Health and Sport Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Official Report 525KB pdf

Subordinate Legislation

General Pharmaceutical Council (Amendment of Miscellaneous Provisions) Rules Order of Council 2016 (SSI 2016/1008)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 12th meeting of the Health and Sport Committee in the current session of Parliament. I ask everyone in the room to ensure that their mobile phones are in silent mode. It is acceptable to use mobile devices for social media, but please do not take photographs or film proceedings.

The first item on the agenda is subordinate legislation, and we have one instrument to consider under the negative procedure. There has been no motion to annul the instrument, and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has not made any comments on the instrument. I invite comments from members.

I think that, previously, only pharmacy professionals from outside the European Economic Area were required to demonstrate appropriate knowledge of English. New legislation has extended that requirement to professionals from European countries. I fully appreciate that there is strong support from the health professions for that requirement and that patient safety is at the heart of it, but I wish to note that the Law Society of Scotland has previously raised concerns about it. In 2014, it noted that the proposals for language controls for health professionals

“raise equality and discrimination issues”

and that they

“may give rise to issues of direct race discrimination, which cannot be legitimised through the principle of proportionality.”

I put on record my hope that the requirement comes with adequate support for those professionals to learn English, if necessary.

Thank you. That is now on the record and the matter will, I hope, be taken on board.

There are no further comments from members. Are we agreed to make no recommendations on the order of council?

Members indicated agreement.