Parliament Workbench

Petition · PE01333 · Session 3

Disadvantaged Scottish Gypsy Travellers and members of the settled community

Closed Submitted 11 Jun 2010 People & Communities
Signatures
95
Comments
0
Considered
6 meetings
in the Official Report

What it asks

Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to investigate the inequalities and discrimination faced by Scottish Gypsy Travellers and other members of the settled community residing in mobile homes in terms of assessing council tax liability and water and water and sewerage charges.

What the petitioner did first

These matters were raised at the Perth and Kinross Council Gypsy Liaison Group ten years ago. The council was to look into it and get back to Mr McPhee but it never did. They were also brought to the attention of the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee and the Scottish Government’s Equality Unit. The matters were raised at the Strategic Review Group on Gypsy Travellers which was convened by the Equality Unit. The Equality Unit said that there was nothing that it could do if that was what the legislation stated. The Minister, John Swinney MSP told Mr McPhee that the charges could be exempted and didn’t see why the council couldn’t exempt the charges as it had discretionary powers. These matters were also raised with Perth and Kinross’ Councillor Kate Howie.
Complaints have been submitted to Central Scotland Race Equality Council and prior to that to the Commission for Racial Equality, but none were acted upon. It has been raised verbally with the Equality and Human Rights Commission which felt it to be too complex an issue. As a result of the failure to act on numerous other complaints and the difficulties accessing legal aid these had to be raised in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Where it was considered

Official Report
  1. 29 Jun 2010
    Public Petitions Committee
    New Petitions
    1 mention
  2. 5 Oct 2010
    Public Petitions Committee
    Current Petitions
    1 mention
  3. 23 Nov 2010
    Public Petitions Committee
    Current Petitions
    1 mention
  4. 8 Mar 2011
    Public Petitions Committee
    Current Petitions
    1 mention
  5. 20 Sep 2011
    Public Petitions Committee
    Current Petitions
    1 mention
  6. 29 Nov 2011
    Public Petitions Committee
    Current Petitions
    1 mention

Signatures by country

No online signatures are recorded for this petition; the total above may include paper signatures.

Comments

No public comments.