The final continued petition is PE2166, which was lodged by John Watson McMaster, who has sat manfully in the public gallery through all our proceedings this morning. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to establish a standardised timeframe for civil proceedings related to child custody cases, including a 14-day timeframe for proof hearings.We last considered the petition on 8 October 2025, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Government. The Minister for Victims and Community Safety’s response to the committee states:“the Scottish Government has sympathy with the Petitioner’s position and agrees that any undue delay in family court proceedings will usually not be in the best interests of the child.”However, the response also states that the Scottish Government has no plans at the present time to legislate further on the matter, including to set a timescale of any length in law as asked for by the petitioner. The minister notes that changes to case management rules in family actions came into effect on 25 September 2023, and that a key aim of these rules is for cases to be resolved more quickly through greater judicial case management, particularly to prevent undue delay in proceedings relating to the welfare of children.The minister sets out her agreement with Mr Ewing’s reflections during our previous consideration of the petition, including the suggestion that a timescale of any length“may be arbitrary in some cases and therefore potentially produce adverse anomalies and consequences.”—Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 8 October 2025; c 14.The petitioner has provided a written submission in which he argues that ordering a proof hearing for custody matters within a defined period would mean that the custody and divorce proceedings would be decoupled. He states that that“would allow the child’s living arrangements to be settled swiftly for their stability, while … divorce matters continue separately.”The petitioner’s submission states that the minister’s response“primarily reiterates existing frameworks, referencing laws and policies that have been in place for decades.”His view is that a streamlined system would safeguard children’s welfare through a number of benefits, including expediting proceedings and reducing the psychological and emotional impact on all parties.The petitioner has contacted a number of key stakeholders and set out the responses in his written submission. He notes a pattern of non-response or procedural delay from operational bodies during the exercise. The petitioner believes that the response underlines his central concern about inconsistent application of systems and policies.Given the additional submission and all the notes that we have received from the petitioner, we have a contradiction in terms of the views that are represented. Do members have any comments or suggestions for actions? Unfortunately, we are not allowed to take contributions from the gallery.
Official Report · Committee
Continued Petitions
Child Custody Cases (Standardised Timeframe for Civil Proceedings) (PE2166)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- Jackson Carlaw Con 4
- Fergus Ewing Ind 2
- David Torrance SNP 1
The record
7 contributions
link
In the light of the evidence that is before us, I do not think that the committee has any other option but to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that the Children (Scotland) Act 2020, once in force, will require the court to consider whether any delay in proceedings would negatively affect a child’s welfare. Cases can vary significantly, and a standardised timetable would not recognise the different complexities in individual cases. There are case management rules in place in respect of family actions, and one of the key aims is greater judicial case management resulting in cases being resolved more quickly. The Scottish Government does not consider the ask of the petition to be practical or achievable.
I am afraid that the clincher is that the Scottish Government is not prepared to move on it. That is the point.
I had the opportunity to study the petitioner’s response to the minister’s submission of 1 February. He makes several highly relevant points, some of which I had not previously considered, despite the fact that I spent a couple of decades involved in that kind of work fairly regularly.The points that he highlighted are worth mentioning. Although there are mechanisms to avoid delays, they do not seem to work in practice. His suggestion is to decouple the custody, residence and contact issue from other issues in dispute. I made the point in the previous evidence session that sometimes a financial disagreement can prolong proceedings and therefore cause a period of turbulence, conflict and division because the parties have not reached an agreement about how to split the matrimonial assets. Therefore, his suggestion is to decouple the issue of custody and residence from finance.There may be practical difficulties about that, because you would need to work out whether the matrimonial home is going to continue to be used for housing the children of the family. There are practical considerations, but I must admit that I had not thought of decoupling as a potential solution, so I thought, out of fairness to the petitioner, that it is worth highlighting that he has made a very reasoned and thorough response to the minister. The points that he makes should certainly be considered by the next Administration.
Do you think that, if we close the petition, following Mr Torrance’s advice, those points might therefore be the basis for a slightly different approach in a fresh petition that identified a further exploration of that route, rather than the more straitjacketed suggestion of the timelines?
Yes. In many cases, there is an interim order for residence and contact, and in many cases, that interim order is eventually confirmed. You could say that the issue of custody—or residence, as it is now called, I believe—is not hanging and unresolved in every case by any means, but it is in some cases, and they tend to be very difficult cases.If the petitioner wished to reframe the petition and focus on the notion of an option to decouple, which would have to be done on a case-by-case basis, with the sheriff having fairly wide discretion as to whether it would be appropriate, that might take the heat and the sting and the pain—or some of it—out of what can be a very difficult situation.
That would be an interesting area for a future committee, if it were to receive such a petition, to take evidence on and explore in some detail.We would commend that option to the petitioner in closing the petition, if that is what colleagues are minded to support, given where we are in this parliamentary session. Do members agree to close the petition?Members indicated agreement.
In this meeting
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