Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government how many children aged 16 and under have been prescribed puberty suppressing hormones through NHS Scotland since 2014. (S6O-03286)

Following medical evidence reviews, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France and England now sharply restrict or prohibit the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. There is weak to no proof that they help, but there is much evidence of serious side effects. Puberty blockers prevent bone density development, they render children infertile and they can cause damage to the heart and severe depression. Class action lawsuits involving thousands of patients who have been damaged by puberty blockers are now under way in the US courts. What will it take for this Government to step in and protect Scotland’s children from this unethical experiment?

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has described the amendment bill as simply a small technical fix to the statute book, but I completely disagree with that analysis. The bill is the Scottish Government’s very public acceptance, however grudgingly given, that its policy that trans women are women has been thoroughly defeated in Scotland’s highest court. Through a late change in the wording of the law and without any equality impact assessment, the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 defined women entirely on the basis of self-identification. It was, we were assured, a one-time-only redefinition that would have no meaning outside the act.

However, as women’s rights campaigners predicted, that new definition was soon used as proof that self-ID was now the law in Scotland and could not be argued against. For Women Scotland, some of whom are with us in the public gallery today, brought a judicial review on that new definition of women, and the inner house of the Court of Session ruled on 18 February 2022 that it was unlawful. The short bill that we are discussing today removes that definition from the legislation. Whether the new definition will have to be changed again—in support of For Women Scotland’s belief, and mine, that, for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, women should be defined entirely on the basis of biological sex—will now be decided at the Supreme Court.

What is already clear today is that the Scottish Government’s policy that all men who identify as women should be treated as women is, in fact, unlawful. In fact, self-ID has no legal standing. Trans women are not women under Scots law, so it is wholly wrong for any organisation or MSP to still rely on a definition that has now been ruled unlawful and, as can be seen today, has been accepted as such by the Scottish Government. At the very least, the Scottish Government should make sure that it does not fund organisations that are advising it incorrectly and that all processes and policies are being updated to ensure that this does not happen again. I would welcome a statement from the Government on that, especially as the Government is saying that it will introduce a bill on conversion therapy this year.

I am also wondering, as others in the chamber might be, when the Scottish Government will advise its MSPs what the law is saying in this regard. This debacle, after all, was the start of a whole suite of legislation, together with the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 and the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, that is based, as far as I can see, on the demands of lobby groups that the Government is funding. It is entirely symptomatic of the failings of a Government that is pursuing legislation costing hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money that does not reflect the view of the public. I am sure that that money would be much better spent elsewhere. All of that has undermined trust—fatally, I think—in the Scottish Government. Most disturbingly for me as an independence supporter, it has also undermined trust in the Scottish Parliament as an institution.

To ask the Scottish Government, in relation to its rural delivery plan, what discussions the rural affairs secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding the impact of its housing strategies, including the rural housing action plan, on local rural economies. (S6O-03183)

I am not sure that the action plan is in fact delivering for local communities across Scotland. I want to raise the issue of hotspot areas in the Highlands that are experiencing extreme pressure, due to the number of second homes. In some areas, the proportion of second homes is approaching 60 per cent, which is creating a number of difficulties, as I am sure members in the chamber understand. There is difficulty in recruiting people into public services such as teaching and the national health service, because there is quite literally no accommodation for those people. As the current policies are not working, perhaps it is time for the Government to consider giving communities the power to decide when the level of second homes is getting too high.

The dream will never die for the wider independence movement.

I move on to the latest paper, which I have read, although I perhaps wish that I had not. The only surprise was that the Scottish Government wants a feminist approach to foreign policy. I had to laugh at that, because it is feminism that is foreign to this Government—a Government that, let us not forget, is unable to define what a woman is. I suspect that that will make designing international development policy rather tricky for it.

