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The issue is less about that and more about the basis on which asylum seekers are here in Scotland—the fact that they are here under immigration legislation. If Pam Duncan-Glancy was minded not to press amendment 115 at this stage, I would be prepared to work further with her, and perhaps to try to elicit a response from the UK Government in advance of stage 3 so that we can discuss it further, to see whether there is anything that we can do on the issue within the competency of the bill.

I have said throughout the passage of the bill that it is essential that all applicants for a GRC have carefully considered this important legal step, understand the effect of applying and are able to access information and guidance to inform their consideration. I welcome the discussions that I have had with Sarah Boyack, whose amendment 128 would place a legal requirement on the Scottish ministers to take steps to ensure that those who are considering an application

“have access to appropriate support and information.”

However, that leaves open a lot of questions about what specifically that “appropriate support and information” would be. For example, it is not clear whether it relates to the process and legal effect of gender recognition or to wider support for people considering transition generally. It also raises the possibility of legal challenge relating to the specific meaning of “appropriate” in this context. I reiterate that NRS will signpost people to other organisations that can provide specialist support to applicants. For those reasons, I cannot support Sarah Boyack’s amendment, and I urge the committee to reject it.

Christine Grahame’s amendment 71 is more specific and sets out the information that the registrar general should publish, covering the process of applying, the effect of a GRC, the statutory declaration requirement and the consequences of false application. That is in line with what the registrar general has already committed to do, in evidence to the committee. I therefore ask the committee to support Christine Grahame’s amendment.

I say to Sarah Boyack, as I said to Pam Duncan-Glancy when we had this discussion, that the question is what that would mean. Would it mean that Scottish ministers would decide which organisations people should be signposted to? I can see that that would get us into a great deal of difficulty, so I would be very resistant to that. If it is about the process, I absolutely agree with Sarah Boyack; the process needs to be made very clear. However, if it is about the type of support that people should receive, it would not be helpful for Scottish ministers to identify appropriate organisations to provide support.

That is where my concerns lie. I again point to Christine Grahame’s amendments, which focus on the process of applying, the effect of the statutory declaration requirement and the consequences of a false application. Having said that, I would be happy to continue to have discussions with Sarah Boyack in advance of stage 3, but for today’s purposes I ask that Sarah Boyack’s amendments are not supported and that Christine Grahame’s amendment is.

To say that someone is “living in the acquired gender” means that they are living their daily life in a gender that is different from that which was recorded at birth. In the context of the bill, that is the gender that they are living in when they make an application.

Applicants will have to make a statutory declaration that they have lived in their acquired gender for a minimum of three months—six months for 16 and 17-year-olds—before applying, and that they intend to do so for the rest of their lives.

The aim of the bill is to improve the process for those who apply for legal gender recognition, as the current system can have an adverse impact on applicants due, in part, to the burdensome evidence requirements. The bill establishes a more straightforward process that is based on statutory declaration.

As I indicated earlier, the requirement is not about looking or dressing in a certain way but about the ways in which a person may demonstrate their lived gender to others.

In that respect, the bill does not change the position in the 2004 act, in which examples of appropriate evidence of living in the acquired gender include updating official documents such as a driving licence, passport, utility bill or bank account. Numerous other examples are provided within the guidance on the 2004 act, which has now been in place for 18 years.

I do not support Roz McCall’s amendments in the group, but I am happy to continue to discuss any further concerns that she may have ahead of stage 3.

At present, overseas gender recognition is not recognised automatically in the UK. Persons who have obtained gender recognition overseas and wish to be recognised in the UK have to apply to the gender recognition panel under its overseas track. The overseas track that is operated by the panel is used when a person has obtained gender recognition in an “approved country or territory”, as listed in a statutory instrument made by the secretary of state after consulting the Scottish ministers and the department of finance and personnel in Northern Ireland.

