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Item 3 is on mainstreaming equality. The committee has been invited to consider recommendations from the Equal Opportunities Committee on mainstreaming equality in the work of committees. A paper from the clerk has been circulated to members. Now that they have had a chance to consider the paper, do members have any comments on it?
I am happy with the paper. The only thing that I would urge the committee and every other committee in the Parliament to do is to ensure that when equality issues are on a committee's agenda, they are not put at the very end. My recent experience on another committee, which shall remain nameless, was that equality issues were not given proper consideration when they came up in the course of questioning. I hope that we keep such issues high on the agenda.
I agree with the recommendation contained in the paper for the simple reason that although, on the face of it, the measure may not apply entirely to the work of the Public Petitions Committee, I think that monitoring who has access to the committee—in terms of gender and background—might be useful for us. It would be helpful if the clerks could review our work and consider where it would be appropriate for us to adopt equality guidelines.
I agree entirely with Jackie Baillie's comments. Jim Johnston and I have already discussed the fact that the number of men who come forward with petitions at the committee is quite striking. I do not know whether there is any reason for that. I have always tried to deal with petitions based on the issue and have not based my decisions on whether the petitioner is male or female—I do not know whether gender would skew decisions one way or another. We must get information on whether more males are petitioning the Parliament and on whether the issues that they raise are examined more closely than others. The committee must be careful to ensure that there is no bias, intentional or otherwise, in the way that the committee hears petitions.
We need to ensure that the system is sufficiently inviting to encourage people of both genders and of all ages to submit a petition. I hope that the fact that we have taken evidence from young people today will encourage older people as well. The additional paper should consider where it would be appropriate to apply the equality guidelines.
As well as examining the number of petitions that we receive, we need to consider the number of petitioners from whom we take evidence who are from ethnic minority and other groups. It is important that we are not open to any accusations of bias. I hope that there has not been any bias. If there has been, it has been inadvertent. We need to look into the matter and ensure that any issues are addressed.
We have an element of control in ensuring that there is no bias or discrimination in our responses to petitions, but we have limited control over the petitions that are submitted. If the information that is collated shows, as we suspect, that our petitions come predominantly from white males, we will need to consider what we can do about that. The Public Petitions Committee should be as inclusive and accessible as possible to the whole of the community. We need to think about how we will ensure that that is so.
As I said, I have spoken to Jim Johnston about that. We will monitor the situation to ensure that we cover all the bases in our assessment of equality issues.
I see that our e-petition system will be launched on 11 February. I give my apologies in advance, as I will be down at the Holyrood site that day. Perhaps equalities issues could be mentioned in any speechifying that is done by the convener or the Presiding Officer at the launch.
I have no problem with that.
Meeting closed at 12:06.
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