 Welcome everyone again to the Equal Opportunities Committee. It's the 12th meeting of 2015. Can I ask everyone to set any electronic devices into flight mode or switch off please? We'll start again with our usual introductions and we will then move on to agenda item 2. My name is Margaret McCulloch and I'm the committee convener. I will now invite members and witnesses to introduce themselves in turn, starting here on my right. Thank you very much. Good morning everyone. Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow, Kelvin and Deput convener. Good morning. Christian and I are the MSP for the North East of Scotland. Good morning, I'm James Baxter, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife. Good morning, I'm Martin Vaugh, I'm John Finne, MSP Highlands and Islands. Good morning, Annabelle Gold, MSP for the west of Scotland. John Mason, MSP for Glasgow, Shedleston, which includes Celtic Park and the headquarters of the Orange Lodge. The second item today is an evidence session looking at the final report of the advisory group on tackling sectarianism in Scotland. We'll start the session with some introductions from the witnesses, but at the moment, around the table, we also have our clerking and research team, official reporters and broadcasting services and also we are supported by the security office. I'd like to also welcome the observers in the public gallery. Can I now ask the witnesses whether they would like to make a brief opening statement and I'll start with Dr Morrow. Thank you very much indeed, convener, and I was the chair of the advisory group, so I really welcome this opportunity to speak to the committee. We spoke, I think, to the committee about a year and a half ago and that has been a journey since then. As you know, we produced our report to the Government about a month ago, just short of a month, and I suppose it was fairly much consistent with what we had been advising in the interim report, but it had settled down to a number of themes. I suppose that just to give an introduction to those and then I'll give a way to my colleagues very shortly and I could speak a long time at this, so I'll try not to. The core theme, I suppose, is that we think that this potentially is a good news story, that it's an issue that has certainly left a big mark in Scottish life and certainly in different parts of it, but that there is, broadly speaking, a consensus in most of the witnesses that we met, that it is something that should play no further role in the public life of Scotland, and that we didn't find anybody in any inconsistency about that. I suppose, as ever, the difficulty is how do you move from a situation where it has left a legacy into something that is then visibly disappeared. We came to talk about not just sectarianism, but its consequences. In trying to come to a definition of that, what became clear was that something that has clearly got a religious articulation and the way that people talk about it has shaped the way whole communities live and has taken on something that is called sectarianism, but has different aspects attached to it, some of which are political, some of which are social. So, dealing with this, I suppose, you have to try to both keep a core so that you have some focus. It's connected to that, but also be real about how it has manifested itself in a number of different situations where people may or may not even have any clear religious convictions anymore, so there's a kind of a paradox in the middle of that, the way it's decayed is that way. The third thing to say, I think, is that we also recognise that geographically it is a very variable phenomenon because of that. Sectarianism, I suppose, we really feel had two fundamental roots. One is in the kind of religious history of Europe, both as it affected Scotland and another is in the way in which immigration, particularly from Ireland, and the consequences of industrialisation hit. There are different consequences in different places of those mixes, some of which are to do with the way a state operates and some of which are to do with real life in communities. Again, that's a complexity, and then it's very different locally. Maybe just the final point, or I may have two final points if I beg your indulgence. One is that for that reason we believe that the community approach, which has been at the front of this—I'm trying to engage communities and talking about trying to engage interests in this—is for these long-term issues probably the best way to deal with them because they manifest themselves as much in multiple small things as in single big things, and because of that they're very different in different places. Because of that the approach that the Government took, which was trying to engage rather than deny this issue at local level and encourage local people and local institutions and institutions that have a direct relationship to that to take responsibility for it, is a crucial element. It's not to say that legislation, because we think that legislation around equalities and so on is absolutely vital. We also think that and that political leadership around this is absolutely critical and probably one of the big questions is how, if you go down a non-legislative route, do you keep political attention on this issue because that actually is, for us, a really critical moment as we hand this back over. We do believe that engaging communities in this is important and developing a practice that is not about denial but is about recognition and acting is the key bridge that we have to make. We believe that this has been the largest conversation on equalities ever conducted in Scotland. As it turned out, we had so many different conversations and meetings over three years. We think that that, as a tool for other equalities issues, might be useful in addition to things such as legislation and policy. The final point is that we think that this is an issue that can disappear. It will require a kind of figure it out, because it's not a question of just saying it exists and it doesn't exist. How does it stop existing? So it's a practical question. There's a lot of practical knowledge that needs to be applied to this. I'll give way to my colleagues to say that anything additional they want to say. Can I also ask you to introduce yourself as well, please? I'm Michael Rosie, University of Edinburgh. I'll be very brief. I'll add to what Duncan has said. One, this was a huge conversation. We were very privileged as a group to meet lots of people along the way. I have to emphasise the goodwill that most of the conversations were held in a really friendly and productive spirit, both in this Parliament from all parties, but also probably just about everyone we spoke to was very keen that Scotland engages with this. I think that the only other thing I would add to what Duncan has said is one of the strands that the group contributed to was research. What is this thing? What are the different understandings? How does it impact different people in different ways? I think that we've come quite a long way in the last three years in answering some. Not all, of course, an academic would say that there are still questions, but a lot of the things that we were asking about sectarianism four or five years ago, we now have a much clearer picture of it. Hi, my name is Margaret Lynch. I'm a member of the group because of my involvement in the Conforty Institute, which is a community organisation in Coatbridge. I'm the chief executive of Citizens Advice Scotland. I absolutely agree with my colleagues. For me, the past three years have been an amazing experience in the sense that we were able to hear from people from all walks of life and all parts of Scotland, all social classes and different interest groups. The thing that I took great heart from was that, without exception, all of them were committed to ensuring