I come back to my initial point: who in the UK Government is scared of the Scottish Government’s papers? Far be it from me to burst the minister’s bubble. After all, in response to my urging him over the past few months to take action on independence, he said that the Scottish Government was hard at work producing the papers. However, they present nothing new and no one is reading them. I say to the minister that this is not the action that the independence movement is looking for. Papers that address the big questions from 2014—

—and move the argument forward would be useful, but the papers that we have are not useful. We need action towards independence. I have outlined a strategy that Westminster would be afraid of, and the minister should look carefully at it.

I thought that I would take up the independence minister’s kind request for me to take part in one of these debates, although he may not be so keen once he hears what I have to say.

We are more than midway through the second pro-independence term of government since the referendum. In response to the Supreme Court judgment, the Scottish Government appointed an independence minister to build the case and rally the cause for independence, and the First Minister pledged to be “the first activist”. However, there does not appear to be any concern in the Westminster system that that will cause any disruption to the continuing union. In a week in which the Prime Minister made a statement in response to a by-election half-surprise, it seems that there is no fear for the union because of the independence ministry.

I am nothing if not practical, and I have already made several suggestions on how we can deliver independence. I have even presented a plan and a potential bill. In a show of bipartisan spirit, I am happy for it to be taken over and put in the Government’s name.

On these independence papers, however, I must say that they are the equivalent of cold dry toast in a buffet of ideas. The hope, the dream and the ambition of 2014 are missing and have been replaced with grievance seeking and a bewildering commitment to doing things in exactly the same way.

It is unlikely that anyone has read the nearly 1,000 pages—I note that Willie Rennie admitted that he has not read the report, and I suspect that Mr Stephen Kerr has not read it either—of what seems to be regurgitation of the prior white paper but which has been carefully distilled to make sure not to offend or to excite anyone.

I will recap some of the highlights from previous papers. There is a migration policy that tweaks the UK plan. It ignores the largest net migrators, which are the Indian and Polish communities. There is a commitment to ending the oil and gas sector, which of course requires a diverse international community.

In its 84 pages, the EU paper manages to spare a single half-page to cover the relationship with the UK, which is our only land-based trading partner and will be our largest trading partner for some time. It complains about the common fisheries policy, the common agricultural policy and the monetary union, while ignoring the much better plan that the Government advanced in 2016 involving the European Free Trade Association. EFTA and the European Economic Area agreement would solve some of those problems and have none of the drawbacks on fisheries, agriculture or monetary policy. That approach is also deliverable quickly, easily and more inexpensively than EU accession, and it has the uniting effect of pleasing both Brexiters and remainers.

The marine paper is entirely lacking in direction, strategy or plan. I suspect that selling out oil and gas and fishing in one paper made it quite difficult to write, which is probably why it is relatively short.

The social security paper is the best of a bad bunch, but it does not clearly navigate the ageing population. It does not seek to increase the pension or allow many pension-age carers to have additional financial support, and the financial incentive to secure our population’s future is barely acknowledged.

I completely agree with Mr Ewing’s sentiment on that.

The culture paper, which runs to 55 pages, aims to keep both the BBC and Channel 4 and to support exactly the same industries that we have now. It does not bother to look beyond that to smaller creators or other visionaries.

In short, the entire series of papers is a work of art in being completely unambitious. How many people will read them? Not even the people who are taking part in this debate have read them, so I suspect that the answer is very few. The Government hopes that they will be well covered in the media, but I have to break it to the Government that, unfortunately, it seems that the launch of “Celebrity Big Brother” got more coverage today than the latest independence paper. Winnie Ewing has had a couple of mentions this afternoon and I will mention her again. Winnie Ewing got us this Parliament. Alex Salmond got us a referendum. Jamie Hepburn has got us ignored.

A disproportionate number of women are sent to prison for short sentences, and many of them are victims of trauma. Today, the transgender management policy replaced the interim policy following public outcry about a double rapist being housed in the women’s prison estate. The policy fails to address the grave concerns that were raised by the Criminal Justice Committee and the public on the risks that might be posed for female prisoners and staff. When will an impact analysis be done on the strategy for women in custody? How will the impacts of the new transgender management policy be assessed and reported on?