S2M-4920 Scottish Commission for Human Rights Bill

Scottish Parliament

Thursday 2 November 2006

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:15]

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Scottish Commission for Human Rights Bill

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Murray Tosh): The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-4920, in the name of Robert Brown, that the Parliament agrees that the Scottish Commission for Human Rights Bill be passed. ... ... ...

17:21

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17:28

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): Des McNulty's amendment to the Executive's motion was not selected for debate—members can read it in the Business Bulletin. That amendment sought to restrict the amount of money for the Scottish commission for human rights in relation to functional costs. I do not want to worry about whether we should be debating that amendment, but I hope that if the bill is passed at 6 o'clock, we will find a way of controlling the balance of the commission's expenditure.

Following all the work that has been done and the considerable period in which the proposal has been considered, we are left with a fundamental dichotomy that I cannot solve. The bill is about the promotion of human rights within public institutions, but Scottish National Party members want a bill that protects the individual human rights of the citizens of Scotland.

That is a very different thing. Human rights can be compromised by, for example, commercial companies. On other occasions, human rights can actually be promoted and supported by commercial companies. For example, one of our major banks flouts the law that requires people who open bank accounts to have an address. The bank opens accounts for the sellers of The Big Issue, who are, by definition, homeless. My point is that human rights issues go far beyond simply the public bodies, and the effects can be positive or negative.

Individuals should be at the heart of our concerns in relation to human rights, but this bill simply does not focus on individuals. Public institutions already have duties in relation to human rights. The case has been made that they are not properly exercising those duties, and we have heard a number of Government speakers criticising the performance of public bodies—be they local authorities, parts of the health service, or whatever.

We are in a curious position. We are seeking to create a bill whose purpose is to compensate for the human rights deficiencies of public bodies; however, the overall human rights performance of those public bodies is probably better than that of private bodies and companies, and that of public companies and individuals. We should instead be focusing on the human rights of individuals. If we had put the people of Scotland at the heart of the bill, SNP members would have been able to support the bill at 6 o'clock. However, as it stands, the bill is not worth salvaging. It will simply create a post for someone who will book advertising space and go into public authorities of one sort or another around Scotland to try to persuade them to up their game.

Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Green): Does the member acknowledge that, out there in civic Scotland, people across the entire human rights field support the creation of the commission? Even though they share some of Mr Stevenson's concerns about the bill's limitations, they see that it has value.

Stewart Stevenson: In so far as they have contacted me—and quite a number have done so—my constituents have entirely different concerns from those who are employed in the business and who have campaigned for the commission. I say that as someone who has been a member of Amnesty International. Through inadvertence, I do not happen to be a member at the moment, but that is not because I do not support the work that Amnesty International does. I do support it, and other human rights bodies have had my support as well.

There is a fundamental difficulty about putting a bill on the statute book that does not deliver what is on the title of the tin. We have to go back and think again. I and my colleagues do not expect to support the bill at 6 o'clock.

17:33