Government is committed to the named person service, and Parliament has legislated for that to be the case. Until such time as Parliament legislates not to have a named person service, I am duty-bound as a minister to respect the view in the wishes of Parliament, and I do not think that Parliament would expect anything else of me in that respect. The second point is on the question of the Supreme Court's judgment about named person being unquestionably legitimate and benign. Liz Smith is correct that the Supreme Court raised issues about proportionality, and in my statement I have gone to great lengths to set out how the question of proportionality will be addressed, and it will be addressed by placing the duty on practitioners to consider whether there is a legitimate case for sharing information and then going on to consider whether or not the sharing of that information is compatible with the existing legal framework in which we all have to operate. The question of proportionality is, in my view, as all issues raised by the Supreme Court have no alternative but to address the issues raised by the Supreme Court, and the question of proportionality has been addressed in that fashion. Thirdly, on the question of wellbeing, Liz Smith will be aware that wellbeing is defined in the Children and Young People's Act. The terminology is present in the act already, and of course Parliament will have to consider the legislation that I bring forward. On the final point, in relation to health visitors, Liz Smith might not have got to this detail yet, but the data revealed this morning an increase of 117 in the number of health visitors as part of our target of reaching 500 by 2018. That is welcome progress towards that objective, and we need to ensure that we have a strong health visitor community in Scotland able to contribute to supporting families where they need that support to assure the wellbeing of young people. What the health secretary and I are very focused on doing is making sure that we have in place a seamless integrated support arrangement in place for those who need it in our society to make sure that, at the earliest possible opportunity, we can act to overcome the difficulties and the challenges that children face in our society and to provide the support at the earliest possible opportunity that we can. I agree. My thanks to the Deputy First Minister for Early Sight of his statement. The Deputy First Minister talked towards the end of his statement of misinformation about the name person service and acknowledged, I think, the consequent loss of trust among parents and practitioners in the policy. He knows that we have long argued that one of the elements that allows some of those misrepresentations to gain credence is the inclusion of 16 and 17-year-olds in the name person scheme. Can I ask him once again to consider using the legislative process on which he is now embarked to remove 16 and 17-year-olds from the scope of the legislation in order to help to re-establish the credibility of the policy? I am grateful to Mr Gray for his remarks. I am familiar with his long-expressed view on the question of 16 and 17-year-olds. When I came to Parliament in September, I set out to Mr Gray the origins of the thinking why 16 and 17-year-olds were included, and the origins of that are the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines a child as a young person up until the age of 18. The Government is trying in a whole variety of different ways. The Minister for Early Years and Child Care set out information just a few weeks ago on the steps that the Government is taking in another and different area of policy on the minimum age of criminal responsibility to fulfil our obligations in relation to the UNCRC. Mr Gray raises not an easy issue for us to resolve against the backdrop of that policy framework. I also rehearse to Mr Gray in September the fact that a sizable proportion of calls to our helplines to childline from vulnerable young people can be from 16 and 17-year-olds. I think that there is an important and illustrative lesson for us in that. The question of removing 16 and 17-year-olds from the name person legislation does not form part of my current proposals, but the Parliament is going to embark on a legislative process, and it will be up to Parliament to consider those questions. I will call a number of speakers. The opening speakers get slightly longer questions from now on and very brief questions and equally succinct answers. James Dornan is to be followed by Adam Duncan. Cabinet Secretary, I think that it might be worthwhile reminding the Parliament that the name person service is abacking the Parliament, local authorities and the major child welfare organisations. Can the cabinet secretary detail how he will consult the bill and how he will ensure that the Education and Skills Committee will be kept updated in any progress? Obviously, I have gone through an intensive programme of discussion and dialogue to get to where I am today. The formal consultation on the bill took place until in the young people's bill and the question of a name person service took place back in 2012. The bill will be subject to scrutiny by the Education and Skills Committee, and the Government will, of course, fully comply with the timetable that the committee agrees and disagrees with the parliamentary authorities to ensure full scrutiny of all of the provisions. Adam Tomkins, to be followed by Rona Mackay. Will named persons under the Deputy First Minister's amendments be able to share information about children without their consent or without the consent of their parents only where it is necessary in order to safeguard the children's welfare? Any broader power than that is likely to continue to be in breach of the law. Let me say two things to Mr Tomkins. The first is that I envisage that information will be shared with consent in all but the exceptional circumstances. The exceptional circumstances I would consider would be exceptional circumstances provided for by the DPA law, human rights law and the law of confidentiality. Any exceptional circumstance would have to be enabled for information to be shared without consent, as long as it was provided for in those legislative instruments and within that legislative framework that I have set out. Rona Mackay, to be followed by Daniel Johnson. Given the many scarce stories that we have heard in the name person service, a concept that came from families themselves, could the cabinet secretary outline