that sectarianism belongs to Scotland's past and not its future. I think that there was a general recognition that, whilst in the past sectarianism may well have been that it was a structural issue that affected people's life chances in terms of employment and opportunities, that, to some degree, those days are behind us. However, what we have got is that it is still within the cultured in some parts of Scotland and in some areas of Scottish life, particularly football, and that would remain an on-going concern. The thing that I think is, as I say, gives great optimism about the future is that there is a general public recognition that we do not want any more of that. I think that there will be a positive pressure on politicians and on institutions in Scotland to ensure that their mainstreaming equalities work encompassing anti-sectarianism into how they run their organisations and how they serve the communities that they exist to support. I see from the brief that you established in 2012 to provide Scottish ministers with impartial advice in developing work to tackle sectarianism in Scotland. You are very fine important and thank you for it. The executive summary, the very first paragraph, used the term the specific form of sectarianism. You highlight that we have considered that arising from the Catholic Protestant tensions that are part of the historic legacy of Scotland. I will ask a further question about definitions. Dr Moray, you said that legislation around equalities is vital. I wonder what message this sends for the wider Scottish community, so our neighbours who suffer anti-Islamic behaviour, anti-Semitism on their eyes, seek temple attack, Eastern European neighbours being vilified. If there is a focus on this, does that not inadvertently fuel this, you know, we have a special type of discrimination? Is that helpful? I suppose that there are risks on all sides here. Let's be honest about this. Our experience, I think, is that in this particular issue the model was something which, and certainly if you look at the attitude surveys, lots of people have a huge fear of this issue and say that it's a dangerous issue. We can see a practical way through this in that there is progress being made on the practical front. Part paradoxically of whether we've succeeded is another issue of our task is to normalise this. In other words, to bring it out of the too hard-to-deal-with-box phantom in the cupboard box and out onto the table not in order to magnify its role but to actually bring it into an evidence-based kind of a framework. The strong, I think you'll see as you read the report, that we have really emphasised almost that shift is can we get this into the place where it can be talked about in such a way that it's actually amenable to action rather than just fear? Second of all, that action is ultimately based on evidence where we don't agree, where accusations are made or where there's denial comes into the table, we have some mechanism by which to try to resolve some of those issues and move them forward in a normal or quality way. The final point, how does this connect into other issues? We think that this can add value exactly to those issues, not because it is primary or the only one in town, but because by demonstrating that on these historic issues Scotland can make real progress and actually has made historical progress around these questions, by bringing to the table the question of evidence, relationship building and also acknowledgement around denial, we think that this adds potentially on all those other issues exactly the same thing. Maybe the last thing to say is the risk, if you don't, is that this is dealt with in the criminal justice system simply as emerging criminal justice problems, which have two consequences, one of which it deals with it as if it's an issue just of individuals rather than a wider social question, which can only be got out there. The second one is it's very expensive because it ties down and this issue does tie down a lot of police and criminal justice time. Thirdly, it tends to suggest that the rest of society doesn't have a role to play in changing it, so we think that all of those reasons it's worth doing this to shift this. Can I confirm again paragraph 8 on the Executive Summary talk about under the heading churches a firm co-operation would exist and encourage it where it is yet to emerge? Is there a role for non-faith groups in this? I mean growing segment of the population wouldn't assign any religion to themselves. Certainly there is and I think that the kind of obviously when you start with sectarianism you are looking at something that is articulated in terms of Protestant Catholic terms and that has a meaning for possibly a greater proportion of the population once than it does now, although it still holds importance for a large section of the population. I think that we were further in our work quite clear that that has shaped things which are nothing to do with religion. Social media, youth culture, the situations around football supporting issues in not among the organisation of schools but in the pupils around schools, things where we thought these are absolutely to do with everybody in Scotland. It's the way in which community life is organised, so the answer to that is yes indeed. We have the change definition and you don't feel that there's any difficulty for adherence of non-Christian faiths when it specifically says on the basis of their perceived Christian denominational background because this is my concern that you know this is something special whereas I mean I abhor discrimination in any form. I don't think there's a hierarchy, you either take everyone with respect or you don't and my fear is that presentationally this could suggest that there's a hierarchy. I suppose that I understand the fear maybe if the others come in here but I understand the fear and I think our way to try to resolve this was to say as in with all the qualities issues you have a series of common values which we think are absolutely clear and then there are a series of specific ways in which it actually acts out and unless you're able to combine those two things actually you end up trying to apply something in one world to another so we're trying to get a more nuanced approach. We were asked specifically to deal with the issue of sectarianism which is what we dealt with rather than with all the qualities and so our view is actually the landing this looks like it is landed as one of the ordinary qualities rather than either boxed off and not dealt with or taking over too much time so that's certainly what success looks like. The risk of course is there in all of these things we believe this is the best evidence base dealing with it where it appears and trying to find relevant appropriate action to it is the best way that we could find to address this. We have never argued that sectarianism is the biggest problem or the worst problem that affects if you like within the equality the span of issues that come with inequalities you know there are people discriminated against the basis of the colour of their skin on the basis of their class on the basis of what part of the country they come from you know we've never argued that this is the biggest or the most important we've never said it's special what we have said is particular sectarianism sectarianism has particular roots that are different from maybe antisemitism discrimination between religions we can't single out scotland to be different and say it's only between two of them i don't know i don't think we've said that scotland's different sectarianism happens i worked in the middle east for a while you know there are sectarian issues in communities in all parts of the world but you know the one that that has been an issue in scotland is the one that we that we were tasked to address and because our focus