Hansard

The first of two current petitions to be considered today—one which we delayed from our previous meeting—is from Mr James Nixon and calls on the Parliament to repeal sections of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 that, according to the petitioner, give local authorities the right to discriminate against Scottish primary school teachers on the grounds of religious belief and practice. The petitioner seeks the repeal of those sections of the 1980 act that enable religious discrimination in the employment of teachers. He claims that the act is in contravention of the European convention on human rights. In addition, he calls for the end of separate denominational and non-denominational schools.At a meeting more than a year ago, we copied the petition to the then Minister for Children and Education, asking him to comment on the requirement for teachers to hold certificates of approval in denominational schools and to set out the Executive's views on the compliance of that practice and the relevant sections of the act with the ECHR. At our meeting on 6 November, we agreed that I should write to the then Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs, highlighting our concern about the unacceptable delay in the Executive's response. A response has now been received from the Executive—a copy has been circulated to members—and the minister has written to me separately about the delay in the issuing of that response.The Executive's response points out that the certificates of approval that are provided in law for denominational schools are part of the agreement under which denominational schools were transferred to local authority management back in 1918. They are"designed to confer and preserve the religious or denominational character of a denominational school."The Executive's response also states that the 1980 act does not breach article 14 of the ECHR, as that article does not confer any substantive right to employment and therefore does not come into play in the situation that is raised in the petition. It also points out that the framework directive and the directive implementing the principle of equal treatment do not apply either, as member states are allowed"to maintain legislation for the benefit of religious organisations to enable those organisations to recruit employees of the same faith, in order to maintain their ethos."Finally, the Executive points out that it values the role and contribution of denominational schools and has no plans to introduce legislation relating to the appointment of teachers in such schools.We must decide what to do with the Executive's response. Clearly, the Executive takes a firm line on the petition and does not intend to act on it. If we think that the Executive's response and its interpretation of the ECHR is reasonable, we should agree to take no further action and inform the petitioner of that. We could suggest that, if he disagrees with the Executive, he could perhaps raise the point about ECHR compatibility through the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament, which may have a view on that. Alternatively, if we think that the Executive is wrong and that the petitioner is right, we could refer the petition to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee for further consideration. Whether that committee would be prepared to take up the matter, in the light of the Executive's response, is a matter for discussion.