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SPUC’s Executive Director Michael Robinson has authored a letter to all members of the Glasgow Council, Council Chief Executive, and every Glasgow MP and MSP. This comes after the charity Homeless Project Scotland refused emergency housing to a 34-week pregnant mother fleeing abuse. One staff member said of the situation “an unborn child does not have rights.”
SPUC would like to highlight that unborn babies do have legal protection in Scotland, and they have been disregarded in this situation. Any organisation working with Glasgow City Council that deals with pregnant women needs proper training to understand that; SPUC is willing to provide it.
Here is the open letter:
Subject: Open Letter of Complaint — Refusal of Emergency Accommodation to a 34-Week Pregnant Woman, and the Stated Position that Unborn Children Have No Rights
Dear Councillor Bell,
I am writing to lodge a formal complaint regarding the treatment of a 34-week pregnant woman, aged 26, who presented to Homeless Project Scotland’s Glasgow shelter on the evening of Tuesday 29 September 2026. She had travelled from London fleeing an abusive relationship.
Accounts published by in the Times newspaper state that volunteers contacted Glasgow City Council’s out-of-hours emergency service, that a taxi was sent to collect her, and that after a four-hour interview/interrogation she was returned to the night shelter with the instruction to return to London to seek accommodation. She slept on a floor mattress in the shelter and left for the streets the following morning.
Most seriously, Homeless Project Scotland reports that a council official told its staff, in terms, that “an unborn child does not have rights.” If that statement was made, it discloses a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal obligations your council owes to pregnant women and their unborn children — and it is on that basis that I make this complaint.
1. Protection from inhuman or degrading treatment
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, given effect in Scotland through the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Scotland Act 1998, prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly held that the State’s positive obligations under Article 3 are engaged where a vulnerable person is left destitute, and that where the authorities are aware of the risk, a failure to provide shelter and basic support can amount to a violation. The Scottish Government’s own Code of Guidance on Homelessness recognises that applicants may be “vulnerable” in the Article 3 sense. Leaving a woman at 34 weeks’ gestation to sleep on a night-shelter floor, and then on the streets, in circumstances where her pregnancy makes her significantly more, not less, vulnerable to harm, raises a serious question under Article 3.
2. The child before birth is protected — the 1959 UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child
The preamble to the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child 1959 states that “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” That wording is explicit and it is binding on the interpretation of the obligations the Scottish Government has voluntarily assumed. Principle 4 of the same Declaration provides that the child shall be entitled to grow and develop in health, and that special care and protection shall be provided both to him and to his mother, including adequate pre-natal and post-natal care. Principle 2 provides that the child shall enjoy special protection and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and socially in a healthy and normal manner.
3. The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024
Your own administration championed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which makes the UNCRC part of Scots law and requires public authorities to act compatibly with it. Article 24(2)(d) requires appropriate measures to ensure adequate pre- and post-natal health care for mothers. Article 3 requires that, in all actions concerning children, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration. A council cannot invoke the UNCRC as a banner while telling a heavily pregnant woman that her child has no rights and leaving that child’s mother to sleep on the streets.
4. Housing (Scotland) Act 1987
The priority need test was abolished in Scotland on 31 December 2012 by the Homelessness (Abolition of Priority Need Test) (Scotland) Order 2012. Every applicant who is unintentionally homeless is entitled to settled accommodation, without exception, and pregnancy has no bearing on the duty precisely because no priority need test applies. Unlike England, Scotland does not permit a “local connection” refusal to defeat the duty; a council cannot send a homeless woman back to the area she fled. If the woman’s account is accurate, your council was not merely unkind — it failed in a statutory duty. Where a woman is fleeing domestic abuse, the duty is especially acute.
Additionally, if she has a baby or is pregnant at any point during the homelessness assessment, the Local Housing Allowance rules, Allocation of Housing duties and the Scottish Government’s Ending Homelessness Together policy all require an approach that actively anticipates the arrival of the child. There is no legal basis whatsoever for telling a woman at 34 weeks’ gestation that she has no protection.
5. The Equality Act 2010 — pregnancy and maternity
Pregnancy and maternity is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, and your council is bound by it in the exercise of its housing and homelessness functions.
Under section 17 of the Act, which governs services and public functions (as opposed to section 18, which applies in employment), a person discriminates against a woman if they treat her unfavourably because of her pregnancy, or because she has given birth within the preceding 26 weeks. Crucially, section 17 requires no comparator: the question is simply whether the treatment was unfavourable and whether it was because of the pregnancy. There is no need to identify a non-pregnant person who was treated better. Returning a woman at 34 weeks’ gestation to a night shelter floor, and then to the streets, is unfavourable treatment, and if it was because of or materially connected to her pregnancy, it is unlawful discrimination.
Your council is also subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty under section 149 of the Act, which requires public authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations. That duty applies directly to homelessness decisions and to the design and operation of out-of-hours services. A refusal to accommodate a heavily pregnant woman engages the PSED at the point of decision, not merely in policy documents.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations makes clear that pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the provision of services and the exercise of public functions is unlawful, and that service providers and public bodies must not subject women to unfavourable treatment for reasons connected to pregnancy.
The contrast with the treatment of this woman is stark. Your council is under a statutory duty not to discriminate against her because she is pregnant. Yet on the account provided, her pregnancy was treated not as a reason for greater protection, but as a reason for less. That is the very definition of the discrimination the Equality Act 2010 was enacted to prevent.
If the woman wishes to pursue the matter, she may bring a claim in the sheriff court under Part 2 of the Equality Act 2010. The statutory time limit is three months less one day from the act complained of, subject to the court’s discretion to extend. She may also complain to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and the Commission has the power to investigate a public authority’s compliance with its equality duties.
Your administration does not hesitate to speak publicly and at length about homelessness, about the protection of the vulnerable, and about the compassionate society it claims to represent. Your predecessor made the city’s response to homelessness a central pillar of her tenure. Yet when a woman turns up at your out-of-hours service — homeless, fleeing an abusive relationship, eight months pregnant — she is returned to a night shelter and reportedly told she should go back to the very city she fled. There can be no clearer illustration that the rhetoric and the reality do not match.
It is difficult to reconcile your council’s very public stance on homelessness and the protection of the vulnerable with the treatment of this woman and her child. The effect of the words attributed to your officials — that an unborn child has no rights — is to strip the most vulnerable member of your community of the most basic protection.
I would therefore ask that Glasgow City Council:
- We understand that this vulnerable woman has been provided temporary accommodation, and that she is being supported. Will you confirm that she will be supported through a full homelessness assessment under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 and into long term accommodation;
- Provide a full apology to her for the treatment she received, and confirm she was not, and will not be, asked to return to London;
- Investigate who in your out-of-hours service made the statement that an unborn child has no rights, and what training and instruction was in force regarding the legal protections owed to pregnant women and unborn children;
- Confirm what steps Glasgow City Council will take to ensure no council official repeats that statement, and to embed awareness of the 1959 UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child and the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 in homelessness practice — including training for all staff and elected members;
- Confirm that a suitable external partner, or charity, such as SPUC, which has a long and proven track record of advocating for pregnant women and their unborn babies, has been engaged with to deliver and validate any training programme;
- Provide a written response setting out the actions taken within 14 days.
The treatment of this woman is a test of whether Glasgow City Council’s obligations to the most vulnerable are real or merely rhetorical. I look forward to your written response.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Robinson
C.C. All members of the Council, Council Chief Executive and Glasgow MPs and MSPs.