in our remit was a narrow one and a particular one that doesn't mean to say that the others should not be given attention i actually think that the way in which we have engaged in this issue which has involved people in communities from as far north as borora and as far south as annan we've engaged with communities across the whole of scotland and brought into if you like a space where we could talk about these issues together in a comfortable way and in a way that was based on evidence it's actually probably quite a good model you know to then look you know to to use a good methodology to use to start to tackle those other areas you know what you refer to which might be broader than the one that we were tasked to address many thanks indeed thank you we are really tight for time today and it's really important that we actually cover in question what's in your final report so if we could keep all the questions related to the report that would be really useful and do you want to come in with a supplementary very quickly yes if i could i mean i saw on page 16 of your report 1.11 you talked following on from what John Finnie was saying you know where your regular advice that raising and discussing the issue of sectarianism wouldn't itself encourage more sectarian behaviour and undoubtedly some people who believe that silence is the most effective way to deal with social problems i mean that would not be the case i don't think with black and white issues where people want to talk about them lgbt issues people want to talk about them gender issues so do you feel there's something a bit different here i think there is i think the and this does relate back to mr finnie's questions there is a popular perception in scotland that sectarianism is something that we should be very worried about that is very worrisome that people are afraid of and i think one of the things that we're trying to say is actually if we open the box as a society and look into it then we can find what is in there and what we need to be worried about and what we need to address and sectarianism of course is never in pure form and this relates back mr finnie to your points it bleeds into all kinds of other things it's never simply about at catholic and prorist and it's also about the sort of history of communities in scotland it bleeds into other kinds of tensions including those between faith and non-faith groups something that i certainly am getting incredibly aware of bleeds into from my part of original part of scotland and cathness the free kirk and the kirk having a bit of tension there there are episcopalian presbyterian histories out there there's lots of things in there i think what marks this out as different and something that i've always been intrigued by is if you ask people in scotland about conflict over religion almost the first place they go is to think about sectarianism in these incredibly narrow towns and they are worried about it we're very clear in the evidence that we've got over the last 25 years that people are concerned about this specific issue and i would hope that one thing that would come out of this group report would be this is an issue we can deal with but we need to deal with it in the mainstream with all kinds of other equal opportunities issues that we're much more comfortable as you say discussing thank you could i ask the witnesses if you want to answer a question if you could indicate to myself or my clerk my life and we'll take you in turn and anabelle golder thank you convener a theme in your report both your your initial report and then in your final report is the need for leadership in tackling sectarianism and i'm just wondering if you have seen any positive change in this leadership area that you can share with us um first of all i suppose if you don't go down the force road you try to talk a bit incentive so i think what we're trying to do is say actually the real change will depend on people stepping up to the place here there is a legislative base which needs to be supported but actually for social change to happen needs to be there second thing um the Scottish Government funded a number of bodies over with quite a considerable amount of resource for the last three years and we gave advice on where to put that and within that and they'll be reporting shortly on what they've learned i think there are really good examples at church level at community level in youth clubs in football associates in Glasgow City Council and Edinburgh City Council people doing different doing different things so i have to say that with a bit of a spotlight people step up to the plate our concern now the next gap bit i think for us and i suppose it takes a bit of time is those kind of intermediate levels uh can we get um the discussion on how to integrate this with human rights inequalities moved on a bit so through those bodies which are responsible football can we get uh the clubs to move from either having to say look if we say there's anything here uh we'll get full responsibility for it which we agree is not their full responsibility to a position which is yes and there are ways in which this really interacts with who we are and we need to take this seriously so and the third one then i suppose is in schools is uh we felt that the really key issue is not to get bogged down in saying uh the school or the schools are good schools or bad schools or the sectarian schools or the not sectarian schools but that all schools are encouraged to say what are you going to contribute to this debate and um so answering your question there's a lot of good practice and it will be highlighted by the voluntary action fund when they come forward and you may get a chance to talk about it and on the second level is our biggest concern obviously as you hand over a report which is based on conversation and incentivising that is how does this continue and get carried on and in that space between not wanting more legislation to burden people but also not being sure that without leadership it won't happen that i suppose if there was one single concern how do we keep monitoring this how do we keep the pressure on sufficiently that people feel this is something i want to respond to that's very encouraging convener thank you any members want to ask any supplementaries no okay um move on to christian good morning and happy to see you again and i'll remember the 10 of november in san pols in san church i learned a lot it was very interesting to see all the groups who've been involved and give them the feedback and as you said it cost a lot of money i think we're talking about two three million pounds a year but it's well worth it and i read all the report and it was very enlightening one particular aspect is of course that you you said it yourself you said that the rest of society has a role to play because the rest of society is very much involved in in what's happening and and you talked particularly about the people who come and set up in this country and we have to learn what uh uh uh sectarianism is which is very very strange and that comes to my question we've got the same thing in football in football people from other teams have got to teach their children what sectarianism is about because they will encounter sectarianism sectarianism at one point or another and i wish i wish to know you know did you really find a brick wall when you took to the football club do you think there is a great lack of leadership to address sectarianism in Scottish football i think the short answer is that we didn't find a brick wall what we heard was from within football um a desire for football to be able to change certain aspects of it i think you know some of those aspects have been deeply problematic and certainly our research shows that when you talk about sectarianism to ordinary scolish people very quickly football comes up i mean often it's the