Equal Opportunities Committee, 14 Dec 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 14, 1999

Official Report 230KB pdf

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Work Programme

We now move to our next item. All members have a copy of the work programme report that was sent out last week. Do members have any initial questions on that report? We have received many requests from members to hear briefings from various organisations, and it has been difficult to keep up with the legislative timetable. We thought that it would be a good idea to get a firm idea, at this meeting, of whom we are going to hear briefings from and in what order we will deal with issues.

Could we invite representatives of the Scottish Human Rights Centre to the meeting on 1 February? I have two reasons for making that request. First, the request to hear from that organisation was made a long time ago. Secondly, it would be appropriate to hear from the Scottish Executive equality unit and the Scottish Human Rights Centre during the same meeting.

It is to be hoped that the equality unit is fully aware of the implications of all the human rights legislation and the related matters that come before the Parliament. I would like to have a full briefing, as early as possible, on the way in which this committee should scrutinise the human rights legislation that comes before the Parliament. It would be inappropriate to leave that briefing until 28 March, and it would be much better to have it when we hear from the equality unit. The question is whether that would be practical. I imagine that it would be, as we propose to hold several meetings at which there will be more than one briefing. I ask that that briefing be brought forward.

That would cause me no difficulty, but it is up to the committee to decide what it wants.

I want to make three points. First, it would make sense to do something with all the evidence that we have received on the education bill at our first meeting after the recess. The first meeting would be the best opportunity to do that. Although the bill will be published around that time, that would not be a problem, as we would still have opportunities.

Secondly, given that we are meeting fortnightly—and I realise that that is what the majority of the committee wants—we need to do more in each meeting. For example, I propose that we discuss the education bill and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill on 18 January. Now that the issue of same-sex partners has been dealt with, there will be no more major issues for us to address in the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill. On 1 February, we should do as Tommy Sheridan suggests and invite representatives of the Scottish Executive equality unit and the Scottish Human Rights Centre. If we are to meet only once a fortnight, we must have meetings of three hours—or two and a half, if we start at 10 o'clock; otherwise, we will never get through the business.

Thirdly, as we have discussed already, we will work on the transport bill during the first half of 2000. We will work on the housing bill at the same time, as we will have an opportunity to address that legislation early. I suggest that the Disabled Persons Housing Service be slotted in when we deal with housing, and that Achievement Bute and Caledonian MacBrayne be slotted in when we deal with transport, as those are two specific subjects. We could hear from the Zero Tolerance Trust, SAY Women and Scottish Rape Crisis earlier, as we will not have to wait for some other piece of legislation in relation to those issues. However, the issues of transport and housing could be dealt with in a block. At the previous meeting, I mentioned Positive Action Housing. The general view was that representatives of that organisation should give evidence when we address the issue of housing, which makes sense.

First, I agree with Malcolm Chisholm. We need more direction, particularly in trying to pull the evidence together. The way in which we have received evidence has been bitty, and it has been hard to keep track of what we have heard and the conclusions that, as individuals, we have come to. We must discuss whether the committee can come to collective decisions, and we should do that early in the new year, before we lose the thread of things. I suggest we have a pulling-together meeting as early as possible in the new year.

Secondly, I understood that we were going to discuss the frequency of meetings today. I do not know whether members have come to conclusions on that, but it would be worth while to discuss whether we should have meetings fortnightly or weekly.

Thirdly, it would be useful to have some indication of which requests for briefings are still outstanding. Several requests have been made, one of which I would like to see on the committee's agenda before the end of March, from the Scottish Refugee Council. Changes are scheduled for April 2000, and it would be useful for the committee to hear about the impact of those before they are made. I request that that briefing be slotted into the agenda before the end of March.

I asked the clerks to go through the minutes and record all the outstanding briefings. I was not aware that there were any others.

We think that the list in front of us details all the outstanding briefings that have been requested. If we have missed any, they can be added to the list.

The request was made two or three meetings ago.

To invite the Scottish Refugee Council?

Yes.

Some of the points that I was going to make have been made by Malcolm Chisholm. I am particularly concerned that, if we are to produce a stage 1 or stage 2 report, we should have time scales that we must work to. We must know when that work must be completed, so that we will have an idea of when it must be submitted to either the lead committee or the ministers. I am confused about when that is meant to happen.

