Health Committee, 28 Oct 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Official Report 187KB pdf

---

Mainstreaming Equality (Correspondence)

We move on to consider paper HC/S2/03/10/2 under item 3 on the agenda, which is on mainstreaming equality. The committee is asked for an opinion so that a response can be submitted to the Equal Opportunities Committee by the deadline of 21 November. We have a number of options. One of the recommendations that the Equal Opportunities Committee made in its report was that we should adopt the equality guidelines that are given in annex B of that report and should agree to use them in drawing up our work programme for the 2003-07 parliamentary session. It was also recommended that the committee should use the equalities checklist during stage 1 consideration of legislation, should detail how it has mainstreamed equality in its annual report and should highlight specific practices.

We warmly welcome the initiative, because it is an aspect of the Scottish Parliament's work that will have a positive impact on the Scottish Executive's work. I hope that we proceed with such an approach throughout the Parliament so that it permeates everything that we do.

I believe that all parties in the Parliament that attend meetings of the Equal Opportunities Committee signed up to the recommendations on mainstreaming. However, in relation to the Health Committee, I would not like any individuals in Scotland to be treated differently from other individuals. That is a personal comment about not wanting to go down the positive discrimination route.

I, too, warmly welcome the Equal Opportunities Committee's report. There is a mixture of issues, for some of which committees would be responsible—for example, the need to ensure, when considering from whom to take evidence, that there is a balanced view and that everyone has an opportunity to contribute. There are also issues for which the Parliament is responsible through the clerks, such as accessibility and ensuring that people who come to give evidence have any aids that they might need.

We learned from a recent evidence session that we must ensure that people who come to give evidence have enough information to enable them to know that they can make a positive contribution. Members of the Health Committee—and of all other committees—are beholden to witnesses to ensure that that information is given to them. That would go some way towards ensuring that everyone comes along on an equal basis.

I am sorry, but I am still not quite clear about what we are being asked to do. I welcome all the work that is being done on equal opportunities, which is a fundamental principle of the Parliament.

The introduction to the implementation notes states:

"It is widely recognised that mainstreaming involves a process of cultural change."

I hope that it does not mean that for the Scottish Parliament. I hope that mainstreaming is already embedded deeply in the grain, as it were. I am a little concerned about the language there.

Under equality guideline 1, on primary legislation, paragraph 6 of the notes states:

"In order to have taken account of equalities issues, the sponsor must have assessed the impact of the legislation on specific groups who can be identified in terms of the grounds or categories listed in Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act".

However, I am not so sure that that is the case. The text that is then quoted in the notes, from schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, is:

"the prevention, elimination or regulation of discrimination between persons on grounds of sex or marital status, on racial ground, or on grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation, language or social origin,"

and so on. I hope that I have not misinterpreted the Equal Opportunities Committee's intention, but it seems to be focusing on groups, rather than on what the act specifies, which is persons or individuals. I am a little concerned—in the context of David Davidson's comments—that individuals should not be left out. I would not want to think that, in our ingrained equal opportunities policies, we would focus on groups in society rather than individuals. A society is made up of individuals, and people are often left out of groups. I have read through the document and I have concerns about it. The equalities checklist in paragraph 14 states:

"The Equal Opportunities Committee recommends that lead committees, as a useful starting point, utilise the equalities checklist during stage 1 consideration of legislation."

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that that is talking about groups rather than individuals.

One of the issues that we always confront when we talk about equality of opportunity is the language that we use. It is not about positive discrimination; it is about taking positive action to remove barriers to people's participation. If there is a barrier that prevents someone who is disabled from accessing this chamber, that is a barrier to equality of opportunity as well as a barrier to an individual. I hope that we can all sign up to the general thrust of the work that the Equal Opportunities Committee is undertaking.

As always—whether in legislation or in the work that we do as a committee—we must be mindful of the fact that, sometimes, there can be cost issues that we do not really take cognisance of when legislation is passed. I point to the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which has major cost implications for enabling people to access all kinds of services. This lunchtime, I raised with some of my colleagues the issue of accessing railway stations. It is not possible, within the cost situation at the moment, to resolve that issue. That is the kind of thinking that we have to do. We must think about the cost when we are thinking about how we can remove barriers through legislation, and we must ensure that we do not pass legislation without giving full consideration to such issues.

I hope that that takes care of the individuals as well as taking care of the global situation, regarding the removal of barriers. Whether someone has a disability or whatever, it is about our putting barriers in place and society's not providing solutions. It is not about the individual's presenting problems; it is about our not providing solutions to their difficulties.

The financial memorandum that accompanies any bill would have to include the cost to the public purse of its implementation, although not the cost to private companies. Some of the costs that the legislation would involve would therefore have to be in the documents accompanying a bill. Nevertheless, I take Helen Eadie's point, as costs to private companies are a different matter.

