The Scottish Parliament is getting its dog/children priorities wrong

There is an interesting contrast in two decisions made by politicians in Scotland over the last two days. In one instance the Parliament decided to go out of its way and pass a law specifically making dog theft a crime. In the other, the Scottish Government couldn't be bothered to make a decision on whether mobile phones should be banned in schools.

These seems like a odd priorities. It is already illegal to steal a dog based on theft laws. If the Parliament in its considered wisdom thinks a specific law is necessary then there is no question it has acted swiftly and decisively, though it is rather hard to see what has really changed in effect here.

On the other hand, the evidence on the negative impact of mobile phone and social media on the wellbeing and safety of children is already substantial and growing all the time (68 per cent of children say they feel worse about themselves after being online). This has been an unregulated free-for-all in which parents have been left on their own to somehow assess what is best for their children.

Official guidance has been weak or no-existent. Legal regulatory frameworks have been weak in general and, in relation to children, often simply missing. Support for frontline professionals has been scant. The entire question has been defined by the utter lack of action which has been taken.

Scottish Labour was therefore to be commended for bringing forward the direct proposal that mobile phones should be banned in Scotland as a matter of consistent policy. Common Weal does not believe that this is anything like a sufficient move because the problem stretches well beyond the classroom. Parents need much more support than this.

But it is an absolutely necessary move. The drift into the normalisation of mobile phones in classrooms has been unhealthy and unhelpful. Classrooms should be places of learning, not distraction, and the claims that mobile phones are helpful learning aids is unpersuasive.

So what happened when Labour brought the proposal? It was voted down by the Scottish Government. The reason it gave was entirely spurious; that it was a decision for head teachers. This is non-sensical – if this logic were to be extended then we would remove legal limits on everything that could take place in a classroom and leave it to head teachers.

What is really so overwhelmingly objectionable about this is that head teachers and teachers generally have enough on their plate as it stands. Few in Scotland now need to be told again about the litany of difficulties the teaching profession is facing.

Asking each school to individually and on its own look at scientific evidence and decide for itself what regulatory decisions it has to make is impossible to justify in any context, but in this context in particular if feels disgraceful. This is the Scottish Government chickening out.

The reality is that this is nothing more than cowardice, and it follows an ongoing pattern of cowardice in the education portfolio recently. The Education Department of the Scottish Government is now more notable for the number of big issues on which it has abdicated responsibility than for anything it has actually done.

It is worth being clear about why the Parliament has the time and the courage to protect dogs but not children; dogs and their infrastructure are not supplied by immensely powerful US corporations which the Scottish Government is currently in negotiation to effectively hand over Scotland's data in a move which risks being the de facto privatisation of the running of public services.

There will be no lobbying pushback from lobbyists representing dog thieves so passing the law is painless and requires no thinking. Taking action against US tech interests will trigger a furious response. This is what it looks like when the First Minister prioritises placating an unhinged US President on behalf of foreign-owned whisky-owning corporations.

When big business interests are in play, our children are on their own. Or rather, they are reliant on having a head teacher with more courage and foresight than our Cabinet Secretary for Education. We are sacrificing children's interests for Silicon Valley share prices.

There is perhaps no more stark demonstration of what is wrong with Scottish Democracy than a parliament which has time to make things illegal which were already illegal but can't find the time to do anything to protect children from predatory corporations.

For the last four months, a team of student volunteers have been working with Common Weal to look at the evidence and formulate a credible and comprehensive package of measures which put children first in education and support parents in supporting their children's wellbeing and mental health.

We have not approached this work in fear and we will not pull our punches in our conclusions because of lobbyists. We will publish these proposals as soon as we can.