Justice 1 Committee, 31 Mar 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Official Report 180KB pdf

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Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill

We move on to item 6. I ask the committee to give some thought to how it wants to approach the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Bill and to the witnesses from whom it wants to hear. Members have an approach paper that suggests witnesses and a timetable for our stage 1 consideration. The bill is short—that does not mean that it is not complicated; we do not know that yet—so the paper proposes that we have four evidence sessions and suggests witnesses for each session. Of course, the committee may change the proposals or add to them if it wants to do so.

I invite members to comment generally on the timetable of work on the bill, and on how we might incorporate the work that we have just agreed to do on civil registration partnerships into our timetable.

The bill will cover prison officers, but the approach paper does not suggest that we invite the Prison Officers Association Scotland to give evidence—perhaps a reference to the association, which is the trade union for prison officers, has escaped me.

We issued a call for written evidence on 25 March and it is suggested that we take six weeks to consider the bill. We normally allow eight weeks, but we thought that we could probably consider the bill in six weeks, because it is short. The first oral evidence session would take place on 5 May and subsequent oral evidence sessions would take place on 12 May, 26 May and 2 June. On 9 June, we would discuss the issues that came out of the evidence session, in preparation for the writing of our draft report, which we would discuss on 16 June. We would agree our final report on 23 June, which would allow for the publication of the stage 1 report on 25 June, in time for a stage 1 debate on 1 July.

Members will have noticed the problem. If we want to squeeze in the stage 1 debate before the summer recess, there will not be much slack in the timetable.

I noticed that the bill also intends to cover midwives. If I remember rightly, midwives have their own royal college and are not covered by the Royal College of Nursing. If we invite the RCN to give evidence, perhaps we should include the Royal College of Midwives on that panel.

We could do that. The RCN, Unison and the GMB all represent midwives, but you might want to hear exclusively from the Royal College of Midwives.

It might be just a question of clarifying the situation with the Royal College of Midwives, because if the college is happy for others to cover the situation in relation to midwives, that will be fine. If the college is not happy, it should have the option to attend.

In the recent debate on emergency workers, an issue that emerged was which workers the bill should include. I want to put on the record that we might receive written evidence from groups that suggest that the bill's scope should be wider.

The approach paper suggests that we take evidence mostly, if not exclusively, from the workers who are covered by the bill. However, there are issues with social workers, housing officers and others who go into individuals' homes, often on their own in difficult circumstances, and although we have scheduled oral evidence-taking sessions with those who are covered by the bill, we might find when we receive written evidence that groups of workers who are not covered by the bill come to us and highlight an issue. To some extent, we might pick that up in our evidence from the Scottish Trades Union Congress or from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, if we were to invite it for a local authority view.

That is a good point. For your information, I have asked for the GMB to be included—I declare an interest, as that is my union—because it represents home care workers, as does Unison. The committee will therefore get a union perspective on the matter, but it might want another perspective. I have also asked for the Transport and General Workers Union to be included, because it represents a high proportion of ambulance workers.

The point might come through, but I wanted to flag up the possibility that we might get representations from other bodies of workers.

That is a valid point, but you can see the impact that that will have on the timetable. If we were to agree the witnesses who have been suggested and then add to them, you can see how difficult it would be to fit everything in. We would have to add to the timetable, even if we were to add only three half-hour evidence-taking sessions on to the meetings on the registration of civil partnerships. You can see what the timetabling issues are, but let us hear out the discussion before we come to a conclusion on that.

In the debate that we had not so long ago, Margaret Smith, I and others spoke about certain groups of public sector workers being excluded. I raised the issue of the non-uniformed staff who work in the fire, police, ambulance and health services, who might be excluded from the bill because they are not specifically emergency workers. Unison and the GMB represent most of the non-uniformed staff in the fire service, so I hope that they will come at the bill from that angle, but perhaps the professional bodies that represent social workers, for example, will wish to say something about the bill, as social workers have a difficult job and deal with difficult individuals.

I accept that the timescale is tight. However, although I cannot think of an individual organisation that could represent other public sector workers, I am concerned that, as Margaret Smith mentioned, we are leaving out all those who have been left out of the bill.

Those are legitimate points. Although we will focus on the public sector, when committee members hear what the bill is about, they might ask why we should legislate to protect only public sector workers when there might be private sector workers whose employment puts them in similar situations, although we might be unaware of that. The difficulty is that we have to pre-empt what issues might come out of the consultation and anticipate what witnesses we want to come and speak to the committee.

I notice that it is suggested that we hear from Unison and the STUC in the third evidence-taking session and from the T&G and the GMB in the fourth. There might be a good reason why they have been split, but perhaps it would be better to have them as a single panel in the third evidence-taking session, which would create more room in the fourth.