first thing i wouldn't describe it as a brick wall however i think more leadership needs to be to come from the football authorities and from the leading clubs and we were routinely told about problems about instigating particular things in football that the common term is strict liability we were systematically told by leading parts of scolish football that that was unworkable so the challenge that we gave them and i believe the challenge they've had for a number of years before this group and the challenge that's in our final report is if that's not the way forward they need to provide the way forward because the only alternative to football making a very clear and important leadership role in that is for legislation or for bodies like the police or the courts to get involved and actually i think long term that would be counterproductive football does have a problem it's not the be all and end all of this problem there's a much broader problem but without clear leadership from scolish football i think we're going to you know i think we can get rid of this problem but football has to absolutely take a leading role and help scolish society towards that goal can i add just add to that i would for my own part say that we heard different voices coming from the football world we certainly heard people who i genuinely believe had a deep seated commitment to challenging sectarianism wherever they find it including within football but i also have to say that i mean i heard a very senior person from the football world to talk about sectarianism as a key business driver you know and i mean why i was shocked about it i don't know because frankly the dogs in the street know that sectarianism is a key business driver for some clubs in some parts you know of the country and i think that therein lies the challenge you know we've got football clubs that have a massive following in scotland and not all of that by you know but for a minute would we suggest that everybody who follows these football clubs is sectarianism but i think we would have to acknowledge that there is sectarianism present there you know and for my own part you know that it would be wrong to say that i mean you can't say that football speaks with one voice because it doesn't but i think that the economic interests of people who make money out of football you know in some parts of the country you know maybe it may well be that they have a concern that if they were to tackle sectarianism in a very overt energetic and up front way that it might damage business interests and i think that was perhaps a concern that that may inhibit stronger action on on on their part and i'm using words like perhaps and maybe advisedly personally i have an issue with the fact that the work that is done in football tends to be publicly funded you know and i think that there are vast profits that are made from football and sporting you know around football in scotland and for me a barometer of how serious clubs are would be the degree to which they're not just prepared to spend public money combating sectarianism around football but that they would make their own financial investment in that also because you know by their own admission or by the admission of some people in their business they're making a lot of money out of it. Dr Morrow can i add something for you Dr Morrow we heard we just heard that some football club are making money out of it but some of them are not some of them it's a cost to them did you speak to those over football clubs and what did they say? We spoke to a number of football clubs and football authorities and a lot of people involved in football at different levels and i think it's important to emphasise it's not just clubs this is at junior level this is the police talk to us but one of the most vex issues and difficult ones is they talked about a permissive environment in which certain behaviors are allowed which wouldn't be allowed in other situations and i thought that was quite a useful term they said it creates a permissive environment particularly around violence and that was the concern or for very aggressive behavior and certainly what one of the more worrying things i think is that this picks up on this fueled by because i suppose it works in two directions what happens in junior football what happens in people's social media time what happens so it kind of spirals a bit out of control when it's with football our dilemma i have to say is this is on the one hand as michael said the research it says to us just about nobody in scotland talks about sectarianism without mentioning football it's kind of rolls off the tongue together that's part of the difficult on the other hand and we recognise this and we don't want to take away from this it is not what sectarianism is it's football is not the problem however without the involvement of the football authorities in taking whatever responsibility is theirs and then even working with us to work out exactly where it starts and ends the danger is we're back in this debate which we were in the whole debate which is either we all be quiet about it just let it go or it becomes the big thing every week in the papers and it's highlighted again so i suppose for us the question is can we make i think with racism it's very clear in football in UEFA which is that the economic arguments and the political arguments have aligned now to say it's in everybody's intersection in the longer run to move out of this ghetto and actually move into this as an important part of cultural life which is open to everybody and actually that is i think the really critical issue for us is how do we take something which people have their allegiances and their their backgrounds and so on but take it away from the the risks of violence the permission that might be given for a kind of hostility which goes past it or which spreads out past football and how do we work with the football authorities to ensure that that element is kept out of the road you talk about the UEFA rules they are very clear 11 to see talks about uh manifestation not supporting nature for example in the stadium uh 14 1 talks about including on the ground on the ground of skin color race religion so religion is in there and and 14 1 2 it says minimum of partial stadium closure but to a certain extent they talk about and and you said it you said that we didn't want strict liability because they think that it'd be too difficult when possible to introduce in scotland i suppose we're talking about the cost but there is a great cost of society not only to control this for programs but we spent two to three million pounds a year to to address this problem when you ask them the question if not strict liability then what what did the answer we're still waiting on the answer and feel free to ask them yourselves as a group i mean the UEFA rules of course count for UEFA competitions so we have the irony that my club hearts could be playing one week and the songs that certain fans might sing are not punished and then midweek they are playing in a UEFA competition the same songs would bring down those UEFA rules on it so strict liability does seem to work in some competitions but it doesn't work in domestic competitions i guess what i would say i'd i'd i'd i'd want to say something a bit more positive about football because i've you know football has been a huge part of my my entire life indeed probably far too large a part of my life you know this is not an anti football statement but in the time that i've been following football boy and man um the permissive environment for homophobia in football stadia and the permissive environment for racism in football stadia and the permissive environment for sexism in football stadia i'm not saying these things have been solved because they haven't but has radically changed and it's radically changed i think as Duncan has