Equal Opportunities Committee, 14 Dec 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 14, 1999

Official Report 230KB pdf

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Progress Reports

The next item on the agenda is progress reports from reporters.

There has not been a reporters group meeting since the last committee meeting. However, in light of what you said earlier—that reporters groups may take evidence from organisations—I will organise a meeting of the group to take place after recess in early January, so that we can examine the progress that has been made on the issues that were raised at the previous reporters group and determine how to proceed.

We can be tentatively pleased with the statement made yesterday by Jack McConnell—I have read only reports of it—about public bodies. He mentioned targets for participation by women and by black and ethnic minority communities. He also referred to figures relating to children's panels which distorted the number of women who are members of public bodies. His statement is encouraging, and we want to ensure that we are locked into that consultation.

On behalf of the group, I have lodged questions on appointments to public bodies, not just on the steps that have been taken to improve the spread of representation, but on where jobs are advertised and on the criteria according to which appointments are made. To some extent, those points have been overtaken by the announcement of the consultation exercise.

We are still waiting for a response to the report about the experience of women as witnesses, "Towards a Just Conclusion: Vulnerable and intimidated witnesses in Scottish civil and criminal cases". I lodged an oral question on that report, but it was not taken. I will try again this week and lodge it as a written question if that is unsuccessful.

We also discussed legislation on the rights of victims of sexual crimes. In particular, we discussed the perpetrator being able to conduct his own defence. Recently, there was a highly publicised case in which the woman who was involved—Jacqueline Radin—experienced huge distress, but bravely gave up her anonymity to highlight how dreadful the experience had been.

Our group agreed to write to Henry McLeish—who made the initial commitment to do something about this—to ask him to endeavour to progress the matter. We also wrote to Jim Wallace to ask what the Executive's plans were. I intend to lodge a motion calling for legislation to deal with the matter, having consulted the sub-group and other organisations. Similar legislation will come into effect in England and Wales in April. We are asking for legislation that will at least come into line with that south of the border. I hope that members will support the motion once it is lodged. I will report back on any replies to the letters that we have written.

Finally, Professor McLean said that she would be happy to meet us. We will seek an informal meeting in the short term, but I expect that she will give useful evidence to the whole committee.

I lodged a question three months ago about the number of women on public bodies. A month ago, Jack McConnell told me that an answer to my question was imminent. I still have not had an answer, which seems strange. When I get an answer to my question and when Johann Lamont gets answers to hers, it might be useful for us to consider the information. Although there has been an announcement, we must consider some of the detail. We need to consider the mechanisms that will be put in place.

I have a small question in relation to Professor McLean. We confirmed that she would make a presentation to the whole committee. Are you talking about an additional, informal meeting?

Professor McLean was relaxed about meeting the sub-group to give us an idea of what was in the report. The sub-group thought that it was important that her information went on public record. I hope that she will attend a full committee meeting.

I have written that down as a suggestion for 14 March, along with the Zero Tolerance Trust, Rape Crisis and SAY Women.

Our group suggested that either I or the group should meet Professor McLean, not as an alternative to meeting the whole committee, but to allow us to follow up other matters.

The issue is so substantial that the whole committee should address it. We discussed the conclusion of that process, which would be a report on the evidence that we had heard. That would be passed on to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which would then examine potential legislation on that area. Perhaps we could come back to the issue and examine mechanisms for harnessing information.

The Justice and Home Affairs Committee has said that it will be April before it can consider anything that has not already been timetabled.

We thought about suggesting to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee that it might want to timetable something in the second half of the year that draws on our report.

Does any member have any other questions?

At the previous committee meeting, I said that I would bring along a draft statement on the Act of Settlement. However, the document before the committee is only the bare bones of a statement. Having taken evidence from a number of individuals and organisations on that issue, I felt that there was no way that I could give a definitive position on it and that the committee should receive a draft that could be discussed.

I explained to the reporters group that the draft statement would be in three parts. The first would be a clear statement by the committee of its position on the act; the second would detail the positions of organisations affected by the act; and the third would be a bland statement of what the committee could do about the act.

At the time, the reporters group agreed with Tommy Sheridan's suggestion that there should be a paragraph about having a discussion on whether the issue should be debated in Parliament. However, that suggestion is now obsolete.

It has been overtaken by events.

Exactly, which is why I did not include that paragraph. It is difficult for an individual to produce a report and to know exactly what the committee thinks. However, I have indicated which sections of the statement met with general agreement. Some members of the reporters group held their own views and I have no problem with them as individuals raising those points during further debates. My own opinions on the matter are not reflected in the statement either, which is basically a skeleton for the committee to discuss.

