Equal Opportunities Committee, 03 Oct 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Official Report 216KB pdf

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European Year of Equal Opportunities for All 2007

The fourth item is the European year of equal opportunities for all.

The year was flagged up far in advance, so I expected the national implementing body to have been nominated by now.

I would have thought so.

I do not think that we can do anything about that.

Could we raise the matter with the Executive?

Is the UK Government responsible?

Yes, but the Executive can raise issues with the UK Government, given the role of equal opportunities in the Scottish Parliament.

Can we write to our sister or brother committee at Westminster?

We have no brother or sister at Westminster.

What about an equivalent?

I am not sure whether we have an equivalent.

That would have been a route for providing a comment.

We can engage with the UK set-up, but it would be worth while writing to someone.

Who is the appropriate person to make a point to?

Would it be acceptable to produce a proposal about whom we should contact?

Members indicated agreement.

Will any Scottish Executive ministers or officials attend the conference in Berlin in January?

We expect them to be part of a UK delegation but, as we have no information about the set-up, we are not clear about that.

It is important to ensure that the Scottish Executive is part of the UK delegation. It is a good idea for the convener to attend, but should one other member attend with the convener? Will clerking support be provided for the conference?

Elaine Smith makes a good point, but I understand that attendance is limited. Clerking support will be required.

We can write to the Executive to ensure that ministers participate in the event, which is important to our work in the Parliament. We will pursue the scope for additional committee members to attend—I agree that that would be good.

The conference is important. The bigger the presence from Scotland, the better.

Attendance is limited but, given that the Parliament has an Equal Opportunities Committee, the conference is worth investigation.

How long will the conference last? What is the process for influencing the agenda and the themes that it takes up?

I notice that the last bullet point in our paper says that a key aim of the year is

"promoting the benefits of diversity for the European Union."

How do we influence the focus of the debate to consider employment, migration and the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, for example? How those issues will be approached interests me. What opportunities do we have to focus the debate?

I am told that a programme of events will be discussed at UK level. You are right—we do not want something that is handed down from on high at a conference. If we are having a European year, we want to participate in what needs to be in place for it.

The brand new equal opportunities legislation, which is only about two days old, contains some exemptions.

Can the committee request a list of those exemptions and the reasons for them? The minute an exemption to an equality is given, we have an inequality.

I agree, but that is not to do with the paper that we are discussing.

The issue could be taken to Europe to find out about it. The exemptions are probably the result of European legislation.

We need to agree to the paper first.

If we go to the conference, will we have the opportunity to speak at it?

I hope that we will have the opportunity to speak about some of the work that we do and about some of the equalities issues that we experience in Scotland. Like Elaine Smith, I think that it would be good to have more than one member at the conference.

Do members agree to the actions that are proposed in the paper?

Members indicated agreement.

Meeting continued in private until 11:28.