how he will ensure that the general public understands how that will work? The first thing to do in that respect is for us to address the issues that have given rise to significant concern. As I have looked through this issue, it is quite clearly the issues around information sharing and perhaps some of the issues that Mr Tomkins has just raised with me that have caused that concern. The answer that the Government has come up with today is a very strong and robust answer to those issues that enable us to proceed with an approach that addresses those concerns and then allows us to focus back on the core principle behind the name person service, which is to provide a dependable and reliable point of contact for individuals, for children and families to go to when they require support in our society. When we strip away all the debate that has gone on about that, that is what the name person is about. It is about providing a contact point reliably available for families and for children that they can go to when they need help. In the experience that we have had from the consultation exercise, that is the service that members of the public are looking to achieve and, on that basis, I think that we can build public confidence. Daniel Johnson, to be followed by Jenny Gilruth. The challenges that are faced by the name person policy to date are twofold. First of all, the legal issues that are identified by the Supreme Court, but also the issues around trust of professionals, teachers and children. Therefore, I ask what activities within the period of intensive engagement were addressed specifically on that issue of trust? How does the cabinet secretary now understand the issues around trust that are faced by the policy? What actions will be taken to address the issues of trust in the name person before, during and after the implementation of the revised policy? I suppose that the formulation that Mr Johnson talks about is helpful. There are legal issues that must be addressed before the service can be implemented in relation to the legislation in the Children and Young People Act 2014. We have to address those issues, and I have set it to Parliament and the mechanism by which we are going to do that. I might add that the highest level of authority that the Government can put in place is to ask Parliament to legislate on this question. We can ask Parliament to do no greater contribution than that. That is a first and very important point that I am recognising that legislation is required, which in a sense leads me into the second point, which is about building trust. If I am asking Parliament to legislate again on those key issues, I am recognising the need to ensure that parliamentary authority is given to those provisions, which I hope will assist in creating some public trust. The second point that I would make in that respect is to link into what Rona Mackay has just raised with me, which is to make the point that when the name person service is explained to people, not as a service that will be intrusive to family life, because, as a consequence of the legal issues that I am now going to address, we hopefully address that point conclusively, the name person service can be expressed and explained to members of the public as a resource that is of benefit and of assistance as a contact point for families to make sure that they can get the support when they feel they need it. The last point that I would make to Mr Johnson is about practitioners, and of course practitioners covers a wide variety of different professionals in that respect. In my experience of the public services, many of our public servants are teachers or as health visitors or as care workers or in whatever function they are exercising. They are very keenly motivated by the wellbeing of the individuals for whom they are offering support or providing education. That is a key connection that enables the policy to be successful because it links the needs of individuals directly with what can be delivered by public servants. In all our experience, we all see public servants who make a phenomenal contribution to our society, and we have the opportunity to ensure that members of the public have access to that quality of service. Jenny Gilruth, to be followed by Ross Greer. I remind members that I am the parliamentary liaison officer to the cabinet secretary. To ask the Scottish Government how the sharing provisions within the Children and Young People Act will impact upon classroom teachers. There is a requirement for classroom teachers to be fully cognisant of the role of a named person, and what issues can be raised with a named person through the appropriate training and support that is available to them to ensure that that role has been used to the full. However, classroom teachers have a particular role to ensure that they are supporting the young people in their care and working within the structures of our education system to make sure that any concerns that they have about the wellbeing of young people are properly addressed in the appropriate fashion while respecting the legal rights of individuals in that process. Ross Greer, to be followed by Tavish Scott. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement. I am reassured by Mr Swinney's answer to Daniel Johnson in regards to the Government's consultation period over recent months, but ensuring that young people in particular are engaged in getting it right for every child is essential. Will the cabinet secretary be able to confirm what the Scottish Government will do to ensure that young people, such as through organisations such as the Scottish Youth Parliament, which they have directly elected, are engaged in the legislative process and in the drafting of new guidance? I am keen to make sure that we use the process to build confidence in the whole approach. Therefore, I will take an open approach to inviting the contributions and input of organisations to help us to design the legislation but also to design the guidance that goes with it. Of course, the guidance that goes with it is very important because we have to make sure that it provides the necessary clarity for individuals and therefore having that informed by children and young people would be particularly beneficial. On the question of dialogue with young people, the cabinet met last week with a group of representatives from the Children's Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament for what the First Minister committed us to was an annual discussion on relevant issues of mutual interest. I know that members of the cabinet got a tremendous amount out of that conversation, and we will continue that dialogue. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and for his recognition of the importance of legislation in allowing for the parliamentary scrutiny that I suspect others were hinting at. Does he recognise that the scope of the original legislation was seen to be exceeded by the potential implementation of the named policy proposals and therefore parental concern is significant and has still to be adequately addressed? Will he recognise or will indeed the explicit duty that he outlined to Parliament this afternoon guard against the invasion of parental and family privacy that is of such concern? Is he minded to note that that is potentially likely only to be tested or that balance is likely to be only tested in court? Will he recognise the danger of a breakdown between the police, teachers and health workers on one hand and parents on the other, given the concerns of the matter? What has he specifically got to do to address that point? On the last point that Mr Scott raises, my whole intention is to create an atmosphere of partnership working between public authorities and public servants and families, and that is the whole intention behind named persons to make public services much more accessible and readily contactable by individual families. At the heart of the concept is the encouragement of that process. Second point that I would make is that I think that anyone looking at my statement will, I hope, come to the conclusion that I have recognised the importance of clarifying the issue of consent around the sharing of information. My answer to Mr Tomkins was that the information will be shared with consent in all but the exceptional circumstances. I hope that that goes a long way to addressing the issues that I know underpin the question that Mr Scott has raised with me. The final point that I would make in relation to Mr Scott's point is that what I have done in my statement is to look directly at the issues that are raised by the Supreme Court, and I believe to address them directly and adequately. That is by recognising that, if information is to be shared, there would have to be consideration given of whether the legal authority enabled that to happen. If that was done, that would protect the rights that Mr Scott legitimately raises with me today. The framework that has been put in place is designed to provide absolute clarity around the sharing of information and to protect those very rights that are at the heart of Mr Scott's question, at which, frankly, underpin the Supreme Court judgment that I have to address. Clare Haughey, to be followed by Ross Thomson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the cabinet secretary outline if there will be any additional resources for named persons service providers to support the implementation of those changes? The Government has already made resources available for the implementation. We made that allocation to local authorities during 2016-17. Obviously, we will look at the specific issues that are required in relation to raising awareness on those questions to make sure that practitioners are fully supported and taken forward the important work that they have to take in this respect. Ross Thomson, to be followed by Monica Lennon. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I remind members of my register of interest as a serving Aberdeen City councillor. Is the cabinet secretary aware of the survey responses provided by a sample of heads of senior school guidance in 29 Highland region schools, in which was shared with Bill Alexander, which makes plain the extent of the concern amongst practitioners about the named person policy? Seventy per cent strongly agree that named persons have caused them greater stress. Over 80 per cent are concerned at the impact of named persons in legislation, which is four in five teachers. Further, last year, Aberdeen City council leader Jenny Lane stated that named persons was putting people off taking up positions as primary head teachers in Aberdeen. Therefore, would he agree that, with all this evidence, this is naturally a matter of great concern to parents and teachers, particularly when he says today that their trust is crucial to the future of named persons? I think that the point that I find difficult to understand in the underpins Mr Thomson's question is that, somehow, members of the teaching profession are not focused on or concerned about the wellbeing of the children that they educate. That is what the name person concept is about. That is what the teaching profession is doing every single minute of the day. It is looking at the wellbeing of children and supporting them to fulfil their potential. I am keen that the named person proposal is explained to people in our professions on that basis. If I heard the explanation of the named person proposal that has been communicated quite extensively in the media, I think that if I was a teacher, I might have some concerns about it. Mr Thomson has fuelled much of that in the process. What I am interested in doing is making sure that we work with practitioners and parents and families to ensure that we have in place a point of contact that is a reliable asset for families to address the issues in which they might need support from our public services in the years to come. I want to pick up on the very legitimate question that Claire Hawke asked about resources. It would not have escaped the chamber's attention today that the front page of the Herald states very clearly that over £1 billion has been cut from the whole Government in the past five years. In order to ensure that there are sufficient resources, we need to get a more fulsome response from the cabinet secretary on that point. What could he say, given that we have those cuts in the whole Government, that there will be adequate resources to make sure that that policy does work? I point out to Monica Lennon that, in the most recent data that was available about local authority spend, an increase in resources has been allocated to education and children's services. The second point that I would make is that the Government has already made an allocation to local authorities for the implementation of named person, and that money has been allocated to local authorities in this financial year. Clearly, named person has not been introduced as originally conceived of by the legislation, so