Equal Opportunities Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Official Report 342KB pdf

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Migration and Trafficking Inquiry

Good morning everyone, and welcome to the third meeting in 2011 of the Equal Opportunities Committee. I remind everyone present that mobile phones and BlackBerrys should be switched off completely, as they interfere with the sound system even when they are switched to silent.

We have received apologies from Malcolm Chisholm.

Agenda item 1 is consideration of the Scottish Government’s response to our inquiry into migration and trafficking. I remind members that a parliamentary debate on our report will take place tomorrow, and that it will be a little later than was previously scheduled. The debate will now start at 3.55 and conclude at 5.30.

I invite members’ comments on the Government’s response.

Overall, the response to our report is quite encouraging. Do you plan to go through each section of the response, or would you prefer more general comments?

It would take a pretty long time to go through each section, so it would be easier if you were to highlight the bits that you think are worth noting.

At the bottom of page 3, on the subject of the UK Border Agency’s accommodation contract with Glasgow City Council, the Scottish Government says:

“steps must be taken to minimise disruption and uncertainty for those already vulnerable people”.

Does the Government have any suggestions about what steps could be taken? It has just responded that “steps must be taken”, and I wonder whether we could tease out its thinking a bit further.

There will be an opportunity to raise that directly with ministers in tomorrow’s debate. Failing that, the only other option would be to write directly. However, we are in the last throes of the current Administration and session, so that might be a bit of a tall order. The best approach might be to raise the matter directly with ministers tomorrow.

The debate will be short, so it might be difficult to include all the points. It might therefore be helpful to put some of them on the record today.

Yes.

I do not want to hog the discussion, but I have some further points to go through.

Keep going; other members can contribute later if they wish.

My next point concerns page 12. I express some regret that there is

“no available funding to take forward an awareness raising campaign.”

When we were writing our report we felt that to be important, and I would like the matter to continue to be monitored by the Government. It would have been helpful to have an awareness-raising campaign, under the circumstances.

At the top of page 13, the issue of giving access to democracy and voting is mentioned. Is there any role for the Electoral Commission in that regard? The Government has given an outline of the positive steps that it has been taking

“to ensure that people who want to vote are able to do so”,

but I feel that the Electoral Commission might also have a role.

We will take a note of that point and if it is not covered in tomorrow’s debate, perhaps we can seek an immediate response.

On page 15, in the section about the migration policy toolkit, the response states:

“The Scottish Government has provided COSLA with two year’s funding ... to support the implementation of the Migration Policy Toolkit totalling £300,000.”

That is welcome, but I highlight the monitoring of that measure and the feedback from it, which are important.

Yes.

On page 18, in the section on the national health service, the Government states that it

“continues to emphasise to Boards, through its partnership arrangements, the importance”

of

“effective recruitment practice”.

However, it points out that

“it is for Boards locally to work with partner agencies to develop approaches to local recruitment practice that best meets their individual needs.”

There might be scope in that regard for stronger guidance to boards.

As a general point, I felt that pages 24 and 25 were a bit of a party-political broadcast. Apart from that, the report is a really positive response to our inquiry.

Thank you for those observations. We will take note of them, and we can write to the Government on any specific point that is not covered in the debate tomorrow.

I have not managed to catch up with this and examine the response in any detail. However, some changes were made last week in relation to migrants in certain tiers, and the regulations have been slightly relaxed. Is there any chance that we could get a wee bullet point on what that means with regard to what we discussed in our report?

Even if it is a footnote, I am sure that we can cover that point.

I agree with the comments that have been made: it has been a worthwhile response. Do we have time to come back to it after the debate tomorrow if necessary? Will it be on the agenda at our next meeting?

If there is a particular issue, I am sure that we could find time to cover it at a future meeting.

Secondly, do we have a direct response to the report from the police or the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland? I felt that the Government was speaking for itself, rather than for ACPOS or the police authorities.

We did not seek such a response. We can either put that in our legacy paper, or try to get a response in the limited timeframe that we have.

It would be worth while to follow that up.

Okay

On page 38, in response to our concerns about 24-hour residential services for victims of trafficking, the Government advocates a more flexible system. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that the Government’s approach has some merit and is worth noting, especially as it has considered the experiences in Germany and Italy.

On the same page, I picked out a point that was not clear when we were taking evidence, which is that

“The Scottish Government hopes to agree a funding package with TARA shortly”.

Perhaps I will ask the minister to clarify what that means, and whether the Government has put a package in place since the report was published.

Again, that can go on the list of things on which, if they are not covered properly tomorrow, we will write to the Government in the hope of a speedy reply. At the very least, it can be noted in our legacy paper as one of the outstanding issues that have arisen from the report.

That concludes our consideration of the Government’s response; I look forward to the debate tomorrow.