In pulling together the evidence that we have received, we must move quite quickly. The issue of monitoring statistics, and having a schedule for that, was raised today. The Commission for Racial Equality has offered to assist us with that, and the question is whether we should accept that assistance. If we produce a report, we may make reference to that, but if we do not submit what we want to have included in the report, we may lose out. We need time to return to organisations, to ask whether they can consider issues and get back to us with ideas of what they want to be included in our report. I would welcome an opportunity, early in the new year, to sit down and consider the evidence that we have received, so that we can prioritise the areas in which we may require further assistance.

I have requested that the Equal Opportunities Committee be formally slotted into the consultation process. At the moment, it is not, and it is difficult for us to get a timetable. We are dependent on the good will of other committees to let us go and give evidence. We are not slotted in formally. I hope that a report about that will be brought back to the next conveners meeting, which would make things much easier for us, as we would be notified at the same time as lead committees or other committees that are notified.

We must bash on with education. We are not the lead committee, but we will have to get all the stuff together. The only experience I have of producing such a report is from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, in which there was a discussion on all the evidence that we had received. A draft report was then produced, which was discussed a couple of times before we eventually came up with the report that was to be published. That is the way in which this committee should proceed.

Our report should be given directly either to Parliament or to the lead committee. As the situation is still not clear, we must proceed on that basis, on education, so that we can feed in at stage 1 rather than wait any longer. I hope that that will be done early in the new year. You are right that the process has been patchy, and that it is difficult to see how we fit into it. We missed stage 1 of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill, although Malcolm Chisholm is right—the main point that we wanted to make was fed in anyway. That was through good luck. We must get our position sorted out.

I am delighted that Achievement Bute has been included in the list. That group will raise many issues aside from the ferry issue, one of which will concern keeping children in mainstream education. Would it be worth inviting any other groups to give evidence at the same time? As representatives of Caledonian MacBrayne will be there, people from other islands might want to send a deputation to question that company on the problems of disabled people on ferries. Should I investigate that?

No. When the committee has discussed that, if anyone is to be notified the clerks can do that.

I return to the point that Shona Robison made earlier about the Scottish Refugee Council. I raised that issue at the previous meeting. It was recorded in the minutes of the sub-group report, as Shona Robison had brought the matter up. It was at that point that we made a formal request to include that organisation on the agenda. I agree with Malcolm Chisholm, however, that we should address the legislation that is currently under scrutiny and prioritise that work. The time that Shona Robison suggested for inviting the Scottish Refugee Council—sometime in March—would be appropriate, as that would allow us to concentrate on the improvement in Scottish education bill and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill.

I do not think that that was what Shona Robison was suggesting. Was that what you were suggesting?

No. I suggested that we should try to take evidence from the Scottish Refugee Council before the end of March, so that the committee would be aware of the impact of the legislation for which this Parliament is responsible. I suggested the opposite of what Michael McMahon understood: I would prefer to have that organisation's input sooner rather than later.

As the committee can influence directly the legislation that is currently under scrutiny, we should prioritise that work. I am not saying that the asylum bill is not an issue for this committee. I am saying that we should prioritise the scrutiny of current draft legislation and ensure that we have an appropriate input into that.

I ask Johann Lamont to speak, as she has been waiting for a while. I will then allow other members to rejoin the debate.

We can easily balance both the matters that we believe are important and the matters that we absolutely must address. If a clear timetable is laid out for us of the matters that we must address, and there are spaces, we might fit in other matters as soon as we can. Malcolm Chisholm is right in saying that we should have more idea of what we are going to address at each meeting. That would free up space to include, as early as possible, issues such as that which Shona Robison has mentioned.

The committee must not only listen to evidence; it must be seen to use that evidence in some way. It would dangerously undermine the committee if it looked as though organisations were always coming to give us information, but there was no consequence of that. I was disappointed—and I say this to our SNP colleagues here—that the equalities debate focused on what this committee could not do and on its weaknesses. We all agree that this committee can do very positive things. We are charged with ensuring that what we can do will be as effective as possible and that any weaknesses, such as not having a timetable or not being clearly slotted into a structure, are addressed. We must ensure that we lock ourselves into the formal system so that the kinds of deadlines that we have missed in the past will not be missed again. If we are going to meet only once a fortnight, we must accept that our meetings will be very full, and we must make a commitment to a full morning's work.

We will have to consider formally how the work of the sub-groups can be fed back to the committee. In the sub-group on women, we have discussed what we will do with the information that we have gathered on women as offenders and on women as vulnerable witnesses in the justice system. Committee members may want to wait until I can give a fuller report, but we should recognise that that work has to tie into the work of the committee at some stage. The committee should hear more than just a brief report.