local authorities have that money. I have not reclaimed that money, but it is sitting with local authorities who are able to support them in their activities. I come back to the point that I made to Liz Smith that the data that we saw this morning saw an increase of 177 health visitors on a well-known way to our commitment to achieve an increase of 500 by 2018. I would also point out to Monica Lennon that there has been an increase in the spending power available to local authorities as a consequence of the Government's budget decisions and the decisions that were taken by the Parliament in agreeing the budget provisions. I thank the cabinet secretary for his detailed statement. I think that interested parties would welcome any information that the cabinet secretary could provide on what checks and balances that would be on the named person's service, and can he offer any assurances on that? There are provisions within the existing legislation for concerns about the operation of named persons to be raised, a complaints mechanism that exists around the workings of named persons. There is every opportunity for individuals, if they are concerned about the way in which the service operates, to openly raise those concerns and to have those concerns addressed. Jeremy Balfour, to be filled by John Mason. The cabinet secretary said that he has met 250 organisations and groups and had 50 meetings over the past three months. I understand that he is still not met with the known-to-name persons group, who obviously brought this case to the Supreme Court. Can you tell me which organisations he has met that are against his proposals, and, secondly, will he now meet with the group so that they can discuss their concerns with him? I explained my position on that to the Education and Skills Committee when I was there some months ago. I have been focused on addressing the issues that arise out of the Supreme Court judgment to ensure that the named person's service can be put into practice. That is what the Parliament has legislated for. That is what I consider to be my duty as a minister. I know that Mr Balfour does not agree with it. I know that the Conservatives want it abolished, but that is not the position of Parliament, and I am a minister accountable to this Parliament. My democratic duty is to make sure that I address the issues that are raised by the Supreme Court process. I have not met known-to-name persons because there is a clue in the name. They do not want named persons. They do not want to engage a discussion with me about how that could be put into practice. They want to end it. What I have done is that I have discussed with clan child law, for example, who were a party to the legal action, the issues that they are concerned about, to try to adequately address those issues. Obviously, they will speak for themselves, and they will make their views clear about the steps that I have taken. I have engaged with organisations that have expressed concerns. I relayed them in my statement, clan child law, the Scottish Parent Teacher Council and Care Scotland. Those organisations had concerns about named persons, and we have engaged with them to try to address those concerns. I have taken as open an approach as I possibly can, but I think that the Parliament will understand that if I am interested in implementing the name person service and finding a way to do so, it would be unusual for me to meet people who do not want anything to do with that particular policy to be implemented. John Mason will be followed by John Scott. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary will accept that, within my constituency, there are many vulnerable children and vulnerable families who are really needing a named person and the help and support that they can give. Can he reassure them and me that he will hold firm to his principles in providing that service? I recognise the need that exists in Mr Mason's constituency, but I think that that will be the position in every constituency in the country. There are particular challenges in Mr Mason's constituency, but I can also think of families in my constituency that would benefit from such a support. I assure them that I will hold firm on that view. That is why I have come back to Parliament, having taken time to consider the very difficult and complex issues that are involved in the process to ensure that the Parliament can have a legislative consideration at the highest test possible that the Parliament can deploy to ensure that we have in place the measures that can turn into practical support for the people and the families that Mr Mason represents. If the cabinet secretary is determined to reintroduce the named person's legislation in this relatively short timescale, will he assure Parliament that the policy intentions of this bill will be fully developed and clearly expressed on the face of this new bill to give Parliament every opportunity to fully debate the policy intentions of this bill and give Parliament every opportunity to make good and ECHR compliant law on this occasion? The first thing that I would say to Mr Scott is that the Parliament has already legislated in the Children and Young People's Act 2014 on many aspects of those provisions. The only part of it where the Supreme Court expressed any concern was about information sharing provisions. I have set out to Parliament the route by which I intend to resolve those questions. I have done that to the highest standard that Parliament can expect on any question by asking Parliament to legislate again. Obviously, Parliament will have to be satisfied with the timescale that is available to consider that legislation. As Mr Scott knows, the Government does not operate in this Parliament with the majority, so there will have to be agreement about timescales involving committees and other parties to ensure that, during proper consideration, it is given to the legislation. However, there is often criticism levelled at ministers who take appropriate and adequate time to look at issues. I have been criticised for taking as long as I have been taking to look at the issue. I make no apology for it because I want to come to this Parliament with good, strong and well-considered legislation that can address serious issues raised by the Supreme Court to fulfil my commitments as a minister, and Parliament would expect nothing else of me. That concludes our statement. We will now move on to our debate on international women's day. We will just take a moment to change seats.