Reporters
Item 2 concerns the appointment of reporters. I asked members to e-mail me if they were interested in being a reporter. I have received no e-mails so far, so we will need to defer that item till the next meeting. I will take it upon myself to speak to every committee member. We will definitely appoint reporters at the next committee meeting because it is important that we do so.
Item 3 concerns reports from reporters. A report from our gender reporter, Elaine Smith, has been circulated, but unfortunately she is unable to attend. Because members may wish to ask Elaine Smith questions, I suggest that we defer discussion of her report until the next meeting. Is that agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Do other reporters have reports?
I can make a short report. I have been trying to follow up what we were dealing with at the tail-end of our meetings before the summer recess. I was starting to pick up the pace but matters have been superseded by other things.
On Sunday night, I had a meeting with the Lanarkshire Muslim community, at which concerns were expressed about discriminatory actions in Lanarkshire in the wake of the attacks in America. Issues such as policing came out of the discussion. I will pursue those to see whether anything can be drawn from that.
Religious discrimination came to the fore at the tail-end of our meetings before the recess. I have spoken to some groups and am trying to put a series of meetings in place. Some are already in place but, for others, I need to speak to people. I have been talking to people and am picking up information.
Another thing that came out of the meeting on Sunday night is that there are concerns about the Commission for Racial Equality's proposals to change the race equality councils. Such concerns have been brought to us tentatively before but are now starting to build up a head of steam.
The matter may be something that I can bring back to the committee at a later date. We could see whether we can make any progress on the issue and find out exactly what the present situation is, as it appears to be causing concern.
That concludes the reporters' reports so, with apologies to the press—we have not taken up much of your time this morning—we move into private session.
Meeting continued in private until 10:01.