hinted because football has addressed these problems and i don't see any reason why scottish football couldn't address this problem that it has with equal success we've actually got john mason anabelle goldie would like to come in so could you ask your questions very briefly i think we have very brief answers because we'll get quite a lot of questions still to go through and it's important we cover the whole spectrum page 37 4.18 you say we were told that one reason that strict liability was unworkable in scotland was because certain stadia would be closed for months leading to severe financial hardship for particular clubs i mean that suggests that some clubs sectarianism is just totally linked to a huge part of their support and that if they really took a hard line on this there would hardly be empty there are i mean is that overstating the case it well i mean they said it themselves so there may be a risk i suppose actually this comes to the point about not just whether you acknowledge your problem but how you best deal with us and the difficulty of course is that if it's not dealt with it will be dealt with by extreme legislation to deal with specific circumstances and then there's an issue which is people say well that's too disproportionate to the size of the of the problem the difficulty is this is not a loop which is that we're then left with and the obstacles end to have no legislation at all and let it go on i suppose what we're trying all the time is to steer somewhere not just in the middle of this but where we think actually it might be successful which is actually if the only choices we have are denial or hard line action then we would need then the tendency whenever there's an emergency will always be we'll have to have some kind of action here if however we can acknowledge this more widely as a problem which has to go away because we deal with it which which is that the football clubs come up with their own solutions start to actually look at how they're going to manage this work with supporters clubs it's very important i think work with uh the way they market themselves work with a junior football in the way that's dealt with then actually we might have something which doesn't look like force but actually looks like getting from here to there it's a real plan so we're i mean the you'll hear in our report in dealing with strict liability which is this which is the logic of this position is we need to impose strict liability the uh but actually we also recognise that the practical difficulties of us are genuine and that so are you sure that this is what you want because that is where we'll have to go if we don't get some reaction okay thank you anabelle brief what briefly it's exactly in point with what you've been discussing and it goes back to my earlier general question about leadership now i know nothing about football but out of interest i went and looked at what the sfa seemed to be saying about this and i didn't find very much on the internet so i then went to look to see what within the united kingdom the fa was saying and i find in the fa website a comprehensive you know template of you can report issues that concern you there's a phone number there's an email but interestingly there's a really very powerful list of sanctions that the fa will apply to member clubs and what's incomprehensible to me as a non-footballer a non-football attendor something completely ignorant about football is why is a framework that seems regulatory and workable possible in one part united kingdom and yet we seem to have a complete void in scotland dr rosa and strict liability has been adopted by the english fa largely in response to issues around racism in football that was a clear leadership by the football association it links to long standing campaigns around respect in football you may have seen some of the adverts on the telly a few years ago about screaming dad you know dad screaming at their small children playing football about football's got to be more positive than that you won't find such a systematic and forward looking in terms of trajectory in scottish football i would love to see that in scottish football i'm the father of a two-year-old son lots of debates about at what point he gets to come with me to the football and i hope he likes it but i am concerned about the the culture in football stadia and how to make it better and this is one area sectarianism where scottish football i have to say has failed to act for far too long so they're skating in thin ice you might say that i couldn't thank you okay thank you over to sandra white thank you very much convener and he said good morning and thank you very much for the work that you've done and your report it's very very interesting and you talk a lot about equalities and that's absolutely what obviously it's about equal opportunities committee i wanted to ask you about marches and parades i represent the city of Glasgow or kelvin constituency which is the city centre which obviously there are a number of parades at certain times and i do know what some of the you know comments that you made about equalities the right of people talk to the communities etc the question i wanted to ask i know you took evidence i think yes you're absolutely right everyone's got a right to express themselves if it doesn't you know pour into some other form for other people but the problem that are the concerns that's raised not just with me but with others is the you know the amount of you might say parades and you mentioned in your report about consulting people should that consultation via obviously the Glasgow city council have a cap on the amount of orange orchard parades in Glasgow city in our area drosie i'm sorry i've been pointed out for that one have i i would i would say that i'd suspect i'm by no means a human rights lawyer but i would suspect that a cap would actually breach all kinds of human rights legislation about freedom of assembly and freedom of expression i think a legislative route around the issues that are around marches and parades is probably the wrong route to go down i think this is about dialogue i think this is about the different parties around a particular event who have rights and that's the rights of the those processing and the rights of those who live work or have businesses in the area that processions are going through is very complicated and requires more talk i would actually praise Glasgow city council because if you want to know if there's a parade on in Glasgow whether it's an orange parade or a republican parade the boys brigade or the girl scouts you can look on their website and you can find it really quickly you find out the route you find out the size you find out at the time it starts other council areas it's very very difficult edinburgh for example it's very difficult you might hit on that point about you can go on the website and if you go on the website just now in the parades you will find that so far i think in Glasgow there's been six orange order parades and more planned and you do mention and your recommendations the rights of communities not to be unreasonably you know basically disrupted so i'm just asking you know you said about legislation not working we have now the new community empowerment bill and obviously working with local authorities would it not be something that should be looked at the right of people not to be unreasonably disrupted as your recommendation i think that the issue there and this is where the law comes into it is what what unreasonable means for example a couple of weeks ago the orange order had an event in central Glasgow that on sat on a Saturday that witnessed quite a lot of excitement on social media the following day there was something like eight orange order parades for their annual divine service in Glasgow that didn't so there are there's a complex mix here of