Holyrood’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee has published its findings into the Scottish Government’s Draft Budget. Released on World Human Rights Day, the committee is urging the Government not to step back in equalities budgeting, after having led the way in this area for many years.
The Committee is calling on the Scottish Government to mainstream equalities and human rights considerations across all departmental budget spending. It has also suggested that it should adopt a ‘national direction’ on human rights-based budgeting. By taking these steps, the Government would demonstrate to other organisations facing difficult budget decisions that incorporating human rights and meeting people’s needs makes good business and social sense.
Members of the Committee are also calling on the Government to systematically harness the money it spends on big infrastructure projects such as roads and major building projects to address equalities issues.
Equalities and Human Rights Committee Convener, Christina McKelvie MSP, said: “Implementing a national framework for human rights based budgeting would keep Scotland leading in this field. With tighter budgets across the public sector, ensuring that we take a human rights based approach to budgeting decisions has never been more important. We need to ensure that protected groups are not unfairly impacted upon when making budget decisions. What better way to do that than making sure they are fully represented and consulted during the budget process?”
Finally, the Committee also noted concerns that the pace of progress on human rights budgeting has slowed as the focus has moved away from tackling known equality issues, to a discussion of what to do and the collection of data and evidence.
More information can be found in the report.
Holyrood’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee is marking Human Rights Day 2017 by focussing on Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland.
The Committee has chosen to once again shine a light on Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland following research showing entrenched and stubbornly high levels of discrimination against the community. The most recent Scottish Social Attitudes survey found that 34% of people in Scotland believe that a Gypsy/Traveller is ‘unsuitable’ to be a primary school teacher, and 31% would be unhappy if a close relative married a Gypsy/Traveller.
Gypsy/Travellers will give evidence to the Committee. The Committee will be keen to hear what, if any, improvements have taken place since the predecessor Equal Opportunities Committee conducted inquiries into Gypsy/Travellers.
Speaking ahead of the session, Committee Convener Christina McKelvie MSP said: “Continued discrimination against the Gypsy/Traveller community will be a concern to all of us who want Scotland to be a tolerant, welcoming place. While we welcome some reduction in discriminatory attitudes, there is clearly a long way to go. For too long, discrimination against Gypsy/Travellers has been the last form of ‘acceptable racism’.
“By using our World Human Rights Day session to celebrate Gypsy/Traveller communities, we want to clearly signal our determination to end the formal and informal discrimination Gypsy/Travellers face.
“Of course, we will also be exploring the role that Government and Local Authorities could have in stemming this problem, and trying to find out what changes there have been since this issue was looked at last.”
World Human Rights Day is Sunday 10 December. This marks the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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