Chamber and committees

Did you want to come back in, Pam?

I welcome our third panel of witnesses: Dr Sandra Duffy, lecturer in law, and Dr Peter Dunne, senior lecturer, both from the University of Bristol law school; and Dr Chris Dietz, lecturer in law and social justice, University of Leeds. Apologies if I mispronounced any of the surnames.

I invite our witnesses to make a short opening statement, starting with Dr Duffy, please.

Victor Madrigal-Borloz wants to come in briefly on that point.

It is either Barbara Bolton or Cathy Asante who is answering questions.

Thanks very much. You have all put the pronunciation of your names on the record, I hope. I will stick with first names going forward in the session.

I will move to questions, starting with Maggie Chapman.

Welcome back. I welcome our second panel. Joining us remotely is Victor Madrigal-Borloz, who is the United Nations independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. We are joined in person by Ian Duddy, the chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission; Barbara Bolton, who is its head of legal and policy, and Cathy Asante, who is a legal officer. I particularly welcome Ian, who is on his second day in post as chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. You are all welcome—especially Ian—and we look forward to working with you on a range of issues.

I invite the witnesses to make short opening statements, beginning with Victor Madrigal-Borloz.

If it is on a different issue, I will go to Karen Adam first and then come back to you. Is that all right?

I will bring in Sharon Cowan quickly before we move on to questions from Pam Gosal.

I will pick up on a couple of points. We invited Dr Cass to give evidence, but she declined and referred us to her interim report. It is worth noting that Dr Cass’s remit specifically relates to NHS England. Obviously, anyone can look at her report.

Rachael Hamilton and Naomi Cunningham made a point about taking specialist evidence on children, and Naomi Cunningham talked about lawyers. I suggest to anyone who is watching that they look at our evidence session with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. Obviously, he is not a lawyer, but he had access to lawyers in answering the committee’s questions.

That is why I am saying that anyone who wants to see the evidence that was given can go to the Scottish Parliament website, and they can obviously read the Official Report, too.