of how people perceive particular events because often what is raised around orange parades is their frequency their number etc but i often find that other events that are very frequent in parts of scotland for example pipe bands routinely of a of a Saturday evening will parade through towns and villages that those kind of things don't events the same disquiet amongst people and again obviously we're looking at your paper on you know sectarianism it doesn't mention pipe bands you know absolutely maybe somebody else would like to comment because i'm looking at on the qualities issue on everyone i'd like to come in in this not least because i live in a community where frankly you know for about the next eight or nine weeks you know large numbers of us will be waiting up every Saturday morning at around about eight o'clock to the sound of music which whilst it might be very nice some of us might prefer to you know to sleep on in our beds this is in in one sense this is a difficult issue on in another it's to me it's quite an easy one you know surely in Scotland in the 21st century with a bit of goodwill an element of maturity and the brokerage of the local authorities you know coming in we should be able to get into a space where community representatives and the marching or parading organisations are able to sit round a table and say right okay guys you know what is what is a good outcome for everybody here you know i happened to be having a cup of tea in my pal's house last night and he was you know his house abuts an orange hall you know and the band practice you know does it you know is is is every Saturday you know and he was kind of moaning about the fact that his days of lying is having a lie off as we call it in Lanarkshire behind him for a few months now i know that if my daughter and her teenage pals were generating that amount of noise playing music in my back garden that the police would visit and would say look not at 8 o'clock in the morning chaps maybe not that loud i actually think that that conversation is possible it's just that nobody's attempted to have it because there isn't an easy route into you know how do you phone up your local orange lodge and say i live round the back do you think we could come and talk about this people won't as individuals do that to me that's the role of local community organisations community councils and local authorities to help support that process whereby a very sensible and frankly probably low-key dialogue has had around what happens in your village or your town on an on-going basis between usually the months of a bit me in the end of august i can and certainly i we've had a number of meetings with the orange order and i have to say that in all of the meetings that we've held with them i've found them to be reasonable approachable sensible and more than anything else i think they want to be respectabilised you know they want respectability as an organisation they want to be included in if you like the realm of respectable organisations in scotland and they feel that that's not the space that they're allowed to inhabit at present and certainly from them i could see a very i think a strong desire and there'd be a strong motivation for them to engage in those kind of constructive conversations and i suppose what i would like to see this is where leadership comes into it at the level of whether it is your local community council or your local councillor or your local authority creating and making available to people the mechanisms whereby those sensible conversations can take place you know and i think that that if we did that one thing then a lot of the resentment that builds up between communities around perioding would actually feed away you know yeah very brief the reason we didn't go for a cap partly it's the right issues but partly it's because actually what a cap is in local communities may vary so actually there's an issue around brokerage and a local brokerage around us but there are really just very quickly a number issues one is frequency i think is an issue if it starts to become about fear or about occupation of space behavior is absolutely an issue and responsibility and how far it extends in other words when you bring people on to street who are you responsible for those things all need to be brokered and dealt with in a way which takes us away from any permissive environment around either fear or violence those two things are the things that we're actually concerned about and sectarianism is fear and violence those need to be taken out of it and that actually in the end as you say always tends towards legislation if we don't get cooperation but actually in an ideal world and not just in an ideal world we think really critically this is where we see local authorities and local community councils having a really key role in engaging with issues rather than standing off it and working through where there are local issues around frequency or around behaviour but becoming very clear about how they intend to approach those issues bringing in the organisations who are responsible in the communities who feel affected. Thank you very much moving on to Jane Baxter now. In the final report the group states that there's a gap in research on sectarianism so I'm wondering whether you'd like to comment on that and whether the Scottish Government has done any work in the past year to begin to fill in those gaps? Sorry, can I speak? Yes, Dr Morrow, you may. I've always responded with that at giving your place. Thank you. Then Michael, I'll probably speak about this. I think the research thing has been something we think is quite exciting has happened in terms of trying to get this off the anecdotal. A number of issues, there were two elements quantitative which is actually trying to get the equality stats up there and hope that they'll happen and they can be monitored and people can challenge those but also the attitudes and the things that are residual for people so between those two, those are now part, we think, of a can be regularly monitored and in the public domain so that is important. Then however, sectarianism is not just a problem in data, it's a problem in relationships, it's how people feel, it's how communities operate in the back of it and so we have had a couple of reports around particular issues, how is parading actually perceived, how does it work, how does this, we've looked at one on communities, how in different communities does sectarianism still operate because it's not a single thing as we said you know in the west of Scotland and the Highlands it may be very, very different and so we've identified a number of further pieces of work which we think could come out of this. Obviously there are the obvious things like you know how does this connect with football maybe that is an important issue. Gender, this is an issue which impacts on women and men actually in quite distinctive and different ways. So there are a number of particularly qualitative pieces which we think should continue to social media, how is this operating in social media because it takes up actually quite a lot of the hate crime zone in the social media because of the way and the aggressiveness of which this is used so that kind of grey area of how you regulate that incredibly new and very difficult but very important area. So there are a series of qualitative pieces which we think would improve that but we certainly think that over the last three years it's been one of the things which we hope we've set and trained which is let's get this on to the evidence base. You make it very brief please. I'll be very brief I think now in terms of quantitative evidence Scotland is really well served we're actually really rich in what we can say about people of particular religions or indeed of no religion and I think that will continue because that's now embedded in the