To give a good example, Professor Sheila McLean of Glasgow University has produced a report on the whole issue of women offenders, and I feel that the committee, and not just the sub-group, should have the chance to explore those issues with her. We will need to decide when to do that. The best time may be during the meeting on violence against women, which could then be linked to the question of justice. We must be aware that the meetings of sub-groups have a purpose, which is to pull information together in the medium term and to go to the appropriate places where work can be done. The work of the sub-groups should not be allowed to drift.

I would like to respond to Johann's initial point. Because equal opportunities is a reserved matter, I feel that it would be in the interest of this committee to push the parameters as far as possible. If, sometimes, that means highlighting the inadequacies of the current framework, perhaps we need to do that.

In our work, we have to strike a balance between reacting to the legislative programme and being proactive on our own initiative. For example, the issue of statistical data collection is not going through Parliament, but we may wish to highlight it. Another issue might be that of refugees and the changes that will come in from April. This committee may take a view on that and may want to initiate something on that issue. I hope that we will not concentrate solely on reacting to the legislative programme. If we do so, we will miss a number of proactive opportunities.

We are reacting, Shona, to the evidence that we took initially from the main equality organisations on their priorities.

A number of them raised the issue of refugees and asylum seekers.

I would have to look back at the minutes, but I do not think that those issues were raised as being among the major concerns of most of the organisations.

I think that we are saying the same thing. Johann talked about the legislative process and the fact that we have to fit into those time scales; but that is normal—every committee has to do the same. We have to examine the way that we manage our mornings, so that we can be proactive and fit in the things that we want to do. I think that Johann has answered Shona's question, or maybe I am missing something.

In the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, we are taking evidence for a special inquiry. Something very helpful has been a résumé that the clerks produced of all the evidence. We took evidence, and then had two or three opportunities to examine it, take it away and make amendments. That then became the basis of our report. If our clerks could prepare something for the committee for when we come back, that would be helpful in focusing our work.

I said earlier that that would come back to the committee and that we would then produce a draft report.

Yes, I was supporting what you had said. If we did things that way, it would be more structured and we could push on. I support what Johann said as a way to move forward.

Although I agree with Johann and Marilyn, there should be a clear statement of when certain things need to be done. The improvement in Scottish education bill and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill need to be addressed in January. We do not yet know when we have to discuss the transport bill—perhaps the clerks could find that out—but I imagine that, as it is a first-year bill, we will have to discuss it before housing, which will not come until the second quarter of the year. Until we know when we are discussing transport, we cannot finalise our programme.

If the clerks can find out when those things are happening—the Executive itself might not know yet, or might not be telling us—we can build the rest of our programme around that information. However, Shona has a point. It could be argued that, as the situation involving the Scottish Refugee Council has just arisen, that issue is time-limited, whereas other matters, though important, are not time-limited in the same way.

If committee members are happy to have longer meetings, we can fit two or three evidence sessions into one meeting to cover specific committee issues as well as everything that relates to the legislative programme. That is not a problem.

The committee cannot operate in a political vacuum of Scottish Parliament business. Most issues are reserved matters and we will have to react to events at Westminster. For example, Disability Scotland and the Scottish Trades Union Congress gave a presentation on the disability rights commission. Those organisations are concerned about the Scottish representation on that issue, and, although we have no control over that area, they wanted the committee to examine that specific issue. The majority of disability matters touch on issues that are very often reserved. Although we can try to prioritise issues that relate to the legislative programme, we cannot operate in a vacuum and kid ourselves that we can ignore decisions that will be taken at Westminster.

Although equality legislation is a reserved matter, we still have a lot of power to change things. I would have thought it far more important for the committee to suggest amendments in Scottish legislation that address the problems of discrimination in all groups.

There is no doubt about that.

At a conference that Nora Radcliffe and I attended in Edinburgh, the lesbian and gay community made it clear that it is very happy about such issues as Jim Wallace's statement on the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill and with some of the steps that the Parliament has taken on section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

No one is disputing that. However, we have to recognise that decisions taken at Westminster will have a clear impact on the issue of equality in Scotland and that the committee has a responsibility to examine such matters. For example, the CRE in Scotland is concerned that the Race Relations Act 1976 has not been changed and has key recommendations on that issue. There is no time to deal with that at Westminster, but there is time here to do so. We have to investigate such issues when necessary.

I am not saying that we should not do that, only that it should not dominate our programme.

I do not think that that should happen either, but the fact should be recognised.

It is not particularly helpful to get into a debate about the limits of what the committee can do. That will only undermine our work. One of the big lessons of mainstreaming is that equality issues should not get discussed simply as a separate category headed "Equality".

