Clause 1
Equality Bill
9:30 am
John Mason (Glasgow East, Scottish National Party)
I will answer both those points eventually, as I have a letter here from the Minister for Housing and Communities, Alec Neil MSP. The basic position of our party and the Scottish Government is that we are totally committed to challenging socio-economic inequality. It is a question of the best way to go about it and whether the Bill goes far enough, as has been mentioned.
The letter says:
“The Scottish Government has supported the principle of the Equality Bill from the outset and continues to support it. A number of provisions in the Bill require the legislative consent of the Scottish Parliament, and the Scottish Government introduced a Legislative Consent Memorandum... on 7 May.”
I believe that is working its way through the process.
The Minister for Housing and Communities goes on to mention the socio-economic duty, saying
“it is correct that the socio-economic duty... will not extend to Scotland. Scottish Government officials have only had limited contact with the Government Equalities Office (GEO) on the proposals for a socio-economic duty”.
The suggestion seems to be that the Government in Westminster have not been doing a lot of talking to the Scottish Government to explain the duty and whether we should take it through.