The concept of a Named Person for every child in Scotland is the ‘ultimate insult’ to every loving parent, senior academic, Dennis Hayes of Derby University, warned in mid-September.
Under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, every child under the age of 18 in Scotland is set to be assigned a state-employed Named Person who will be able to share information with a wide range of public authorities. Professor Hayes noted that, as a result of this law, a decisive battle in the war against parents is about to take place: ‘What this Act does for the first time is to say to parents that a person appointed by the state has authority over them and their child.’
Appalling idea
A legal challenge has been launched against the scheme. But Professor Hayes commented: ‘Even if it is stopped in the courts, the idea of a Named Person sends the message that parents can’t be trusted to raise their own children. By dreaming up this appalling idea, the very concept of parenting is being challenged’.
He warned parents everywhere, not just in Scotland, that people who ‘run the institutions of states, and many that work in them, think that parents are not fit to parent’.
