In a disastrous move, the Scottish Government’s Religious Observance Bill has passed, which will not allow children to opt themselves out of mandatory religious observance. Humanists UK agrees with Humanist Society Scotland that this legislation is fundamentally broken: it fails to give pupils an independent right to withdraw from religious worship in schools, despite repeated warnings from children’s rights experts, charities, and human rights bodies that Scotland’s current approach is incompatible with children’s rights. This Bill flies in the face of a recent Supreme Court ruling that an exclusively Christian religious education and collective worship amounted to ‘indoctrination’. What is the legislation? The Bill’s formal title is the Children (Withdrawal from Religious Education and Amendment of UNCRC Compatibility Duty) (Scotland) Bill. The Bill passed its third and final vote at the Scottish Parliament on 17 February by 66 votes to 51, with seven abstentions. Prior to the Bill passing, a parent had the right to withdraw their child from religious observance and religious education. This Bill changed the process by requiring schools to inform pupils …