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I am conscious of a potential pitfall or problem if we see just transition as something separate rather than as something that sits alongside Scotland’s other economic and social priorities. Are there dangers in viewing it as something that is not foundational and core to our entire economic planning and strategic thinking? Similarly, are there dangers in viewing the work that we need to do around adaptation as a separate, distinct thing and not something that we see in the just transition space?

Good morning, Professor Skea. Thank you very much for your opening remarks and what you have said so far. I am interested in exploring an issue that you raised. You said that planning and strategic thinking for the future were a focus in the first phase of your work. In addition to the calls that you have made, we have heard calls for clarity—given the potential lack of clarity at present—on the pipeline of work that we need in order to transition to net zero.

Do you believe that we have done the work that is needed to understand the detail across the different sectors and elements? Do we have that detail or is a lot of work still needed for us to understand where we want to get to, never mind how we will get there?

Thank you.

I will be voting against amendment 133. There is no evidence from other jurisdictions that operate similar gender recognition arrangements that gender recognition is being fraudulently applied for to facilitate the commission of offences. In any courtroom setting, a judge can always take all circumstances into account when deciding on sentencing, so there is no need for the proposed aggravator or any specific aggravating factor to be included in the bill. As Jamie Greene has just said, he hopes that the aggravator would act as a deterrent, which, in my opinion, is not something that it is appropriate to put in the bill.

If a person has fraudulently obtained a GRC, they can already be prosecuted and sentenced for that, in addition to any other offence. I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. Attaching aggravation to the application for and awarding of a gender recognition certificate is deeply problematic.

That is really helpful. You spoke about the potential for equal pay claims, and we have talked a little bit about gender pay gaps, but disabled workers and people of colour also face inequalities in the workplace, so there is work for us to do in that space, too.

I think that Patricia Findlay mentioned that other countries have much clearer or more robust fair work indicators. Will you share some information on that to give us an indication of the kind of thing to look for so that we can be more direct in pushing the Scottish Government on that?

Good morning. I thank the witnesses for their comments so far. I will pick up on hospitality in a moment, but I completely agree with Patricia Findlay that fair work is a way of building a good economy. It is not just about poverty reduction, although the contribution to that is clear. We probably need to have that conversation more often.

Helen Martin spoke about hospitality. I appreciate that the convention’s inquiry into hospitality has just begun and is due to report in 2024, but given what we know about the challenges that that sector has faced in the past two and a half years, and given some of the issues that Colin Beattie and others have raised, we cannot wait until spring 2024 for your recommendations and conclusions. What should we be doing now to support and promote fair work in that challenging environment, given what has been said about the cost crisis? Are there things that we should be looking at? I know that that is a big question.

That is really interesting. There are cultural challenges, too. During recent discussions, some hospitality employers said that they do not see a need for unions because their staff trust them. That tells us something about what an effective voice means in that culture and brings me to a broader issue. We might need to think about cross-sectoral inquiries or work, because there are multiple interpretations and understandings of what fair work is or could be.

We have a particular challenge with the third sector. We know that the Scottish Government can have conditionality and very clear requirements around contracts and funding, but when the same workers are part funded by other funders or have other contractual obligations that do not have the same conditions attached, that puts immense pressure on organisations that are often already stretched. What should we do to ensure that we do not have a two-tier system in which a Scottish Government fund or contract brings one set of conditions but no one knows what happens when funding comes from someone else? If we do not have the employment law levers that we have talked about, how can we avoid a two-tier system?

That is really helpful.

I have made no secret of my opposition to any waiting times for the GRC application process. As we heard repeatedly in evidence,?the three-month period of living in the “acquired gender” before an application and the three-month reflection period following an application before it is granted are arbitrary, unnecessary, and unusual.

I will start with the last amendment in the group—amendment 141—as I appreciate that I am unlikely to attract cross-party support for abolishing both the time periods.

Amendment 141 calls for a review of the impacts of the time periods on trans people themselves. If we retain the time periods in any form, we do so knowing that we are going against international best practice and against the advice and guidance of trans people and the organisations that directly support them, so we should put in place a clear mechanism for reviewing the impact of the time periods on trans people particularly, and that is what amendment 141 would do.

The other amendments in the group—amendments 87 to 89 and 91—come from a position of principle: that we should recognise the autonomy of trans people, and that they know their own minds. Changing one’s legal gender is not something that one does on a whim. Indeed, the discussions that we have had and will have about ensuring that the gravity of making such a statutory declaration is understood make that even clearer. Changing one’s legal gender is not done lightly, and those who get to the point of applying for a GRC will likely have thought about, considered and reflected on the decision for months, if not years. They are also likely to have completed many other aspects of their transition over the course of several months or years before applying for legal gender recognition.

Dr Mhairi Crawford of LGBT Youth Scotland, who has spoken regularly to young trans people, said in a committee evidence session:

“Young people tell us that, before they come out, they have already done an awful lot of reflection to understand their true gender. Then they come out, usually to a safe group, and they build up from that. By the time they look to apply for a gender recognition certificate, they have been living in their acquired gender for quite some time”.—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 17 May 2022; c 10.]

Only Belgium and Denmark have a reflection period in place. We heard evidence that, in Denmark, where there is a six-month reflection period, people in the trans community consider it patronising and were unsure of what they should be reflecting on. Having listened to trans people, they now have plans in Denmark to remove the reflection period completely.

If the bill is trying to give trans people more agency and autonomy over their legal status, it seems completely counter to that intention to impose another standard of authority by imposing a waiting period on them. We are telling trans people that we do not believe them when they tell us who they are and that they do not know their own minds. We should not be doing that. I urge my committee colleagues to assert that trans people do know their own minds and to support my amendments in the group.

I move amendment 87.

We heard many of the witnesses express very grave concerns about the provisions in the bill as it stands that will expand the definition of a “person with an interest” who could apply for a GRC to be revoked. That would substantially increase the risk that someone who disapproved of a trans person’s gender recognition certificate application would seek to use the courts to have that certificate revoked. Such vexatious or malicious complaints to the sheriff court to revoke a GRC, simply because someone does not accept the trans status of the GRC applicant, should not be enabled. If such applications for revocation ever happen, they should be viewed as vexatious and/or malicious and treated accordingly.

One mechanism to reduce the opportunity to make vexatious or malicious applications for revocation is to clearly and narrowly define who a person with an interest is. The 2004 act defines a person with an interest quite narrowly as a spouse, the registrar general or the secretary of state. My amendment 97 would replicate that narrower definition to include a spouse, civil partner, the registrar general and the secretary of state. The aim is to limit the likelihood of unsupportive family members, or others who disapprove of a trans person’s right to be who they are, using the mechanism to challenge a GRC.

My amendment 95 seeks to put in place a step before any revocation application gets to the sheriff court, by requiring it to go through the registrar general’s office first. The registrar general would then determine whether it was appropriate to escalate such a revocation application to the courts. However, I think that Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 130 is better than mine, so I will not press my amendment 95 and will instead support hers.

On the penalties for those who seek to revoke a GRC for vexatious or malicious reasons, my amendment 96 is, essentially, a probing amendment in an attempt to have a wider conversation before stage 3 to tighten up that bit of the bill. I will not move amendment 96 as, again, I think that Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 132 covers that aspect more effectively. Nonetheless, I consider that we need further conversation to make it absolutely clear that malicious or vexatious attempts to revoke a gender recognition certificate will not be allowed, and will be taken very seriously when they happen.

I move amendment 95.