Equal Opportunities Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Official Report 294KB pdf

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European Scrutiny

We come to item 2. First, the committee needs to appoint a new European Union reporter. The EU reporter’s role is to champion EU matters in the committee. Paper 1 explains the role further. Unless members have questions on the remit of the reporter, I invite nominations for the position.

I nominate John Finnie.

Do we have any other nominations?

How about you, convener?

If John Finnie wants to do it—if he has a burning desire to be our new EU reporter—I am happy to stand aside.

That is kind of you. I would not describe it as a burning desire. [Laughter.] However, I maintain a keen interest in European matters—particularly as they relate to trade unions and staff associations, which I think would fit in with this committee’s work.

Are we all agreed that John Finnie will become our EU reporter?

Members indicated agreement.

Excellent.

The committee needs to consider engagement and scrutiny priorities relating to the European Commission work programme. Paper 1 sets out the background. We are invited to consider and note the priorities, which are set out in the annex—I will wait a few moments while everyone rustles their papers—agree any amendments and adopt a final list of priorities for reporting to the European and External Relations Committee. The committee also needs to consider whether to write to the Scottish Government to ask how it plans to engage with those priorities and whether any are likely to involve subsidiarity issues.

Do members have any comments on the work programme? A number of things in it are of particular interest to the committee.

I am the EU reporter for a different committee. That committee went through this process and one of the things that was highlighted was that we do not have enough time—in terms of the time allocated and the time available—to really go into things and do pieces of work. That committee had a whole raft of possibilities to look at, with other things added on that I suggested. When it came to deciding which areas to look at, we realised that although we would love to do everything, we do not have the time to do everything.

In terms of the options before us, I recommend that we highlight three or four of the issues so that we can really work on them because we will not be able to do what we would like to do on everything—the time is just not there.

Are there particular issues that you would like to suggest?

One area that I would urge us to look at is the Equality Act 2010. Under the header “Expected 2012”, the final sentence of paragraph 23 of paper 1 states:

“In the Strategy, the Commission commits to considering targeted initiatives to improve gender balance in economic decision making.”

That is something that we should look at in relation to the gender balance on the boards of companies.

I refer members to paragraphs 32 and 33 of the paper. Equal pay is still an issue for local authorities and the public sector in general, but also the private sector. I would be keen to look at that area, but obviously that is entirely up to the committee.

I agree with Stuart McMillan. Ironically, the first area that I would have suggested was the one that he did not mention—the work relating to the Roma. There is an opportunity for us to build on the work that we have already done in that area, which has a particular European dimension. We have seen shocking scenes in central Europe and, nearer to home, in France, where the treatment of the Roma was reminiscent of that in Nazi Germany. There is also information that has been shared with this committee and elsewhere about the experience of Roma folk here, and their difficulties in accessing healthcare, particularly in west central Scotland.

At the very least, we should actively watch European events in that area. I hope that we can keep an eye on the care issue that we picked up on, and the equality issue of access to medical facilities, facilities on sites and so on.

I would like to look at something in relation to the Equality Act 2010 that was not mentioned in the paper. I am told that the Government will publish the equality duties in the next few weeks, following a long, second consultation. Once the duties have been introduced, it will be important to look at them in a wider, and European, context to see how they fit in. That is wider than the gender pay issue.

The Roma issue fits in with the Gypsy Traveller work that the committee intends to do, and a couple of the other issues would fit in with our planned work on women in work. I am content with everything that is in the paper and I would be reluctant to say that we should focus on something at the expense of removing something else. I accept that they are all weighty pieces of work and that our involvement may vary depending on what that work is, but I would be reluctant, for example, to exclude the first area that the paper covers, which is child poverty. How do members feel about that?

I suppose that our approach will depend on what work is being done in the other committees so that we do not duplicate elements that they will be looking at. However, what we have heard from Stuart McMillan, Siobhan McMahon and John Finnie seem to be the priorities for this committee at this time.

I hope that no one thinks that I was suggesting that the other items in the paper are not as important. I would love to do a detailed piece of work on every suggestion, and more, but we just do not have enough time to do the level of work that we want to do. I suggest that we select three or four topics, although that does not mean that we do not do anything on the others. We could still do some preparation for future committee work.

The suggestions in the paper have been highlighted to be tracked but they might not come up in the near future, so we might not have to pick them up and do something with them. If we are tracking what is coming out and our European reporter is keeping an eye on the situation, we might not have to do a huge amount. It will still be worth while tracking the topics.

Convener, I think that you have just answered my point. I was going to ask whether it would be possible to keep a watching brief on a couple of the topics on the clear understanding that it cannot be more than that. That would, at least, mean a flashing light for the committee if concerns were raised about any of the issues. I approve of the topics that have been suggested for detailed consideration, but the others should be kept under a watching brief, even if we are not expecting to do any work on them; we can then decide whether we need to look at a topic or what we are going to do about it.

I am content with that.

Are we happy with the priorities that are detailed in the paper?

Members indicated agreement.

May I raise an issue? Again, it is about the integration aspect that is referred to in paragraph 18 of the annex to paper 1 and the Equality Act 2010 that Siobhan McMahon mentioned. Paragraph 18 mentions

“providers, whether private, public or voluntary”.

I do not want to breach any confidences but, as a result of some casework that I am doing, it is apparent that a function that we might assume is a local authority’s, with regard to the provision of a site for travelling people, has been outsourced to a housing association or to an arm’s-length housing body. It is important that such organisations understand that we expect them to perform to the same high standards when they are fulfilling a public function as we expect any public authority to do.

That is a very good point.

We have agreed our priorities. Do we want to write to the Scottish Government to ask it how it plans to engage with those priorities and whether they are likely to involve any subsidiarity issues?

We should write to the Scottish Government. There might also be occasions on which we should write to the United Kingdom Government.

I agree. It is important that we write to the Scottish Government to ask for its views on the priorities and what will be happening with them.