practice of various surveys. I think there are gaps in research always dangerous to let an academic tell you about the gaps in research because I'll be coming asking for money. Gender is one of the key ones social media the impact of how people actually conflict from their own homes in social media is important. I think it's really important now for the Scottish Government almost to kind of hand us over as well because leadership needs to come from the research community including universities out there. There's lots of data it's quite clear where we don't have qualitative studies so to me it's over to to people like myself and Duncan and the broader research community not to get public money from the Scottish Government but to get public money from research councils and elsewhere to start filling in those gaps. I just wondered if any of those topics would be a priority I think we could discuss that all day but is there a stand out priority? Is it social media? Is it football? Is it gender? I think for me social media is one but that's broadly because I don't think as a society we understand the impact particularly in young people social media and second would be gender. I'd like to ask you about education. In your first report the group was clear that sectarianism wouldn't be eradicated by closing schools and by that you mean Catholic schools and you continue to support this view and you also said that the importance of education to tackle sectarianism is obviously echoed in your final report. I did go to a religious school and I'm wondering why you think by not merging non-denominational and Catholic schools together wouldn't remove those barriers and sectarianism because I did feel very much as if we were different from everybody else and we didn't understand why or what actually went on in a non-denominational school and I think they also felt the same but you also mentioned that maybe twinning schools which is happening as well but my understanding what I think as well which is probably completely wrong is that you still have got that divide you know you don't cross over that line you go into the end of playtime you go to your two separate schools so you're separating people again can you expand on that and why you think that shouldn't be the case? Well I'll say something to my colleagues that I will probably add. We looked at this and obviously you know the issue of of schools and the attitudes and young peoples at the front line of this is really important so first of all I don't want it to be misunderstood as this we don't think it is important we think it is really important. Second thing we think that the behaviour of schools and how schools both the values but also the way in which they offer opportunities to people so the twinning the opportunities that might come out of various co-location the the opportunities which happen because of relationships at local level there are opportunities which need to be now mainstreamed and thirdly we think it needs to be part of the curriculum we really went to say you know this needs to be part of what Education Scotland is talking about and so on and offering opportunities and we saw some very very good models in in Lanarkshire we saw that the Glasgow schools were able to use English and Drama to pick this up with its education to pick this up in a very good way. On the other hand we think that in order to make that the relationships are more important to actions and change than than saying these schools are bad schools or these schools are responsible and not and that the the debate around the opening and closing of schools tends to polarise into two things who's responsible for it who are the bad guys who are the good guys and that the key thing is to focus actually on children rather than on schools what is happening for young people what is happening to and so I wouldn't want to misunderstood that by saying we don't think that school closures is the first issue that we don't think that what happens in schools isn't absolutely critical it really is critical and it needs to happen in from the top and as in an all-school approach and from Education Scotland and to be honest with you I think that one of the key tests for us is going to be how does that happen just to give you an anecdotal story from one of the most long-standing and impressive projects. Science over Secretarianism was established within Glasgow City Council with the kind of liaison group around it and developed a process around a book actually, Divided City, which was a novel that was then used in the primary sixth class room and once it was put into place what we heard was that actually the demand outstripped the availability of staff to deal with it actually quite considerably in other words the head teachers were looking for mechanisms in which to actually find a constructive way to address this and now are looking for ways to transfer it into the secondary school system so we believe that the primary way in which we can engage schools is not to target a school as a good school or a bad school to encourage schools to develop proper partnership relationship to ensure that this kind of them in us culture is part of what they're building down but also to have tools and the capacity to deal with this at curricular level as the primary focus of how we want to see progress. I mean I want to be clear I don't want I'm not saying that there is good schools and bad schools right that I think that's the wrong thing to actually put across what I'm saying and what I still don't understand is why you can't have the schools merged together right a good example of this is that my son lives in southern island and they actually chose to send their children to a school called educate together and for anyone that actually wanted any kind of religious education it was done outwith the school so all the children are coming together sharing the same values being taught in the same situation and hopefully and obviously breaking down any kind of sectarianism that may be formed and I still personally can't see why the merging of schools together wouldn't actually create that and you're doing it at a very early age you're getting the children when they come in very early at primary school and you're working with them and there is excellent teaching in both denominational and non-denominational schools and why can't that good practice be shared together and come under the one roof roof to actually break this down? Margaret? First of all my daughter attends a Catholic school I come from the Catholic community and would be you know a very strong believer in Catholic education not because it's particularly you know ironically not particularly for religious reasons but because of the value it's a value-based education and it looks at the development of the whole child not just from the point not just you know in terms of academic success but the development of the whole human being which is really fundamental and in actual fact there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Catholic education creates exacerbates or results in sectarianism and until such evidence can be landed I think this is a kind of I think it's an unreasonable debate to have to be honest with you if the you know until such times is that there is clear evidence there that suggests that Catholic schools produce or exacerbate sectarianism then I think that the conversation that we should be having is around how do we ensure that our communities you know and our children grow up to value difference to respect them to respect other people who are different from themselves and that isn't just solely you know in the realms of Catholic and non-Catholic kids you know there are many Asian kids who go to schools in Glasgow and the fact that they attend a school with other white kids does not necessarily diminish their experience of racism it