Chamber and committees

Sheena Arthur, could you respond to the same question and tell us about the situation in Glasgow for your members?

Thank you. Do you have anything further—

I have one final question, convener—you will not need to come back to me if I ask it now.

I am pleased to hear that sectoral bargaining is on the agenda, and I press the minister to give an absolute commitment to it, because I know that a number of people are seriously concerned that, as a result of this process, we will go backward rather than forward on fair work. A firm commitment on that would therefore be helpful.

It could be one person’s view that a framework bill is flexible and another person’s view that, because there is no detail, people cannot have confidence in what it will deliver. In that regard, I am interested in human rights. Two specific rights are in the bill, but neither of them relates to article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I heard what the minister said about the forthcoming human rights bill, but we cannot have a situation in Scotland in which we have one overarching human rights bill that governs everything and all of the services. We also have to look at how we implement human rights through different parts of Government, including in the national care service. Will the minister therefore commit to putting the right to independent living in the bill? How will human rights be delivered for the people who use the national care service and those who work in it?

You missed the bit about including the right to independent living in the bill. As I am sure you are aware, Dr Jim Elder-Woodward has prepared a paper and is a good promoter of that work. In that paper, he sets out various ways that the bill could make clearer what the human rights of the people who will use the service will be. Would the minister be prepared to look at embedding the structure that Dr Elder-Woodward has outlined into the framework of the bill and including independent living in that?

Good morning, panel. Thank you for the submissions that you gave us in advance and for answering our questions so far.

We have already touched on this, but I am keen to hear a bit more about the experience of your members just now. What things do they feel need to be addressed today, and what could be looked at for the future in a bill such as this one? Rachel, can you say something about the experience of your coalition’s members and what they would want to be done today as opposed to over the longer term?

My questions have been answered, convener.

I do not have another question, convener. I was just hoping that Andrew Ewen might come in on the previous one.

Do you think that the bill needs to be strengthened in that sense?

Forgive me, but the Scottish ministers are accountable for what they direct local government to do, the money that they put into local government and the work that they do in social care, so I do not think that it is fair to characterise the situation as one in which the minister has no responsibility.

I thank Maggie Chapman for her comments on my amendments in the group.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to support amendment 97, because I believe that narrowing the list of persons with an interest could prevent someone who has a genuine interest in someone’s GRC application from using the person of interest provisions in good faith, on the grounds of genuine concerns about capacity. However, my amendments 130 and 132—as Maggie Chapman suggested—attempt to add safeguards and proportionality to the process to prevent people from using it maliciously. For that reason, I ask members to support my amendments. I think that Maggie Chapman’s amendments 95 and 96, which she has said that she will withdraw and not move respectively, are reasonable but I ask members to support my amendments.