Chamber and committees

Good afternoon. I want to return to Russell Findlay’s question to Teresa Medhurst. I found your answer helpful, Teresa, but I want to ensure that I understood correctly what you said to the committee.

The policy is that a transgender woman who has been convicted of an offence of violence against women or girls and poses a risk to females will not be admitted to the female estate. The confusion arises with the phrase “and poses a risk”. I want to examine that.

I think that you told Russell Findlay that you could not envisage a situation in which the fact that someone has been convicted would not be seen as their posing a risk. Is that right?

Cabinet secretary, I am honestly quite confused about what you said to me about the reason why the SPS has announced that it will no longer give us data on which estate transgender prisoners are in. Is it general data protection regulation that we are talking about? If so, has the legal advice changed? Can you give that advice to the committee? I would like to understand where this is coming from.

Okay. If we have the same GDPR law and it has not changed, why has the legal advice to ministers changed, all of a sudden?

Why did you reconsider the position?

It is clear, then, that any transgender woman who has committed an offence will not go to the female estate. That is what you have said.

Am I right in saying that the Prison Officers Association did not sign off on the policy?

I have one further question for Teresa Medhurst and then one question for the cabinet secretary. Professor Jo Phoenix, of the University of Reading, wrote to the SPS as part of the consultation; I am not questioning why you did not speak to her, because we do not have time. Sharon Dowey has already laid the foundation for this, and I think that, in response, you accepted the nature of women’s offending and that we have dealt with women offenders very well over the years—we are agreed on that.

What Professor Phoenix has said—and she is not the only person to say this—is that the policy is “not evidence based” and that it

“does not adequately provide for the safety of female prisoners”,

who I think you accept are a vulnerable and marginalised group. Do you agree with that?

Just finally, cabinet secretary—

What has changed in that period? Has the law changed, or something?

You know that I have very strong views on that—