Chamber and committees

It is a follow-up question in relation to 16 and 17-year-olds.

Some panellists, including yourselves, have concerns around the lack of capacity assessment in the bill for 16 and 17-year-olds. Would you support an amendment to the bill that would create an assumption that all 16 and 17-year-olds have capacity to understand the process and its legal implications, as is the case in other law in Scotland, unless in specific circumstances an assessment would find that not to be the case?

It has been quite the session, and I appreciate the length of time that the witnesses have been here. It has been broad ranging.

I am concerned about a number of the things that you have raised—particularly, Dr Coleman, the experiences that you have shared about what has happened in prisons. However, I am interested to note that those have happened within the current gender recognition certificate process and that people have still been able to be bad actors within that system—which is, of course, unacceptable.

I also note that we have heard a lot about puberty blockers and data on healthcare. I share my colleague Rachael Hamilton’s concerns on data in healthcare—in all healthcare; if we were a nation that properly delivered healthcare on the basis of data, we would all be in a very different circumstance. There is a lot to do on that.

However, I struggle a wee bit to see how that relates directly to the bill that is in front of us. Lucy Hunter Blackburn, I come back to the point that you made earlier, which was excellently put: we have to focus on the bill that is in front of us. The examples in prisons and the examples of puberty blockers are part of a discussion but are probably not directly related to the bill in front of us. I therefore want to move on to talk about bits of the bill itself.

My first question is on the time period. Lucy, you have suggested that there is perhaps a way to change to a single six-month period from application to issue, and that that could help with data collection. I am keen to hear how.

I understand that, but I am trying to get to the point where we can do our job as legislators, which is to make sure that the bill is the best possible piece of legislation that it can be to provide trans people with validation, destigmatisation and so on, as you said earlier. Therefore, we need to be really specific. At what point, now, do gender recognition certificates come in? Do people have to provide them in order to use toilets, changing rooms and single-sex spaces?

Okay—

So it is not the law that is in front of us—

It is interesting to hear where the evidence about the balance of harm lies.

How have other countries dealt with some of the issues that we have heard about regarding single-sex spaces? I have a specific question for Sandy Brindley that I will come to in a moment, but how have other countries struck a balance and dealt with the conflict that people have put to us?

Thank you—that was helpful. With regard to the seven-year period that you have just mentioned, can you give us any examples of that from anywhere else in the world? Is seven years the average period? Is it longer or shorter? Where do we sit in that respect?

Thank you. Those are all my questions on this theme, convener.

Thank you—that was really clear.

I have one further question, but I will save it and write to the commission.