While I was reading through the document, I began to wonder whether, given the speed with which we have to process bills, it would take us longer to consider in this context all the legislation that we pass. Paragraph 19 of the notes states:

"If an amendment at stage 2 introduces new policy, committees will wish to ascertain if there is an impact on equalities issues."

It will take time to do that.

I would think that we would all inherently be as equal as we possibly can be and try to take in every person from every group, not only groups. The report is good reading and it is good practice, but I did not really understand how committees were going to do more than they do at present to fulfil all that it suggests.

I am looking at what is required of the committee on equal opportunities in any event. We have to make a statement regarding whether policies are discriminatory. We are already required to do that. I think that a statement accompanies every Executive bill, but the committee also takes a view on those matters.

That is what I thought: it seemed as if we were doing that anyway. If we are thinking about postcode prescribing, for example, inequalities exist. Equality is a great subject to think about. We could go on applying it for ever. I am in favour of it.

I am glad to hear it.

Things such as postcode prescribing would not really come into equality unless specific individuals within groups that are identified in schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 were being discriminated against. If a particular area that had a high level of black and ethnic-minority people was not getting access to particular services, that would be a cause for concern.

Some members seem to be missing the point about mainstreaming. The committee has always had a responsibility to have regard to equal opportunities. All the subject committees have that responsibility. The fact is that the reason that the Equal Opportunities Committee decided to conduct research into and do a major piece of work on mainstreaming was that none of the committees was mainstreaming. The Equal Opportunities Committee was left with a kind of policing role for equal opportunities throughout the Parliament. Mainstreaming, which seemed to be broadly accepted just before the October recess, means that everybody has responsibility for equal opportunities. That includes all the subject committees, the Executive and the Parliament staff. That takes a bit more time and work. It is far easier to bash on and not have regard to such matters.

I could not understand Mike Rumbles's point. I know that schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 refers to "persons", but there are groups of people who have broadly similar attributes that cause them to be discriminated against. That is what the Equal Opportunities Committee refers to in its report. Groups that are discriminated against are what is always referred to. Those are groups of individuals who have broadly similar attributes that cause them to be discriminated against.

As well as welcoming the report, we should commit ourselves to doing what the Equal Opportunities Committee asks of us. It will take a bit more time and will sometimes cause a lot more discussion in certain areas, but if we are welcoming the report, we should commit ourselves to its recommendations. All the committees should do that. Every member of the Scottish Parliament should commit themselves to mainstreaming in every aspect of their work, not only their committee work. We should consider it in the way in which we deal with constituents and with organisations in our constituencies. We should ensure that everybody has equal access to the services that we offer.

Has the Scottish Executive said that it will adopt the report lock, stock and barrel? Is that a fact or not?

We will have to check that.

In annex A, which is fairly far back in the document, a responsibility for bill sponsors at stage 1 is laid out. Consider the bill with which we will be dealing with tomorrow afternoon. Annex A asks:

"what consultation has been carried out with the stakeholders"?

Well, for the Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill, there has been virtually no consultation with the recipients of health care. The next bullet point in the annex asks:

"have the intended effects of the Bill been set out in accompanying documentation"?

Sorry, where are those bullet points?

They are in annex A.

I am looking at annex A.

It is three or four sheets back from the end of the paper.

They are under the heading "Primary Legislation—Stage 1".

My point is about the third and fourth bullet points, which are halfway down the page, under the heading "Bill Sponsor" in the section headed "Primary Legislation—stage 1". I want to give an example, not a statement of position. All members mentioned the small amount of consultation and few opportunities to give views on the Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill, as did those who gave evidence on the bill. The fourth bullet point mentions setting out the intended effects of bills in the accompanying documentation. However, the accompanying documentation for that bill did not cover at all the bill's potential effect on the delivery of services in rural and remote areas. I use that only as an example.

How far are we prepared to take consultation and how far does the Executive go? It is all very well for committees to run round saying that we will do this and that, but we work in parallel with the Scottish Executive at all times. Before we come to a view, I would like to know what the Scottish Executive's view is. We must come to a common view with the Executive about how the Parliament should work.

I take your point. On the technicalities, perhaps we should write to the Executive on the issues you have raised about consultation with stakeholders and about policy memoranda. The policy memorandum to the Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill covers some issues, but I cannot remember whether it says who was consulted. Policy memoranda usually list who has been consulted.

On this occasion, the consultation did not go as far as the committee would want. That is why we need a view from the Executive about mainstreaming equalities.

What Kate Maclean said prompted me to speak again. The nub of the issue is about individuals and groups. Although I understand what Kate said about people who have broadly similar attributes getting together in groups and questioning whether they are being discriminated against, the danger of compartmentalising people and not treating them as individuals is that, in attempting to make the process non-discriminatory, we risk being discriminatory.