Do members have any comments or questions?

I objected to the report's selective quotation of the Catholic Church's views on political manipulation. As Michael McMahon has accepted, it was shown at the meeting that the Catholic Church had a variety of views on the matter. Does he accept that it would be appropriate to put that on the record?

The quotation was not selective if that means that I ignored other comments. Individuals from other sections of the Church made various comments about the Act of Settlement. I quoted the official Church spokesperson, whom I had asked to give the Catholic Church's position.

Following that meeting, I had a discussion with the Catholic Church and was informed that the cardinal is the overall spokesperson.

As Michael Matheson knows, the Catholic Church is not a democracy.

Nobody disputes that. However, it should be recorded that it is not necessarily true to say that that position is the official line of the Catholic Church.

I spoke to the two official spokespersons. I spoke to the clergyman who is quoted, who asked that that statement be recognised as the official position of the Church. That was why he made that statement to the press. I asked him whether I could quote it as the official position of the Church, and he agreed.

After the meeting at which Michael Matheson raised his objections, I spoke to the lay representative of the Church, the parliamentary officer, who again said that anything that had been said by the cardinal did not detract in any way from the official position as outlined by Monsignor Connelly.

The quotation is selective about the official position of the Catholic Church. Monsignor Connelly has gone on record on several occasions to ask that the matter be addressed. The quotation does not necessarily reflect the full views of the Catholic Church.

Michael McMahon has told us to whom he has spoken and has explained that they said that this was the official position. Either we take it out or we leave it in. Unless you are saying that Michael McMahon is telling lies, I do not think that the committee can add bits and pieces, particularly things that you have read in the press—the press does not necessarily always accurately reflect the opinions of bodies or individuals.

As a dialectical materialist, I am not that fussed about what the Catholic Church thinks about the Act of Settlement. I am concerned about the view of the Equal Opportunities Committee, what I hope this Parliament's view will be, and the view that will develop at Westminster. Therefore, whether that quotation is dropped is not a major concern to me, because it is what this committee says that matters.

I do not disagree with that. However, we made it clear at the outset that if we talk about discrimination in any area—disability, race and so on—there are recognised organisations from which we can take evidence and which can make definitive statements. As we are talking about the Act of Settlement, which discriminates against the Roman Catholic Church, I would think that the people from whom one would get official comment would be the spokespeople of that organisation. That is why I included that statement.

Michael Matheson objected and said that other people said different things. I do not dispute that, but I have spoken to two official Church spokespeople and gone back to them to confirm their position. They did so, and said that anything that had been said by the cardinal or anyone else did not detract from or add to that. That is the position of the Church. We either take on board what it says or we do not. I find the suggestion that I am selectively quoting offensive.

If one reads the series of quotations by Monsignor Tom Connelly, one realises that the draft statement is selective. The quotations, which I took to the reporters group meeting, reflect different ways in which the Church might consider the matter. It is selective to put one point across.

Since those quotations appeared in the press, Michael McMahon has spoken to the official Church spokesperson, so they are superseded by what was said to him then. If we want to decide the matter formally, we can do so, but I do not think that we should spend much time discussing it.

Why do we not drop the quotation and keep the text that follows it, which says that we note the official position of the Church? This is not about discrimination against the Catholic Church. It is discrimination against individual Catholics that I am more concerned about. That is why I do not think that having the quotation adds much to the statement. I understand why Michael McMahon put it in. I think he agrees that it does not matter if it is taken out.

Why can we not change the wording to state that the committee acknowledges that this is not a priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland and leave out the quotation? That effectively says the same thing.

Across the parties, members' concerns about the act are not about how any institution feels or any individual's aspirations to marry into the monarchy, but about what the writing into the act of active hostility to a particular religious group says about our society—that must be our perspective. There is cross-party consensus that that is unacceptable. What we do about it is a different matter, but the issue is the message that it gives, as we head into the 21st century, to have it written into the law that certain groups are actively excluded from particular things.

Any fair-minded person would agree that the act is discriminatory. The number of MSPs who have signed Mike Russell's motion shows the feeling in this Parliament. Michael McMahon's statement is a good position for this committee. If the committee agrees it, it will show that we feel that the act is discriminatory and should be considered at some point by members of the United Kingdom Parliament who can take action on it.

