Chamber and committees

Teachers are on strike—the first strike for 40 years. We have heard from countless teachers and the unions, who say that they feel ignored by the Government and that it is not fully engaged in the negotiations.

We also know that violence in the classroom is up, with more than 20,000 instances of violence against teachers and school staff in the last academic year.

Ignored by the Government and unsafe in the classroom—

I am stating facts. If they are too hard for Gillian Martin to face, I cannot apologise for that. I said earlier that there are often red lines. I am mentioning some of them. When it comes to justice—[Interruption.]

We heard from members from all parties about the importance of listening to the voices of those with lived experience. If the member has read the article on drugs in December’s edition of Holyrood magazine, he will realise that the author, who is from Faces and Voices of Recovery UK—FAVOR—and who worked with us on developing our proposed bill, has such lived experience—he has nothing short of that. Surely, the member must understand the value of signing up to the bill.

I put on the record our thanks to the UK Government for the Covid vaccination programme.

Over the Christmas break, I was inundated with correspondence about the crisis in our Scottish NHS. The latest statistics seem to reflect a situation that is now spiralling out of control. Last week, just two in five patients were seen within four hours at the Royal infirmary of Edinburgh, despite weekly attendance being lower than it was in the same week in 2019, before the pandemic.

Let me put the current situation in the words of Dr David Caesar, a senior emergency medicine consultant at the Royal infirmary. Dr Caesar said that

“Dignity feels like a distant luxury”

and that the fatigue among clinicians is “bone deep”, with staff dejected and in total despair. In his answer, perhaps the cabinet secretary could speak to Dr Caesar, not to me. What is the one practical thing that the cabinet secretary will do today that will help Dr Caesar and his colleagues tomorrow?

Will the member take an intervention?

For the past two days in a row, members have been sitting in the chamber until after midnight. On Tuesday, as the debate on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill at stage 3 was under way, one woman was thrown out of the public gallery and another law-abiding woman was threatened with arrest. Legislation has been rushed, criticism ignored and women silenced. Does the First Minister agree that the events of this week have reflected badly on the bill’s passage through the Parliament?

Is that better?

[Inaudible.]

I fixed it myself. There you go. Thank you for bearing with me, Presiding Officer, and for your comments about interventions. I was trying to get in previously.

My four amendments in the group seek to compel Scottish ministers to provide clarity to women and girls about when services can be single sex and when they cannot. They are pretty much about the practical operations of the bill. Amendments 72, 73 and 74 seek for that clarity to be provided through guidance issued by the Scottish Government, while amendment 92 seeks for it to be enshrined through secondary legislation.

I will start with the amendments that seek guidance. Amendment 72 sets out a duty on the Scottish ministers to provide guidance in relation to service providers being able to offer their services exclusively to those who were female at birth, irrespective of whether the person has a gender recognition certificate.

As we have all heard today, the recent Court of Session ruling confirms that, under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, an individual who obtains a gender recognition certificate has their sex changed for all purposes, including under the Equality Act 2010. However, we have heard consistently, and we continue to hear today, that the Scottish Government appears to maintain that that does not apply to the provision of certain single-sex spaces. If that is the case, it would be very useful for the Scottish Government to highlight in which circumstances it is still lawful to provide a space or service exclusively to those who were born female.

For example, is that lawful for a domestic abuse charity or where somebody requests that a caring service be provided exclusively by someone who was born female? I have received correspondence from a severely disabled female who relies on extremely intimate personal care. She would like to ensure that her carer was born female. We need to understand how that can transpire so that she can maintain her dignity. After all, she is entitled to that.

The bill retains the purpose of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, so the effect of obtaining a gender recognition certificate is the same in law. The public deserve clarity over when it is lawful to either provide or request services exclusively for women who were female at birth. Pauline McNeill spoke about the confidence that the public need and the confusion that exists currently. That is why I have a further amendment—amendment 73—that specifically compels Scottish ministers to provide guidance on how the bill will interact with the exceptions that are outlined in schedule 3 to the Equality Act 2010.

It is of no use for SNP ministers to say that the bill will have no impact on the exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 when stakeholders have been clear that they are unsure how those exemptions apply to their specific organisation. When the cabinet secretary responds, perhaps she could name examples of where it would be proportionate to discriminate against people with a GRC for the purpose of providing a single-sex service. The current providers do not have that information.

After all, as can be seen from the fact that some of us are sitting here in a state of confusion, legislation is never written in language that most people or organisations can interpret without lawyers and can therefore share with their services users or, indeed, customers. It should be in language that explains, in plain English, what it means to them specifically and, importantly, in practice.

The cabinet secretary has insisted that the guidance is clear, but I suggest that it is the very opposite, given the recent interventions that make it clear that that is not the case. Whether they be in the public, private or third sector, organisations need clear guidance, which they can trust to be lawful, telling them whether they can still provide single-sex spaces or services. That is what my amendment 74 aims to achieve.

The guidance should be as comprehensive as possible, covering the many different organisations that will have to confront the problem of whether they are legally allowed to exclude people with a gender recognition certificate from accessing female-only services. Any ambiguity must be removed. Pauline McNeill spoke about ambiguity in, I think, NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s policy. I apologise if I have got the health board wrong—I was kicked out of my connection for a moment.

My final amendment—amendment 92—offers the Scottish Government an alternative path to achieving the goal that I seek, although it is not contradictory to my earlier amendments and all can be passed. Instead of a requirement to produce guidance, amendment 92 would, as part of the regulations commencing section 2 of the bill, require those regulations to set out the service providers and users who are lawfully able to provide or request services for users who were female at birth only.

We are here to make good law. As part of that, we have to provide certainty to the public about the legal implications of all legislation that passes through this place. I reiterate that ambiguity must be removed. I do not believe that such certainty has been provided by SNP ministers during the passage of the bill. Last week’s Court of Session ruling makes it even more difficult for members of the public to discern whether single-sex spaces must include people with a gender recognition certificate or otherwise.

Despite my many other objections to the bill, I hope that we can all agree on the need for legislation that is clear and in plain English, and that members will therefore support my amendments.

I thank the cabinet secretary for taking my intervention. Will she give us specific examples of where it is proportionate to discriminate against those with a gender recognition certificate for the purposes of providing a single-sex service?