is about what is taught in the school what are the values that underpin the education that's provided and part of those values are you know and should be about partnership and reaching out to to your community and in being engaged in all all parts of your community so I mean from that point of view I would say that I would put up a very strong defence for Catholic education in any event but because it has been evidence and there is an evidence base to show that Catholic schools get better outcomes educationally for children particularly for those children who come from deprived backgrounds aside from that I do think you know if people want to think you know if there is evidence that Catholic education results in most sectarianism then it should be landed but at the moment that evidence doesn't exist in fact quite the contrary the other issue that I think needs to be confronted is you don't hear a similar discussion around schools that are selected in the basis of how much money your parents have or what class you belong to you know there's a whole section of the population in Edinburgh who choose to pay for their education and send their kids to be educated with other children whose parents are you know unequally financially well endowed but I haven't heard an argument yet that says that the existence of Harriet war or fetus you know is a reason why the class struggle is you know an on-going featured in Scottish society and it strikes me that what we do have are you know is one rule for people who want to have a separate education for their children based on on class and on money and the the Catholic education is not treated in the same basis I want to make clear again that I wasn't implying that sectarianism was actually bred within Catholic schools and what I'm trying to say is that by merging them both together you're breaking down barriers and also you do see there is an excellent ethos within the Catholic schools as well which could possibly also be transferred over to the other non-denominational schools and they could actually learn from that as well. Dr Morop very very briefly and we're really ridden out of time. This is slightly, we as a group came from different backgrounds I'm actually a governor in Northern Ireland of an integrated school and all my children went to integrated schools and all I can say to you is this is that the issue of if you have integrated schools the question will be how do we protect diversity the if you have separated schools the question is how do we promote interdependence and you don't get away from the question either way and so our view very strongly I think in the group was that if sectarianism is a question of barriers and breaking down barriers then that's a legitimate question but that the breaking down of barriers isn't just a question of actually closing schools or of targeting one side or the other it is of being much more clearly focused on what happens to children in the middle of that so I think to be clear if there is evidence of you know where where there is models of integration which feel like that they've solved the interdependence problem they may be useful I'm not personally in the place which says we shouldn't have them nor am I in the place which says that just because you have separate schools you can't do anything about these issues of sectarianism and or that that there are things which difference a process of diversity in schooling brings the table which challenge all of us mutually which is is useful so I think all of those things are true but I think that for us the really in terms of sectarianism the question was where would you put your money if you were going to talk about taking down this social issue which of division and we would put it on the child rather than on the schools yeah it's up more or less back up what I was thinking as well john mason we are so tight for time so one question really and to try and help us in the way forward I mean you've made some comments about the future in your report end of section five you talk about taking things forward in a consistent long term way this is for the Scottish Parliament this can only be achieved with a shared political vision as you know politicians not very good at long term thinking I mean you know how the parliament works we've got a parliament we've got the government we've got a committee like this I mean have you any specific suggestions age you think this committee should spend a bit of time on this subject we well I think there's two things I really think the question of monitoring houses regularly raised I think is really really important not in a way which is bureaucratically heavy but nevertheless really important so part of that needs to come from the normal qualities monitoring if you move into that how is it an issue and is it done through the various agencies which are responsible for that but somehow that at least for the in the for the next period until it's decided that it's no longer a question it should be being raised and are we making progress on this in some kind of regular way the interparty work on this I have to say was unbelievably important on this like all of the qualities issues if these break down on on party basis then actually we can hardly have these conversations because they tend to create political alignments around particular groups and frankly that's unhealthy place to go but nevertheless I want to say thanks to the all the political parties in scotland for the way this debate has not turned into and I think that is a really positive thing for the future around some of these questions there are practical questions which require different maybe people have different solutions that's appropriate but the general commitment is has been there the second one is which hasn't raised its head is we really do believe that local government has a really critical role in this and the negotiation and the insistence on local government's role in this is something which hasn't barked we have had conversations with cause and I think our view was that for example having the capacity in councils very clearly identified and the responsibility around reporting on this allows for local flexibility but also allows for somebody in public life to be taking responsibility for this and it may be that the I don't know whether the national performance framework or something of his nature or some some of the negotiations with how local government thinks about this wouldn't be a very good way to go so the monitoring of this and the leadership of this by political parties needs to continue and so we need to be very clear we need a practical mechanism to make sure that that isn't just a pipe drain so that's real and the second one is that local government we need to have an actual practical conversation now with local government about how this is reflected in their capacities okay thank you very much and it would have to be very very brief Dr Rosa I would just briefly echo what Duncan has said I mean the last five years Scottish politics has been changing remarkably and I think it's a real testament to this parliament that nobody has played politics with this issue and I think that it's really important that that continues it's really important that we move on from any idea that this is a special unique problem in Scotland because it bleeds into all kinds of other equalities issues this committee I think is an ideal place in which some of this work can be taken forward it's up to you to to determine whether that's for you but I would encourage you to think about this not as a special case but as something that encapsulates equalities issues and kind of concentrates yeah thank you all very much witnesses for your very valuable contributions we really appreciate you coming along and that concludes the public part of today's meeting and I will now close the meeting thank you