Chamber and committees

Convener, I have some questions in other areas.

My further question around the registrar general touches on the issue of age. The registrar general and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland both spoke of the need for support. The registrar general, I think, said that there had been conversations with the cabinet secretary on the sort of support and on the organisations that would provide it to people, so that they could understand the effect of the gender recognition certificate. Cabinet secretary, can you say what those conversations have been and who you think those organisations might be? You mentioned that it could cost approximately £350,000 to set up the system, with on-going costs of £150,000. For some support, that could be considered quite a small amount. Will you set out the detail on that and on the role that young people will have in developing support and guidance?

I appreciate that answer, cabinet secretary, and I understand what implications the bill might or might not have for health services. However, we have heard in a number of evidence sessions about the experience of trans people in the round, and I thought that it would be helpful if we put that question to you today. Indeed, it would be remiss of us if we did not do so.

The bill contains a number of reporting mechanisms, and I note that those outlined for the registrar general for Scotland are considerably more restricted than they are for bodies elsewhere in the UK. I am thinking, for example, of the Ministry of Justice. Are you open to looking at further reporting mechanisms and collection of data on people’s date of birth, birth status and so on to get a clearer picture of people across Scotland, including on the number of trans people?

Yes, that would be helpful. Thank you.

The children’s commissioner spoke about the presumption in the children’s bill that children and young people have capacity to share their views with the court. Would something similar be helpful in this bill?

Thank you.

We heard from people who transitioned and then transitioned again—which is sometimes called detransitioning—that there is a lack of clarity in the bill about the process for that. Will you say what you understand the process to be for someone who transitions and then decides to transition again? How would you protect those people from a criminal process? That is, how can you tell the difference between someone making a false declaration and someone seeking to transition again?

Thank you—that was really helpful.

The other area that I am interested in—

In legislation, there is an assumption that a young person has the capacity to make a decision unless a professional says otherwise—on a case-by-case basis. Would that be a useful addition to this bill in order to protect young people?

Yes, I have questions on public debt, so I will move on to those. We have already spoken about the difference between the collection of public debt and private debt, particularly in relation to council tax. The Poverty Alliance noted that the situation is extremely complicated and it is difficult for people to understand their right to access council tax reduction, particularly when they slip in and out of having to pay that on the basis of their income. Would the Government support the proposal for local authorities to write out to people to make explicit their entitlement to a council tax reduction and also to write back to them when there are changes to that, so that people do not inadvertently fall into public sector debt?

I am keen to talk a little about the child poverty delivery plan in the context of the flat cash allocations elsewhere, outside the social security portfolio.

Both cabinet secretaries have talked this morning about a 17 per cent rate of child poverty. However, they will be aware that both Save the Children and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published an independent analysis, the “Delivering for Families?” report, this week. The report said:

“it is hard to conclude that the”

child poverty

“Plan fully delivers a comprehensive set of activity that will meet its lofty ambitions. A stronger prescription is needed to meet the diagnosis.”

I think that the committee will concur with me that we have heard evidence from third sector organisations that the plan, while it had “lofty ambitions”, to use the term from the report, was a bit light on detail.

The independent report says that the Government is likely to miss the targets and that families might have to “freeze or eat”. Those are quite strong words, but they come from an independent analysis.

In the context of that report, will you comment on how you expect to meet the child poverty target? In particular, it appears that it took quite some time to get to the point of taking enough action, so it is possible that the only option now is the Scottish child payment, but I think that it is important to look elsewhere. What is the plan to meet those targets now that it looks as though you are going to miss them?

Thank you for that answer, cabinet secretary. Of course that is the case, and increasing employability options has to be the way forward so that people can get out of, and stay out of, poverty.

However, at this point, organisations are saying—as they were even at the beginning of the current session of Parliament—that action on reducing the structural inequality that exists in society has not been significant enough and that the only option was to use mechanisms such as the Scottish child payment.

I take your point that the organisations used slightly different modelling. Nonetheless, they state in the report that they used the same figures and modelling as the Government used and still could not get to the point that the Government got to.

I am interested to hear what more you are going to do to meet those targets. By the Government’s own estimate, we might just get there; independent analysis says that we will not. It is fair to say, therefore, that more action is needed. So, what other actions is the Government going to take?