May I ask for an obvious amendment to be made? When Michael McMahon drew up the statement, it might not have been obvious that there would be an opportunity to debate the issue in the Scottish Parliament. I suggest that in the last paragraph, where it is stated:

"The Equal Opportunities Committee considers the above an important matter, affecting Scotland's people",

we should add, "which will be considered by the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 16 December and", before the concluding phrase:

"which should be considered by Members of the United Kingdom Parliament."

It is a fact that the debate will happen.

I do not have a problem with that. My personal opinion, which I expressed at the sub-group meeting, was that I do not think that we should be debating the matter as it is a waste of three hours of the Parliament's time. That is a personal view; there will be a debate, so we can include that reference.

Shona is recommending a factual amendment. Is that agreed?

Yes.

I was going to ask about another point on the race sub-group, if we have dealt with that business.

Have we finished with that business?

Can we clarify what will happen with the statement now?

Once the changes are agreed, it is up to the committee to decide what to do with the statement.

We would normally pass it on to the Executive. That could still happen. It would have to go today. It could be amended and passed on to the Executive as the position of the Equal Opportunities Committee.

To whom in the Executive would we pass it on?

I am not sure.

Could we circulate it to MSPs for their information ahead of the debate?

If it becomes an official committee report, it becomes public knowledge.

It does.

I do not think that every member of the Scottish Parliament gets the Official Report of every committee. It might be useful to alert members to the fact that we have discussed the statement, and they can access the report through the web.

If the committee agrees its position, members who read the Official Report will know that that is the position of the committee. If you want to make it a report as such, it must be a formal report to the Parliament, and it would take at least one day to make it an official committee report. It would have to be lodged with the Parliament first.

What would be the quickest way of highlighting it?

If the committee agrees that that is its position, anybody can tell anybody about it.

So it can be circulated to every MSP?

I do not see why not. It would just be telling people what the committee had decided.

Can we get this statement amended so that it can be circulated?

I would be grateful if you could clarify exactly how the paragraph on the first page should now read, because that was not clear.

I thought that we could say, "The committee acknowledges that this issue is not a priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland".

Could we not simply say, "The committee acknowledges the position of the Catholic Church in Scotland"?

We know what the Church's position is, but if we did what you are suggesting the statement would not say what that position is.

Does the sentence on the next page deal with that?

No. It recognises the Church's opposition to the act, but we would have to add that it does not view change as a priority. We could say, "The committee recognises that, although the Church is opposed to the act, it does not view it as a priority", or something along those lines.

I do not think that that accurately reflects what the Church is saying. Are we agreed that the whole quotation should come out, or do we want to remove just the second sentence? I think that the second sentence would be acceptable if the word "one" were excised. People may be taking this too personally. No political party is specified. The quotation could be read to mean that the Church does not want to be manipulated by the Labour party, which has other legislative priorities.

That was the point that the Church wanted to emphasise. Once this became a political issue and started to be discussed in the Parliament, the Church started to back out. It did not want to have any influence on the political process in relation to the act, as it was concerned that one political party or other would try to exploit the situation for its own ends. The Church wanted the issue to be addressed in the political arena, but it did not want to be seen to be supporting one side or the other.

I think that people are grabbing for caps that they need not wear, if I can put it like that.

When I discussed this quotation with Catholic Church spokespersons—at least one of whom Michael McMahon also spoke to—their line was that now this is in the political domain, it is up to politicians to set the priorities. The Church believes that the act should go, but that it is up to the Government to decide whether it is a priority—that is a political decision.

If the quotation is from the Catholic Church, we should leave it in.

We could sit here for hours and not agree.

If that is the view of the official spokesperson of the Catholic Church, we should leave it in rather than get into a debate about changing the wording of the paragraph.

I agreed with Tommy when he said that we are not talking about somebody marrying the Catholic Church, but about somebody marrying an individual. This is discrimination against individuals.

That is the issue that we are discussing. We have asked for the Catholic Church's position, and it has given it.

If this was a matter of racial discrimination and we asked the Commission for Racial Equality for a view on it, we would accept whatever view it gave. We would not have to go to individual black persons and ask them how they were affected. If members of a particular organisation are affected, the spokespeople for that organisation must be the source of any official comment.

I suggest that we end the quotation at "moment". In that way, the issue that we have been discussing—which may not be an issue at all—will not be highlighted. I do not think that any one political party intends to manipulate the situation. Ending at "moment" leaves the essence of what the convener said about the Church recognising other legislative priorities.

I second that. That is a good idea.

If that is the committee's view, it should be agreed.

I do not mind. I am in the hands of the committee.

I move that.

Let us not be formal about this.

Monsignor Connelly may have something to say about that.

