Chamber and committees

I intend to set out my wider arguments on the bill in the debate on group 13, in which I have lodged some amendments of my own. My general position on the bill is that I will not be supporting it. However, I intend to support amendments that I feel will increase the safeguarding provision. In that vein, I am happy to support amendments 6 and 15.

I do not think that including children aged 16 is appropriate for what many people would consider to be a very profound change.

I take this opportunity to share with members in the chamber the view of a mother who wrote to me just a few days ago. She wanted me to read out her perspective to members today. She said:

“My 15 year old daughter is on the autistic spectrum and is struggling with anxiety and depression. Despite showing no signs of gender incongruence before the age of 12, she self-diagnosed as having gender dysphoria three years ago and currently identifies as male. I believe she has been influenced by social media and current societal norms. The teen years is a time of flux and how she feels now may change over time as she matures.

The school and the NHS have taken an affirmative approach despite my concerns as a parent. I don’t agree that the Government should be lowering the age that young people can self-ID to the age of 16 as socially transitioning is the first step along an often misguided path to medicalisation and surgery. I was persuaded and coerced that it was the right thing to do to call my daughter by the new name and pronouns when in fact this was bad advice and has led us down a very difficult path as a family. I believe a watchful waiting and holistic approach is best, looking at all the factors in a young person’s life.”

There are also a large and increasing number of detransitioner voices, which I feel have not been well represented in the process. Just a few weeks ago, Ruth Maguire hosted a detransitioners event in the Parliament, which was mentioned earlier. I agree with the other members who spoke about that event that the detransitioners’ stories were extremely powerful—heartbreaking, even—and that there was a real and strong sense that they had been very much let down by those who should, in fact, have been protecting them.

The question was put to those detransitioners: is self-ID at 16 a good change? It was an emphatic “No” from those two young people. Neither of them supported self-ID and, in their view, young people having a bit of paper with their new gender on it would only incentivise them to seek to change how they looked in order to match their new documents. In my view, the age should be 18 and no lower, and, in my opinion, we should exercise extreme caution in this area.

In the additional evidence session that the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee had last night, that was not the characterisation that was put forward by Reem Alsalem, who is of course the UN special rapporteur with a special mandate for violence against women. She said that the evidence is there. She said that the evidence has not been collated, analysed and put together in one place, but the evidence certainly is there. Is the Government at all concerned that impact assessments of the effects of the proposed legislation have not taken place and that we are increasingly collecting data on the basis of gender identity and not sex?

Good morning, convener. I have no relevant interests to declare.

I am always working on actions to improve the situation in relation to legal aid provision.

I make it clear to members that the Scottish Government cannot compel private firms or solicitors to provide legal aid services. We provide civil solicitors through the Civil Legal Assistance Office. They have always—I say this in response to the member’s point about geography—covered a wide geographical area and have largely been based in city centres near to the courts.

Currently, we face a challenging public finances environment that is due not least to choices that the UK Government has made and which are, as we know, resulting in a reduced budget in Scotland. [Interruption.]

As I have laid out, it is imperative that we have access to justice, and I have made a commitment in that regard. This Government has made a recent offer of £11 million of funding, which is a substantial amount in the current context in which we find ourselves. [Interruption.]

No—I do not accept that at all.

I have set out some of the actions that this Government has taken, including the 3 per cent overall rise in fees in 2019, which was followed by the 5 per cent overall rise in fees in 2021, another overall rise in fees in 2022 and—as I set out in my previous answer—an additional fee package of £11 million this year on top of the investment that has already been made. That demonstrates that the Government is listening and that it is investing money in both civil and criminal legal aid.

I am always looking at what more I can do. I will give members examples of some of the things that have been done recently. We have provided £9 million of Covid resilience funding, we have put £1 million into traineeships—which the profession raised with me—we have made new payments for holiday courts and we have increased payments for appropriate early resolution. I am constantly working to see what more I can do.

In response to the member’s question about how we will go forward, we have the legal aid payment review panel. The member asked about our analysis. We need the approach to be evidence based: we want to get to a position in which everyone is working together to provide that evidence base. We will endeavour to set increases on that basis in the future.

We also fund law centres, the Public Defence Solicitors Office and, as I mentioned, the Civil Legal Assistance Office. It might be the case that our current model will not be sustainable over the long term. We are looking at substantively reimagining legal aid; work is on-going on that. I hope that the member will support that work as it progresses.

I do not have that data in front of me at the moment, but I would be happy to follow that up in writing to Sue Webber.

The member might be aware that I have undertaken a programme of work in equalities in order to encourage more diversity in the profession. I would be happy to follow up with the member on my work in that area, too.

I do not recognise the figure that Liam Kerr just used. I wrote to the Criminal Justice Committee in June 2022 setting out in detail the history of fee reforms since devolution. If Liam Kerr has not had a chance to read that letter, I encourage him to do so.

Since 2019, all legal aid fees have been increased by 13.6 per cent and we have offered to the profession a further enhanced package of reforms and increases that are worth £11 million a year, which the Law Society of Scotland has accepted. I hope that boycott action will cease as a result of that further funding.

Officials engage closely with the Scottish Legal Aid Board to keep under review the availability of publicly funded legal services. The Scottish Government also provides funding to law centres as well as to local advice providers. Legal services are also provided through the Civil Legal Assistance Office and the Public Defence Solicitors Office. All those services can operate across a wide geographical area.

The issues that Liam Kerr raises are important. I am sympathetic to some of them, but we need to engage in the debate in a way that takes account of evidence and engages with the detail and the data.

Scotland is one of the leading jurisdictions in Europe in terms of the scope of legal aid. The Scottish National Party Government has invested in legal aid. In Scotland, more than 70 per cent of citizens are eligible for some form of legal aid. I remind members that that is not the case in England under the Conservatives, where its scope has been drastically cut.

I agree with Liam Kerr that access to justice is a fundamental issue. That is why the Government has listened to the profession. I engage regularly with representatives of the profession and have introduced the latest package of fee reforms, which, as I laid out in my earlier answer, is worth £11 million. It is a credible and substantial offer, which the Law Society of Scotland has accepted. It is, of course, in addition to the 13.6 per cent uplift that is already in place. Therefore, it is not accurate to characterise the Government as not listening or responding to the legal profession’s concerns.

Obviously, the main priorities of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are prevention, protection and keeping the people of Scotland safe.