I did not want to get this far into the debate, but I will use as an example the issue of domestic abuse, which the Parliament has discussed, although it is not specifically a health issue. All Executive and Parliament documents claim that domestic abuse is an extremely important issue. In debate we often hear from members who try genuinely to treat people equally, but who argue that because most domestic abuse occurs against women we must focus on that group. I do not disagree with that, but the danger of focusing on that group is that we might ignore other groups, such as the group of men who suffer from domestic abuse. That is far less of an issue, but it is still an issue to those individuals.

I use that example to try to get across the reason why I am reluctant to support the notes as they are written. I agree fundamentally that equal opportunities must be ingrained in our work—I think that it is—but I am not happy about the language used because it puts us in danger of grouping people and of discriminating against them, which is not helpful.

On a point of information, Mike Rumbles focuses on the word "persons", which, in the statutory or legal sense, means a person or persons. The word can be read as singular and can be interpreted to mean not only campaigning groups, but individuals.

That is exactly my point. That is what the legislation says, but it is not what the Equal Opportunities Committee says.

The Equal Opportunities Committee refers to schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998.

That is exactly what I am referring to. In paragraph 6 of the implementation notes, the Equal Opportunities Committee talks about specific groups, not about persons, although the quote from the legislation mentions persons.

We will ask the Equal Opportunities Committee for clarification on the point that Mike Rumbles has raised. Duncan McNeil and Kate Maclean wish to speak. If it is okay with Duncan McNeil, I will call Kate Maclean first, because she was a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee.

Mike Rumbles gave a poor example. Gypsy Travellers have an average life expectancy of 55 years and are discriminated against in access to medical services. They form a group of people. Although that group of people has the culture of Gypsy Travellers, which therefore defines their access to medical services, the group contains individuals who might be black and ethnic minority people who do not have access to interpretation and translation when receiving medical services, or disabled people who might not have access to facilities or to information. Those are groups of people that are made up of individuals, and that is what the Equal Opportunities Committee is referring to. I would never accuse Mike Rumbles of it, but I think that he is being intentionally obtuse.

That is not on.

The issue has not been raised by anybody else. People who share specific attributes do not mind being referred to as groups of individuals with those attributes. There is nothing wrong with the word "groups". We would waste time if we tried to clarify it.

I was going to draw the discussion to a close and ask for clarification, but some members want to speak again.

I do not think that I have spoken on the subject yet—I have forgotten as the discussion has gone on.

I am sorry.

I am being discriminated against.

Are you a group or an individual?

I do not know whether it is the committee's role to open up the debate again. We have legislation, guidelines and several reference points, which include the Scottish Parliament's operation as an open and accessible organisation and how we treat our employees, our clerks and witnesses. We have the legislation that other parliamentarians and legislators have discussed at great length, so we should not open up the debate again.

The committee must work out how to live up to those expectations. Every time that any committee discusses the matter, the first line is that mainstreaming equality is too difficult and that we will never be able to do it. We need to consider how the guidelines apply to us and how to conform practically with the guidelines. For example, we might revisit care homes issues. We know that people in care homes may have eyesight or hearing difficulties, so any materials that we produced for them would need to be adapted to that. The committee needs to adopt a practical approach, rather than have a philosophical argument about the rights and wrongs of one line of legislation against another.

We could open an interesting, if long, discussion about what we all mean by equality. Given some of the comments that have been made, that might be dangerous, because we have fundamental disagreements. We must bear it in mind that the Parliament has debated the subject on the Equal Opportunities Committee's initiative and a position was reached to which I thought that everybody was signed up. The wording to which Mike Rumbles referred could be read to mean "persons" or "person". Whether discrimination is against an individual or groups of individuals is neither here nor there.

The place in which to make those views known was the debate that the Equal Opportunities Committee initiated. We have had the debate and the position has been taken. It is time to focus on the committee's responsibility to fulfil its role. I do not know whether much can be gained by having a long, albeit interesting, philosophical debate about the issues that have been thrashed out.

I will draw the discussion to a close. We will issue to all committee members a possible letter to the Equal Opportunities Committee and members can tell us whether they have objections, which I have no doubt that they will.

I have a note that the Executive responded positively to the report when it was debated in the chamber. I confirm that when we ask people to be witnesses, it is standard practice to ensure that we mainstream equalities and that people have equal opportunities.

Janis Hughes mentioned guidance to witnesses, which would be very helpful. Recently we threw someone in at the deep end, which was rather unfair. It is one thing to hear from professionals who give evidence regularly, but another to hear from ordinary people. For me, providing guidance is an example of equal opportunities. At a later date, the committee may decide to allow witnesses who are not used to giving evidence advance notice of the kind of questions that they will be asked. That would help to balance the situation. We must consider the practical suggestions that Duncan McNeil has made.

Thank you for your contributions. We will bring together in a letter the points that have been made. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.