Are you happy with that, Michael?

I have no problem with that at all.

Then that is agreed.

Are there any other questions?

I am not sure where else on the agenda I can raise this point. I want to mention the issue of a religion question on the census form, which I have discussed informally with the convener and have mentioned before.

I have yet to find out what the timetable is. I contributed to the consultation on census questions and argued that religion should be covered. Black and ethnic minority groups as well as religious groups are pursuing the question. It is felt that services cannot be properly targeted unless that kind of information is available. The consultation period has closed and I do not know where things stand. Michael McMahon's group could pursue that further.

I wrote to Jim Wallace again last week to ask exactly what the position is and when a decision will be made. In earlier correspondence, I had been assured that the matter would come to the Parliament at some stage. I would welcome any information about when it will be discussed and whether we will be able to influence the debate at that stage.

I, too, have been pursuing that issue on a related matter concerning the content of the census. Last week, Jim Wallace's correspondence indicated that a debate will take place shortly. That is not very precise, but the information about the content of the census will be made known shortly. That was the word that he used.

It may be because you have been writing as individuals that you have not been getting the information as promptly as you would like. Perhaps a letter from the committee would receive a definitive response from the minister.

My question was a written parliamentary question.

I shall take a copy of that and a copy of Johann's letter and write to the minister on behalf of the committee.

We questioned Jackie Baillie about that, if I remember correctly.

I shall write to Jim Wallace and copy the letter to Jackie Baillie.

The correspondence that I have received from the CRE asked that the matter be pursued further, and that is what we should aim to do.

Let me have a copy of your letter, Johann, and I shall write on behalf of the committee.

Last week, our reporter's group met representatives from the Equality Network and Outright Scotland. We skimmed through the legislation that was of interest—the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill, the improvement in Scottish education bill, the ethical standards bill, mental health legislation and the Millan report.

The Equality Network and Outright Scotland are taking measures to ensure that people respond to the consultation on the ethical standards bill. They recognise that there will be vociferous opposition to the repeal of section 28, and they are encouraging people in their networks to make representations to balance that. They mentioned the fact that the Home Office is considering whether transsexuals, post-operative or not, should be able to change their birth certificates if they feel that they have been wrongly sexed at birth. There will be a report on that in the early summer, which will have implications in Scotland as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom.

We talked about recognition of same-sex couples and the implications of that. In the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Bill, same-sex couples are being recognised in a particular way, but there are wider implications for all sorts of other legislation. It will be a complicated issue that requires careful debate.

Last Saturday, Kate MacLean and I attended a conference organised by the Equality Network and Outright Scotland on tackling institutionalised discrimination. There were a number of workshops. There will be a report on the conference, which will make interesting reading. One of the things that came out of the workshop that I was in was that people felt that anything they were trying to do to challenge discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation needed legislation to underpin it, in the same way that laws forbid discrimination on the grounds of disability, race and gender. Workshop participants felt that there should be explicit legislation for sexual orientation. The Scotland Act 1998 incorporates the European convention on human rights into Scots law, and the treaty of Amsterdam was the first European treaty to state that sexual orientation is not grounds for discrimination, so there is a legislative framework that applies in Scotland, although it is not well known.

The Equality Network and Outright Scotland are organising a conference in the spring and sending round a mailing about it. They allowed me to include a letter with that mailing, which is going to approximately 450 individuals and organisations, in which I introduced myself as the reporter for the sub-group of the Equal Opportunities Committee and encouraged people to feed in issues and comments, either directly to the committee or via me. I did that to publicise as widely as possible the fact that we have an Equal Opportunities Committee, that we are interested in sexual orientation issues and that we want to be as open and inclusive as possible, but that it is up to people to send information to us if they want their views to be heard.

The next meeting of the reporters group will be at the end of January on a Wednesday evening. I will write up a report of the last group meeting and circulate it to the committee; I have not had time to do that yet.

Thanks for that. Sending out a letter to those organisations is a good idea.

The opportunity arose because they were doing a mailing about the conference.

One of the issues that came up at the meeting was that in the past, people felt that sexual orientation issues were not addressed at all in terms of equal opportunities, or that they came far down the list. Are there any questions for Nora?

On the point that Nora made about organisations getting together to oppose the repeal of section 28, according to the newspapers on Sunday, the Churches have formed an alliance to that end. Members of the committee should be prepared to come in and defend the repeal of that measure and the proposed changes to legislation, because I suspect that in the next few months we will receive mailbags of the same size as we received on the fox hunting ban.