Chamber and committees

Huge sums of taxpayer money have been used to line the pockets of penny-pinching paper pushers in Glasgow as they sail off into taxpayer-funded early retirement. There is no accountability. Will the cabinet secretary ensure that there is a code of conduct for council chief executives and officers, with proper sanctions, to stop rogue officers exploiting the public purse for personal gain?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has engaged with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in relation to the 19 public bodies and organisations that were found to have misrepresented the Equality Act 2010. (S6O-04949)

The Scottish National Party Government has let public bodies break the law, betray women and burn public money. It is defending the indefensible, and that is absolutely shameful. The EHRC has reprimanded 19 organisations for misrepresenting the 2010 act, yet the SNP Government is still peddling guidance that promotes self-identification to schools and prisons. Public bodies are completely at sea because the SNP puts ideology before women’s rights. Will the minister be finding out whether any of those organisations are based here in Scotland? Will she and the Government issue a directive to public bodies to follow the law by the end of the year at the latest?

I apologise for being 40 seconds late for this important debate. Like others, I pay tribute to my colleague Pam Gosal for securing the parliamentary time for it.

We are five months on from the Supreme Court judgment, and it should shame the SNP Government that MSPs are still having to call for policies to be updated in line with the law. I am delighted that Jackie Baillie has spoken in the debate. I thank her for that, but I would have liked to see more of her Labour colleagues speaking in the debate.

To Maggie Chapman, I say that I find the term “cis woman” offensive, and I say to Rona Mackay that she must have drawn the short straw to have to come here tonight to be the Scottish Government’s spokesperson.

When Scottish ministers are determined to dodge scrutiny, we must use every available lever to demand answers. It is shocking that my colleague has to bring a members’ business debate in order to do that. Whether it is because of their arrogance or ignorance, we will not let SNP ministers get away with it.

Let me first congratulate the tenacious trio who are here today from For Women Scotland. Marion Calder, Susan Smith—I am sorry; I am getting emotional—and Trina Budge courageously fought for women’s sex-based rights from their kitchen tables to the highest court in the land. After meeting on Mumsnet, those three incredible women defended women’s rights while the SNP Government and its army of lawyers did their best to dismantle them. Sex Matters and Scottish Lesbians, as interveners in the case, should also be thanked.

The Supreme Court judgment was unanimous: under the Equality Act 2010, “woman” means a biological woman, and “sex” means biological sex. We cannot get clearer than that—no ifs, no buts.

The Scottish Parliament has acted to comply with the law. So, too, has the City of Edinburgh Council. Even the beleaguered Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre has fallen into line. However, under the SNP Government, there are still men in women’s prisons; too many hospital wards are still mixed sex; women and girls are still having to get changed in gender-neutral changing rooms at their local leisure centres; and children went back to school in August with unlawful trans guidance still in place, which means that teenage girls still have to share school toilets with boys. It is absolutely shocking.

Shamefully, there has been no directive from John Swinney to Scotland’s public bodies to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, leaving them, as my colleague Jackie Baillie said, wide open to litigation. The foot dragging from Scotland’s First Minister is sending a clear message to women and girls across the country. As Michelle Thomson said, inaction is action. The captured SNP would rather keep our rights in limbo than confront biological reality.

The SNP is fixated on self-ID and is pandering to party activists rather than upholding the rule of law. It is not wishful thinking; it is wilful ignorance. Now, Scottish ministers are throwing away even more taxpayers’ money to defend themselves again in court. I do not know the exact figure that is being spent—it was quoted as being £250,000, but my understanding is that, this week, the figure has risen to £600,000, and, as Jackie Baillie said, could go up to £1 million. That is shocking. NHS Fife is paying only a small part of that; the large part is being paid by the Scottish Government.

There are fears that the can could be kicked well into 2026. I would like to ask the minister to address that point in closing the debate. Is the Scottish Government going to kick the issue into 2026, or is it going to follow the law this year? If it is kicked down the road into next year, that beggars belief.

I say to the SNP Government that the game is up. As Jackie Baillie and my colleagues have said several times in the chamber, nobody is above the law. The Supreme Court has provided clarity, and now the SNP Government must restore its tattered credibility.

In closing, I echo the words of women and girls up and down the country who cannot speak for themselves: just get on with it—women will not be ignored, and we will not wait.

I am an MSP for North East Scotland.

I will start with Angela O’Hagan, if I may. My question links to the previous one from Maggie Chapman. Angela, you have given a few concrete examples, but the question is how, in your view, has the progress against the progressive realisation of human rights in Scotland been impacted by delays to strategy, policy and legislation, such as the decision not to implement revisions to the national outcomes and the decision not introduce the human rights bill in this parliamentary session? Those things have been kicked down the road. What is your view on that?

After this session, we will have the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government and the Minister for Equalities in front of the committee. You said that there needs to be a drive from the committee—from the Parliament—and the Scottish Government. In relation to the question, what would you like us to address when the cabinet secretary and the minister come in front of us?

Okay. Thank you.

I hear you, minister. I am not disputing what you say about organisations such as the Scottish Refugee Council and the need to ensure that people who are the most marginalised have a voice, but this committee is about scrutiny and accountability. Today’s session is about accountability, and you cannot delegate accountability.

It has recently been reported that, since 2017, the SNP Government has given £20 million of handouts from the public purse—taxpayers’ money—to third sector organisations that support self-identification. My question to the minister, and to the cabinet secretary, is: will Scottish ministers commit to working with Inspiring Scotland and other relevant parties to withdraw funding from groups that promote unlawful policies? Some of the policies that they are promoting are not only unsafe but unlawful.

You have not answered the question. You said earlier that you will look at organisations that are not spending the money where you have directed that they spend the money, which is laudable and important, because it is taxpayers’ money. On the £20 million, the question was: will you make sure that funding is withdrawn from organisations that are breaking the law? Will you ask Inspiring Scotland, which is your fund manager, to make sure that it does a stock check of those organisations that are breaking the law? That is the question.