Public Petitions Committee, 04 Dec 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 4, 2001

Official Report 170KB pdf

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Current Petitions

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Employment of Teachers (Religious Discrimination) (PE269)

The first of two current petitions to be considered today—one which we delayed from our previous meeting—is from Mr James Nixon and calls on the Parliament to repeal sections of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 that, according to the petitioner, give local authorities the right to discriminate against Scottish primary school teachers on the grounds of religious belief and practice. The petitioner seeks the repeal of those sections of the 1980 act that enable religious discrimination in the employment of teachers. He claims that the act is in contravention of the European convention on human rights. In addition, he calls for the end of separate denominational and non-denominational schools.

At a meeting more than a year ago, we copied the petition to the then Minister for Children and Education, asking him to comment on the requirement for teachers to hold certificates of approval in denominational schools and to set out the Executive's views on the compliance of that practice and the relevant sections of the act with the ECHR. At our meeting on 6 November, we agreed that I should write to the then Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs, highlighting our concern about the unacceptable delay in the Executive's response. A response has now been received from the Executive—a copy has been circulated to members—and the minister has written to me separately about the delay in the issuing of that response.

The Executive's response points out that the certificates of approval that are provided in law for denominational schools are part of the agreement under which denominational schools were transferred to local authority management back in 1918. They are

"designed to confer and preserve the religious or denominational character of a denominational school."

The Executive's response also states that the 1980 act does not breach article 14 of the ECHR, as that article does not confer any substantive right to employment and therefore does not come into play in the situation that is raised in the petition. It also points out that the framework directive and the directive implementing the principle of equal treatment do not apply either, as member states are allowed

"to maintain legislation for the benefit of religious organisations to enable those organisations to recruit employees of the same faith, in order to maintain their ethos."

Finally, the Executive points out that it values the role and contribution of denominational schools and has no plans to introduce legislation relating to the appointment of teachers in such schools.

We must decide what to do with the Executive's response. Clearly, the Executive takes a firm line on the petition and does not intend to act on it. If we think that the Executive's response and its interpretation of the ECHR is reasonable, we should agree to take no further action and inform the petitioner of that. We could suggest that, if he disagrees with the Executive, he could perhaps raise the point about ECHR compatibility through the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament, which may have a view on that. Alternatively, if we think that the Executive is wrong and that the petitioner is right, we could refer the petition to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee for further consideration. Whether that committee would be prepared to take up the matter, in the light of the Executive's response, is a matter for discussion.

I am not expert enough to know whether the Executive is right in its interpretation, but it seems reasonable to say that the practice fits the legislation as it stands. However, it would be reasonable to suggest to the petitioner that he test the matter out by submitting a petition to the European Parliament. That would be interesting for us, as it would be the first petition to go to the European Parliament from a petitioner to the Scottish Parliament. I do not think that a similar petition has come to us before. If he gets a response from the European Parliament, the petitioner can be satisfied that he has done everything possible and that every stone has been turned over in his search for equity.

I agree with Helen Eadie but have a further suggestion. The European Parliament's Petitions Committee visited us recently, and we visited Germany to see the German system. It is common practice for petitions committees to pass such a petition on from one committee to another. It would be of great credit to the committee if, after receiving the minister's comments and still having a query in our minds, as might the petitioner, we passed it directly on to the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament.

The clerk was making exactly the same suggestion in my left ear as I heard you making that suggestion in my right ear.

The clerk is on my side.

If the committee so decides, we could refer this petition to the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament and ask that committee to address the response that we have received from the Executive. Shall we try that?

Members indicated agreement.

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Civil Service Jobs (PE383 and PE401)

We now move to consideration of petitions PE383 and PE401, from the Dundee and Tayside Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Perthshire Chamber of Commerce respectively. I have to declare an interest: I belong to the campaign group that both the petitioners belong to and I have been campaigning for the relocation of civil service jobs to Tayside.

Members will recall that we agreed to pass the first petition to the Executive. When the second petition came in, we agreed to wait for the Executive's response and deal with both petitions together. We have since received the Executive's response and it has been included among members' papers. The Executive has taken a number of significant steps—not least of which is the relocation of the Scottish commissioner for the regulation of care and the Scottish Social Services Council to Dundee, bringing lots of jobs to that area. Other areas have benefited as well. The Office of the Public Guardian has been relocated to Falkirk and the Scottish Public Pensions Agency to Galashiels.

The Executive seems to be making progress in implementing its relocation policy. It has taken decisions to locate several bodies outside Edinburgh and it is considering seven other bodies for relocation. It is suggested that we copy the Executive's response to the petitioners and take no further action, on the basis that, as the Executive continues its review of possible locations, the Parliament would not want to be seen to be favouring one area of Scotland over another.

I know that most of the petitioners do not come from the Highlands and Islands, but I have a concern. The Highlands and Islands, my area, covers possibly half of the geographical area of Scotland, but none of the civil service jobs that have been relocated has gone to that area. I appreciate that we should be fair to the whole of Scotland, but, as I read through the list of places in our papers, I feel that we are not being fair to the whole of Scotland.

We could write back to the Executive and make that point clear.

I would appreciate that.

The Executive response indicates encouraging progress. Nowadays, with information technology and so on, there is no excuse for jobs not being relocated to anywhere in Scotland. However, I object to an expression in our papers that refers to the enterprise and lifelong learning department now being wholly established in Glasgow and to the relocation of 166 jobs. The papers say nothing about new jobs, and it is new jobs that we are desperate for—and, of course, white-collar jobs. We want those jobs to be in the schemes, where there is the least activity on the white-collar job front.

That is a fair point. It is not what the petitioners were concerned with, but it is a fair point. Do members agree with the suggestion that I made a moment ago?

Members indicated agreement.

Members have a paper outlining the progress that has been made on six petitions since our previous meeting. If there are no comments on those, we move to the next agenda item.