Chamber and committees

That would be a matter for us around the mechanics of the legislation once the bill has finished its passage through Parliament, rather than being part of the bill as such. There is nothing odd about that; it is just the normal course of events. It is a technical issue with which we do not envisage there being any issues.

No. Whether the UK Government changes its processes is clearly a matter for the UK Government itself, as is whether it recognises Scottish gender recognition certificates. That does not affect our ability to make changes to the law here.

No, I do not agree with that. The bill has been the subject of a lot of consultation: there have been two Scottish consultations and one UK consultation, all of which received high numbers of responses. In those consultations, there was generally more support than opposition, although I take the point about the responses to the committee.

In addition to that, there have been various polls, such as the BBC poll that found that 60 per cent of the public support reform, with young people and women more likely to support it. More recently, a report from More in Common found that people are perhaps less divided on trans issues than social media would indicate. With more than 30,000 responses in total, the two formal consultations are among the largest that the Scottish Government has ever undertaken. Work has been going on over a number of years to get us to that point.

I have met representatives from organisations that are for and against the bill. During those wide-ranging conversations, suggestions for changes were made from both sides of the debate, and I have considered all of those. Before that, my predecessor, Shirley-Anne Somerville, also met a range of organisations. The subject has been debated, scrutinised and consulted on, and now this committee is looking at the detail. I do not think that it would be appropriate to pause now. It is time for this committee to do its work and for Parliament to make a judgment about the detail of the bill and whether it supports it.

We have been a long time getting to this point and any further delay will not necessarily enhance the public discourse around the issues. It has come to the point where, as legislators and parliamentarians, we need to make a decision about the matter. Given all the delays that we have already had, I think that any further delay would not be helpful.

People who are deeply affected by this—I reiterate that it is a tiny number of people for whom it is really important—would have a further delay in being able to bring their legal status and documentation into line with how they live their lives. I do not think that that would be the right thing to do.

As you have said, there are various views on the matter. We have heard the views of stakeholders and respondents to the consultation who do not support the proposal, which might be for various reasons. Some will say, as you have said, that a person will have already reflected on the issue for their entire life. Some will say that the period of reflection is too short and others will say that it is not required if the applicant is required to live in their acquired gender for a longer period before applying. Again, I do not think that there is much consensus on the issue.

In our opinion, the reflection period represents a balanced and proportionate time before taking what is an important and life-changing decision. I think that it will provide additional assurance that applicants have considered carefully what they are doing in making a serious lifelong choice. The bill requires applicants not to reconfirm the facts and circumstances that are set out in their application but simply to affirm that they wish to proceed. Some countries—most notably Denmark and Belgium—have reflection periods, and others do not. As I have said, we will look at the committee’s recommendations, but it is important that we try, as far as we can, to strike a balance in respect of the range of concerns. The three-month reflection period could be helpful in ensuring that people are absolutely sure that it is what they want to do.

No, I do not think that it is, because the rights are enshrined in the 2010 act, so I would assume that there would have to be a change to the 2010 act. What would be the basis for changing the transgender protections under the 2010 act for one part of the UK? There would probably be no legal basis for doing so, for a start. The act enshrines the same protections for everybody across the UK, whether or not they have a GRC, and that is not going to change.

We are trying to get clarification of what the EHRC thinks the relevance of those protections to the bill is. We do not believe that there is any, and I think that that view is shared by the SHRC. It is not the only thing that we have not been able to get clarification of from the EHRC. We have asked it for clarification of a number of things that do not seem to have particular relevance to the bill, and we wait with interest to see what comes back.

As you say, in 2021, the chief statistician published guidance for public bodies on the collection of data on sex and gender, and the current chief statistician is continuing to engage with a range of public bodies to support their application of the guidance.

I know that there has been a particular focus on the recording of crime statistics, for example. As you know, crime recording for operational purposes is a matter for the respective body, be that Police Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service or the courts.

It is worth noting that we publish the national statistics on criminal proceedings in Scotland every year, and those are derived from data that is held on the criminal history system, which is an operational database maintained by Police Scotland. There are such small numbers involved here that I think the view is that there is not going to be a statistical impact from any changes that the bill will introduce.

Peter Hope-Jones may want to add to that.

Do you mean the impact in other countries that have already done this?

I am happy to talk about gender identity healthcare, which is a whole area in itself. Obviously, such matters do not specifically come under the bill’s provisions, which are about obtaining a GRC, but we do not believe that there is evidence of any impact in any other country where a statutory declaration has been introduced. That is where we look for any impact.

The number of people who are going through gender identity healthcare is very small and the issue is not related to the bill. After all, someone does not require a GRC to undertake such healthcare. We are aware of the pressures on those services, and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is making further investment to improve the situation, but the two things are really not related. Someone can access that healthcare without ever having to apply for a gender recognition certificate. Similarly, someone can apply for a certificate under the statutory recognition process without ever going anywhere near gender identity healthcare. It goes back to a point that was made earlier: the two issues are really quite different and need to be treated so.

The first consultation on gender recognition reform discussed legal gender recognition for non-binary people and the extent to which it would require significant changes to devolved areas such as parentage, marriage and registration law and to reserved areas such as the Equality Act 2010, as well as requiring financial and administrative resources for implementation. It would be very complex indeed, and, if it was to be the direction of travel, any such changes would require much further consideration and consultation. We therefore decided not to extend legal gender recognition to non-binary people in the bill.

You rightly point to the working group on non-binary equality that was established. It has very recently made its recommendations to the Scottish Government, which we are considering and will respond to. The report will be published in short order in the near future—by which I mean in the next couple of weeks.