Chamber and committees

I have to be mindful of time. I am sorry, but Pam Duncan-Glancy wanted to hear from Sharon Cowan now.

Naomi Cunningham wants to come back in. Please be very brief, as I need to bring in two more members, who might want to cover the area that you want to raise—please do not widen the discussion too much.

Okay, and Pam Duncan-Glancy wants to make a brief point, as does Rachael Hamilton.

Thank you very much, David. We will start with Maggie Chapman.

Thank you—you are reading my mind. We need to be conscious of time, because members want to cover a good number of areas. However, we covered more than we expected there, so thank you for that.

Folk were pretty brief; thank you for that.

We move to questions from Emma Roddick.

I do not think that there are any more questions for David Parker. Thank you very much; this session has been really helpful.

Thank you.

Before we start, I will make a short statement on some relevant developments in order to update members and people who follow our work. Today, we will hear from two expert panels as part of our stage 1 evidence on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The committee had hoped to hear evidence from Professor Alice Sullivan in today’s first panel. Although she is not able to join us today, I am pleased that she has accepted our invitation and should be with us on Tuesday 21 June.

We had also hoped to hear from Dr Hilary Cass in today’s second panel, but she has declined the committee’s invitation. She said that she has published her interim report and referred us to that and other published statements that she has made.

The committee had also invited a number of respected associations representing medical professionals to give evidence, but several have declined the committee’s invitation to attend in person today. Some have agreed to give written evidence, which the committee will be able to consider as part of our stage 1 inquiry.

Last week, the committee heard from witnesses representing faith groups and secular society. Ahead of that session, as committee members are aware, the committee had approached a range of faith groups but, for a variety of reasons, some declined our invitation to attend last week. I hope that that provides clarity for people who are following the committee’s work.

As has been agreed by the committee, the clerks are working with a variety of parents groups to organise an informal evidence session in order that we can hear from parents whose children have transgender identity. The clerks are also trying to arrange for the committee to hear informally from people who have transitioned but who have thereafter chosen to reverse that process. The clerks will publish details on those sessions in due course.

I hope that that information helps to clarify some of the queries about the committee’s agreed approach to oral evidence sessions.

Under our first agenda item, we will continue to take evidence on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. I welcome our first panel: Professor Sharon Cowan is professor of feminist and queer legal studies in the University of Edinburgh’s school of law; Naomi Cunningham is a barrister at Outer Temple Chambers, and chair of Sex Matters; and Karon Monaghan QC is a barrister at Matrix Chambers. I refer members to papers 1 and 2.

I invite each witness to make a short opening statement.

Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in session 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have received apologies from Karen Adam, and Emma Roddick is attending as a substitute. As usual, I ask Emma Roddick to declare any relevant interests.

I thank all three of our witnesses. We have gone a little over the time that we had indicated to you that we had, so I thank you for giving us your time and evidence. Perhaps this evidence session is one of those that would have been better as a round-table discussion; I got the feeling that we were getting into that territory.

I suspend the meeting for around five minutes.