Yes. That is a good suggestion. It would, in theory, create a bit more room, but my experience is that, with bigger panels, either we find ourselves talking to one person on the panel to the exclusion of the others—naming no names—or everybody wants to speak, which is only fair if they have come to give evidence. I have never found a solution to that. If we follow your suggestion, we will probably have to schedule in a slightly longer meeting to take account of the numbers on the panel. You talked about non-uniformed staff on professional bodies. Do you want anyone in particular to be considered for addition to the list of witnesses?

The problem is that it is difficult to identify a single representative of all the disparate groups of workers. Michael Matheson mentioned the Prison Officers Association Scotland, which is not on the list, and the Royal College of Midwives, which we will ask. Perhaps we should also consider social workers.

I agree.

We could hear from the Association of Directors of Social Work. While members think about that, I will call Bill Butler to speak.

If we receive submissions before evidence sessions 1 or 2, you might wish to bring to the committee's attention a suggestion that leaps out of written submissions that might be better taken as oral submissions. We could work flexibly and leave the matter to your discretion.

That is a good point. We might want to consider having blank slots until we have a feel for the consultation. Witness availability would also provide some flexibility.

It might be appropriate to hear from COSLA, which may have an umbrella view for many public sector workers. The British Association of Social Workers is the grass-roots organisation for social workers, unlike the ADSW.

I would probably go along with Bill Butler's suggestion that it might be best to keep session 4 free until we have written evidence. After that, you can decide who else we should hear from. That might be the best way to proceed, because it is difficult to second-guess who will respond.

Michael Matheson suggested the Prison Officers Association. Do members want it to be included? I think that the association must be invited, so we will have to find a slot for it. Session 4 is not completely free, because we will hear from the minister at the end of it. We would want a minimum of an hour for the minister, which leaves room to fit in two other witnesses. Margaret Smith suggested COSLA. Do you want that suggestion to be considered now or to be left hanging in the balance?

I am happy for that to hang in the balance, but if we do not receive written evidence from many other groups, hearing from COSLA might cover home care, social work, housing and other similar officials. One big issue is the fact that many of those people must enter homes on their own. If anything, they might need more protection than people who work in accident and emergency departments, for example. The busiest accident and emergency departments probably have security guards on hand.

Evidence session 1 has no room for anything else. That session will be heavy, because it will provide our opportunity to understand early as much as we can about the bill from the Executive team and to hear the views of the Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates.

At evidence session 2, we will hear from the Scottish Police Federation and from the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents as a panel. We will need to leave time for that panel. After that, we will hear from the Fire Brigades Union and the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association as a panel. That session will take two and a half to three hours.

At evidence session 3, we will hear first from the Royal College of Nursing, after which we will have the British Medical Association Scotland and the Royal College of Physicians as a panel. A further panel will comprise Unison Scotland, the STUC, the T&G and the GMB. We have to slot in the Prison Officers Association.

Session 4 is left with the minister and at least two blank slots. Members may take the view that two blank slots are not enough, but that is impossible to say until the written evidence has been seen. I note that the deadline for written evidence is not until 7 May. As members can imagine, it is always the case that submissions are received right up to the deadline. I also note that our first evidence-taking session is scheduled for 5 May.

It might be worth while to include the substance of the conversation that we have just had in the call for written evidence. We could say that some of the oral evidence slots will not be scheduled until we see what people have said in their written evidence. That might suggest to people that it would be worth while getting their evidence in early.

The call for evidence has already gone out. If it had not, we would not have met the deadline.

Okay.

I think that we will have to keep two blank slots in the fourth evidence-taking session and leave it up to the convener and deputy convener to fill them. There is no other practical way around the situation.

I am happy to leave it at that. If the committee agrees, however, I think that we should tell the Parliamentary Bureau that we need some flexibility in our timetable, because we want to do a good job on the bill and we feel that it is important to give the Parliament some guidance on civil partnership registration. We will be working pretty hard to meet the deadlines.

I realise the implications of that. At the moment, the bureau wants to have the stage 1 debate on 1 July. If we do not say anything, the problem is that it may not be possible to meet the deadlines and we might also miss out on evidence. We can review the situation as time goes on.

It is important that we give the bureau that guide. It is looking at procedures at the moment. Later in our agenda, we have an item about the Procedures Committee's inquiry into the subject. The discussion that we are having typifies the kind of comment that the bureau needs to hear. All of us want to pass good legislation. The idea is not to process it as fast as we can get it through but to do a good and thorough job. I agree entirely that we should flag up to the bureau that we need flexibility.

I should also mention that there will be no plenary sessions in the week commencing 17 May. The Parliament is meeting in the Hub that week, as we are no longer in these premises. There is the possibility therefore that we could have two committee meetings in one week. I am not wild about the idea. It is a matter of good practice that the Official Report is available to committee members before each of our meetings. We need to be able to see what was said in the previous evidence-taking session so that we can put the evidence to the next witnesses. It is an option, however, and I want quickly to canvass reactions to the suggestion.

If we have to do it, we have to do it.

As no member is otherwise minded, I thank members for their assistance.