Chamber and committees

I alluded earlier to the fact, which I will reiterate now, that applying for and receiving a gender recognition certificate and clinical decisions on gender identity healthcare are entirely separate issues. However, we recognise that referrals to and waiting times for gender identity services for both adults and young people have increased in recent years, which is why action has already been taken.

Last December, we published the NHS gender identity services strategic action framework, which demonstrates a commitment to wanting to improve matters. We are investing £9 million over three years, with £2 million being allocated this year, to try to make improvements. A reference group has been established to lead on co-ordinating that work. That will take a bit of time, but we acknowledge that waiting times for support are not where we would want them to be, which is why that investment has been made.

Given that, as a general principle, a GRC obtained overseas would be recognised in Scotland, confirmatory GRCs should not, in theory, be widely needed. The bill provides for them in cases in which someone is having difficulty obtaining that recognition or wants clear evidence of the legal recognition of their lived gender—that might apply to someone fleeing a war-torn country, for example, where they do not have access to records. It will be a tiny number of cases, but the provision has such things in mind, as I understand it. Is that right, Peter?

Prison is an issue that has been raised and the committee heard evidence from the Scottish Prison Service, which said that whether or not someone has a gender recognition certificate does not affect the way that it risk-assesses that person. The Prison Service already places people in the most appropriate estate, whether that is for their own safety or the safety of others, regardless of whether they have a gender recognition certificate.

That is the right approach and it is reassuring in terms of the process. We are talking about a tiny number of people and it is important not to conflate two things. There is no evidence at all that there is a higher number of sex offenders within the trans community; in fact, the overwhelming evidence is that sexual offences are committed mainly by men on women. However, where there are transgender prisoners, whatever their offence, the management of them is down to the Scottish Prison Service and it does that very carefully. It has a review under way at the moment, which will guide it on whether it needs to make any further changes.

Yes. It has mainly been at official level—Peter Hope-Jones can say more about that—but there has been on-going engagement all the way through the bill process. Will you say a bit more about the engagement that you have had with officials, Peter?

Obviously, that is not directly related to the bill. A situation such as you describe would come under the existing processes in the 2004 act.

I understand that, in its submission, Close the Gap said that the number of people involved will be so small that it will have no statistical impact. I think that Close the Gap, Engender and people working in the area of fair work are far more concerned about the gender pay gap between men and women that exists across huge areas of employment, and that their view is that the numbers that are involved in the area that we are discussing are so tiny that they would not impact statistically on the figures.

Obviously, people do not need a gender recognition certificate to access the spaces that we are talking about. The trans community has been accessing spaces that align with their acquired gender probably for as long as we have all been around, and possibly longer. The exceptions and exemptions under the legislation relate to services—for example, services that support victims of sexual assault or rape, which I cited earlier. In that case, as long as doing so is proportionate, it is legitimate to exclude trans women—it could be trans men in other cases—from a service. The 2010 act sets out clearly that there must be a proportionate response, which I think is absolutely right. The bill will change none of that.

I think that they do because the legislation requires a proportionate response so that people are not excluded in a disproportionate way.

My only other observation is that the private space that the committee has created has been good for allowing people who are concerned about the bill, and people from the trans community who feel excluded and affected deeply by some of the debate that has been going on, to express views. The committee has provided a space for anyone who would rather give their view and opinion in private. I commend the committee for that; it has allowed you to hear evidence that might otherwise not have been heard.

On the first point, I have been a member of committees that have taken lots and lots of evidence. As committee members, we want to hear as many views as possible, and it is the role and purpose of committees to look at that detail.

It is fair to say that there is a body of opinion and that this is a polarised discussion. I will not pretend otherwise. Members, including you and I, have been contacted by people who are strongly in favour of the bill and people who are strongly opposed to it. Sometimes, the reasons for people’s opposition are related not to the provisions of the bill but to wider concerns—some of which we will touch on today and some of which I tried to outline in my opening remarks—that the bill is not concerned with.

What it all boils down to is that we have to be guided by the evidence. The committee has heard some compelling evidence. Last week, that was led by the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which got to the nub of the issues by giving evidence about countries that have adopted a statutory declaration process. That evidence showed that once those countries have those processes in place, the concerns such as those that have been expressed by the people who are emailing you or me have not come to fruition. The Scottish Human Rights Commission was clear that it could find no body of evidence to show that the things that people were concerned about—such as the threat to women and girls or a major change in society as we know it—had happened in those countries, and I have no reason to believe that Scotland would be any different from that.

However, it is important that we do the annual reporting on the bill. I know that the committee has taken evidence about whether there should be a post-legislative review of the legislation, to make sure that nothing emerges that we had not predicted. I am very sympathetic to that and, if the committee were to recommend that, I would give it due consideration, because I think that it is important that we look at the operation of any piece of legislation.

I am sorry, will you explain that to me again?

I refer back to the point that local authorities have discretion in individual cases. On your point about writing off public sector debt, in whatever sphere that is, if the Scottish Government was to use resources to do that, those resources would not be available for other things in a tight financial environment. That is the first thing to state. It might be an obvious point, but it is one to state anyway.

The second point is that we have to be careful about what that signals. If we were to write off an entire council tax debt, what signal would that send to people about the relative priority of paying council tax, which funds local services? We could end up in a spiral, which would undermine council tax as an important contributor to public finances.

Having said that, in individual cases, we would encourage local authorities and Social Security Scotland to take a sympathetic view of particular circumstances where there is no likelihood of repayment. Local authorities already have that discretion, and they use it in cases of council tax and school meal debt. It is right to consider cases on an individual basis rather than making a decision across the board.

Similarly, Social Security Scotland, when recovering an overpayment of devolved assistance, for example, is very careful not to push people into hardship as a result. It will work with the person and look at their wider financial situation to consider the affordability of any repayments. There is a recognition across services, whether it be local Government or Social Security Scotland that people are struggling, and services want to be as helpful as they can be. That has to be done on the basis of individual circumstances rather than by taking a blanket approach.