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Friday, 20 November 2020 1 (10.00 Am) 2 LORD JACK Mcconnell

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Friday, 20 November 2020 1 (10.00 Am) 2 LORD JACK Mcconnell 1 1 Friday, 20 November 2020 2 (10.00 am) 3 LORD JACK McCONNELL (affirmed) 4 (10.01 am) 5 [The Inquiry’s Hearing on Friday, 20 November 2020 was delayed from 6 its normal start time at 10:00 a.m. due to a global outage of the 7 Cisco Webex video conferencing platform. Once the outage was 8 resolved, the Inquiry’s Hearing resumed at approximately 10:33 9 a.m.] 10 (10.33 am) 11 LADY SMITH: We are now able to carry on, but before doing 12 so, I would just like to explain the problem that's been 13 experienced is persisting. It's a global problem with 14 the Webex system, so anybody who is using Webex at the 15 moment is suffering the same problem. It's not our 16 particular systems in this Inquiry. 17 I hesitate to apologise for that because it's not 18 our fault. However, we do have one recording system in 19 place and a back-up recording system in place, so there 20 will be a transcript from today, but it may take 21 a little while to get that transcript up. 22 Now, Jack, I'm sorry. You have heard. Very 23 frustrating. But if we can now get back to your 24 evidence, if that's all right with you. 25 A. Of course. 2 1 LADY SMITH: We'd like to do that. 2 Mr Peoples. 3 MR PEOPLES: Thank you. Because we have lost a bit of time, 4 can I just say at the outset that, as I said earlier, 5 your evidence in the statement is evidence and will be 6 considered and is part of the evidence, but you'll 7 perhaps appreciate that we'll, because of the 8 constraints of time, particularly of what's happened, 9 focus on what's happened in some of the issues that have 10 arisen in the course of the hearing and are of 11 particular interest, perhaps, to the Inquiry and those 12 who campaigned for the Inquiry. 13 So don't take that as a sign that we're not aware of 14 some of the points that you have made and indeed others 15 have made in your statement, but I wanted to perhaps say 16 that at the beginning because, as I say, we have 17 probably lost about an hour and 20 minutes and perhaps 18 we can focus on some of the issues to try and make 19 progress. 20 A. I fully understand that, and if there's anything I think 21 needs to be said that hasn't been said, I'll make 22 a point of raising it either during our question and 23 answer or if necessary -- 24 Q. Yes. Well, if we have that understanding, I'm sure we 25 can make progress. 3 1 A. I'm content with that. 2 Q. Perhaps I'll start again. You are Jack McConnell. 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. You're the Rt Hon Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale. 5 I think we had taken, in case we didn't catch this 6 before in your background, it was as a mathematics 7 teacher between March 1983 and September 1992. You were 8 then, for a period, General Secretary of the Scottish 9 Labour Party between September 1992 and March 1998 and 10 you were elected to the Scottish Parliament on 11 6 May 1999. 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. You were First Minister of Scotland from 14 22 November 2001 until 16 May 2007. Since 20 June 2010, 15 you have been a member of the House of Lords in the 16 UK Parliament and you're a member of Her Majesty's Privy 17 Council. 18 A. Yes. I should apologise, actually, now that I see that 19 on the screen. It's actually 28 June 2010. I'm not 20 sure how that error has crept in. 21 Q. So in terms of before we get to perhaps the focus of 22 today's evidence for my purposes, you can take it that 23 we've heard quite a lot of evidence from ministerial and 24 former ministerial colleagues of yours about action 25 being taken by your administration to improve child 4 1 protection and children's services during the period you 2 were First Minister and indeed before then. So you can 3 take it we are familiar with a number of initiatives and 4 background to those initiatives, as well as things that 5 were happening between 1992 and indeed the date of the 6 Petition in 2002. 7 So if I can at least, to some extent, just warn you 8 that has already been the subject of quite a lot of 9 evidence so we are familiar with that. I do appreciate 10 that I think a point you seek to make and others have 11 sought to make is that there was a lot going on before 12 this Petition in relation to protection of children in 13 Scotland. 14 A. Yes. If I can just say, I think that was -- it is 15 important to note, although I was not directly involved, 16 that that was pre-devolution as well as post-devolution 17 that the Government had at Westminster, particularly, 18 I think, prior to 1997, if we're giving credit where 19 it's due, the Conservative Government in the late '80s 20 and early '90s was implementing quite significant 21 reforms that were improving the protections and rights 22 that were available, and we then, following 1999, built 23 upon that with a number of new and fresh initiatives, 24 some of which were in response to events; others were 25 long-standing issues that required to be dealt with. 5 1 So while the work that we were doing as a Government 2 was important, the work that previous governments had 3 done as well was also significant, and I think a lot of 4 that is detailed in my statement; I presume, therefore, 5 in the statements of others and there may be no need to 6 repeat it again today, but it is an important context. 7 LADY SMITH: Yes, indeed, and some of the work was prompted 8 by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the 9 Child, which gave rise, in many jurisdictions, to 10 wide-ranging fundamental legislation changing the way 11 you could treat children's rights. 12 A. I think that's true, but I also think there was a change 13 in culture in Scotland; that the culture that at least 14 in part gave rise to some of the incidents of abuse that 15 the Inquiry has been studying had changed, I think, in 16 the 1970s and the early 1980s, and Government did 17 respond to that by bringing in new rights and 18 legislative protections and, you know, I think they were 19 right to do that. 20 MR PEOPLES: I think one major piece of legislation before 21 the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, again, it 22 was the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, which I think 23 built on some of the principles of the UN Convention on 24 the Rights of the Child. 25 A. Yes, and I think it was also an attempt to go further 6 1 than the children's hearing system which had been 2 established in Scotland a couple of decades earlier and 3 was seen as, I think, quite advanced in its time 4 globally, but I think by the 1980s, not least because of 5 the Convention, but by the 1980s and early 1990s, it was 6 seen that the procedures in place in Scotland needed 7 a stronger legislative framework within which to work 8 and the then Conservative Government definitely took 9 that on board. 10 Q. I think we have heard some evidence, indeed, from 11 a previous witness Colin MacLean, that part of the work 12 that your administration became involved in around the 13 piece we are concerned with was a review of the 14 children's hearing system to perhaps look at some of the 15 areas that may be needed to be addressed and improved 16 since -- 17 A. Yes. The problem with the children's -- the issues that 18 we were dealing with in relation to the children's 19 hearing system were less connected to the issues that 20 are in front of the Inquiry and more, I think, in 21 response to changes in society. The children's hearing 22 system had worked well, I think, for a couple of 23 decades, but by the time the devolution came about in 24 1999, the hearings, I think -- well, first of all, they 25 were having difficulty recruiting good people to serve 7 1 on hearings, but, secondly, they were struggling to make 2 a real impact in the lives of the children and be part 3 of a joined-up system in the context of which they were 4 operating, and there was a need for a review of that. 5 But by far the most significant elements were the 6 legislative and administrative changes, the new 7 legislative provisions, in the early part of the decade, 8 2000 to 2010, but also the efforts that were being made 9 across ministerial portfolios to have a far more 10 joined-up and proactive approach to not only preventing 11 any abuse or neglect, which was perhaps even more of 12 an issue by that time, but also ensuring that young 13 people who had either experienced abuse or neglect had 14 as many opportunities as possible to rebuild their lives 15 with proper support from the State locally and 16 nationally.
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