One problem in the past was that we talked about equality only when discussing equality legislation. If it is talked about within the context of a health bill or a housing bill, or in relation to transport or education, that will make a bigger difference. People who have argued for mainstreaming recognise that. That is not to say that equality legislation is not important. However, we should not be put in the position of focusing on what this committee cannot do when there is a massive amount that it can do. If people have given evidence to the committee, our task is to ensure that that evidence is fed into the system.

The weakness so far is that we have not been located at the centre of the timetabled programme. Something should be done to rectify that, and the convener has taken it up. People come to this committee with important things to say. After we have listened to them, we must ensure that we do not simply react to legislation but feed the evidence that we have heard into legislation in a positive way.

There is nothing wrong in having the spine of our timetable determined by the legislative programme. However, alongside that we should be working in areas in which we may be arguing the case for legislation to be brought forward at a later stage. That is part of our role. Although we do not initiate legislation, we can suggest it to bodies, such as the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which can. We can also influence the Executive to add legislation to its programme.

This timetable is designed to ensure that we do what we can as efficiently as possible, that we do things when we have to and that the broader issues that Shona Robison was talking about slot in alongside that work. It is wrong to say that we must choose one or the other. We accept that issues can be bumped up the agenda. We are certainly not in the business of operating as gatekeepers in the equalities debate. We would not exclude people from coming here to give evidence if they thought that that was important.

We will come to some agreement on at least the first few meetings. Shona, you wanted to raise the issue of the frequency of meetings?

That is right. At issue is whether we switch to weekly meetings or, as Johann has suggested, beef up our fortnightly meetings and hear more evidence at them. At the speed that we are going, we will not get through everything with fortnightly meetings. That would be a pity.

My argument for retaining fortnightly meetings is that the sub-groups have an important role to play. We could use the space and time that fortnightly meetings provide us with to progress the work of the sub-groups. If there were evidence that we were falling behind, we would have to revisit that decision. However, I would be happy if we had a beefed-up fortnightly meeting and work was also being driven forward by the sub-groups. I am as conscious as Shona is that we do not want the timetable to slip so much that we are not able to get through our business.

I support what Johann has said. If we fall behind, we can revisit this issue.

I suggest that we agree to deal with the improvement in Scottish education bill and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill on 18 January and that we defer the timetable until the clerks have found out about bills. It is a bit academic if we do not know when the transport bill is to be introduced.

Some groups that have requested to be heard by the committee are still outstanding. It would be fairer to them if we could at least—

Which groups have to be heard in January, February and March?

Some have been waiting for quite a while.

Perhaps we should go ahead with the meeting on 1 February.

Fair enough.

We must hear from the equality unit, which was established after this committee, on what its role is, and work out our remit in relation to that role. Everybody is agreed that we must also hear about the implications of the European convention on human rights coming into force next year. By 1 February, I hope that we will be in a better position to understand the timetabling for legislation on education, housing, transport and so on. We can then set our meetings to fit in with that timetable.

I am happy with that. Is there anything else that members want to slot in on 1 February? The meeting on 18 January will be entirely taken up by our consideration of bills, which will probably take up some time on 1 February as well.

Will we leave room for a future business item on 18 January? Presumably we will have the information by then.

We might have the information by then.

I suggest that an item for future timetabling be placed towards the end of each meeting's agenda. The clerks do not know the timetables for the bills, but we will let the committee know as soon as we do. The education bill is likely to be introduced in January, but we do not know the particular date. We do not have dates for the transport bill or the housing bill either.

At least we know what we are doing in the first two meetings of the year.

I will ask the clerk to write to organisations that are waiting to give briefings to the committee. I know that the City of Edinburgh Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community Safety Forum wants to come. I spoke to someone from that group on Saturday. We should write to them to say that they will be called to give evidence at an appropriate time.

Are we agreed that our agenda for 1 February should include the equality unit, the Scottish Human Rights Centre and the education bill?

Members indicated agreement.

There is a slight problem for the reporters groups. The disability reporters group asked for organisations to be brought to the committee to give evidence. The problem is finding time for that. Should we pick up other issues and bring more information to the committee? Or should the reporters groups go to meet organisations? That has to be clarified if we are to meet fortnightly. Because we want to hear evidence on a large number of issues, it could take some time to get to the evidence.

We will have a timetable by the first week in January. The reporters groups are unlikely to meet more than once before then. I have no problem with the reporters groups meeting anyone they want to and reporting to the committee when there is time.

We should keep the issue in mind when we deal with timetabling.