I think that that is the system that Roz McCall wishes to emulate, despite the fact that the list of countries and territories that the UK Government currently maintains has not been updated for 10 years. The list therefore features jurisdictions that have, in that time, changed or updated their systems for gender recognition, several of which are now based on models that are similar to the model that is contained in the bill. Equally, it does not include countries that have since introduced gender recognition systems, including our near neighbour Ireland.

Section 8N(1) of the bill, which these amendments would remove, provides that

“Where a person has obtained overseas gender recognition”,

they are

“to be treated ... as if”

they

“had ... been issued with a full gender recognition certificate by the Registrar General for Scotland”.

In broad terms, the bill’s approach is similar to the approach that is currently taken in Scotland to the validity of marriages that are entered into outwith Scotland, and to the recognition of divorce obtained overseas. It is a more straightforward, and less convoluted, approach than that which is proposed by Roz McCall.

Automatic recognition would, however,

“not apply if it would be manifestly contrary to public policy to”

do so—for example, in a case in which legal gender recognition was obtained overseas at a significantly younger age.

I therefore urge the committee not to support those amendments.

I turn to the amendments in my name. Section 8 of the bill inserts two new sections—sections 8M and 8N—into the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which provide for automatic recognition in Scotland of a gender recognition certificate that has been issued elsewhere in the United Kingdom and of gender recognition that has been obtained overseas.

Amendments 56 and 57 clarify that the automatic recognition ends if the gender recognition that has been obtained elsewhere no longer has effect.

Amendment 58 relates to cases in which someone with overseas gender recognition of their male or female gender goes on to acquire recognition of a non-binary gender in their own country—for example, Denmark or Malta. The amendment provides that, in Scotland, their gender will not revert to being their gender at birth but will continue to be the male or female gender that they had previously acquired.

These amendments are intended to cover specific eventualities in line with the general principles of the bill, and I urge the committee to support them.

I know that the amendments reflect Maggie Chapman’s view that the time period for living in the acquired gender as well as the reflection period should be removed, and that she has taken that position throughout the passage of the bill so far and in our discussions on the matter. Of course, I respect that, just as I respect the other views that have been expressed during the passage of the bill, even if I do not agree with them.

There are views that the time period should be longer or should be removed entirely, or that the reflection period should be removed, although usually with an increase in the time period for living in the acquired gender. However, I have not seen an alternative to our proposals that would be accepted and would keep to the principles of reforming the process. I consider the current requirement for applicants to provide evidence that they have been living in their acquired gender for a period of two years before applying to be unnecessarily long. A reduction in the time period to three months followed by the three-month reflection period represents a balanced and proportionate way of improving the system. Obviously, for 16 and 17-year-olds, it will be a period of six months of living in the acquired gender, if Christine Grahame’s amendments on that are accepted.

However, I consider that the reflection period could be a disproportionate barrier to people who are at the end of life, and I appreciate that an important benefit of legally changing your gender is that your death is registered in the gender in which you lived. Therefore, I have lodged an amendment to the bill, so that an applicant at the end of life can apply for a dispensation from the three-month reflection period. That amendment is in a later group of amendments. For those reasons, I cannot support amendments 87 to 89 and 91. However, I agree with Maggie Chapman that it will be important to keep that under review.

Of course, several amendments have been lodged to review and report on the operation and impact of the bill across a number of areas that we will come to later in the stage 2 proceedings. I am happy to support amendment 141 in this group, and I urge the committee to support it. It will be necessary for us to consider carefully what information and data it is possible and appropriate for us to gather, and we can take forward work on the impact of time periods on trans people who go through the application process. Therefore, I support amendment 141 in principle, but I will look to work with Maggie Chapman and other members ahead of stage 3 to ensure that any report and review amendments that are agreed at stage 2 coalesce around the same time frame.

The guidance to the 2004 act uses examples that include consistently using titles and pronouns in line with the acquired gender, updating gender-marker official documents such as a driving licence or passport, updating utility bills or bank accounts, describing themselves and being described by others in written or other communication in line with their acquired gender and using a name that is associated with the acquired gender.

Those are examples of what could constitute living in the acquired gender. The bill does not change the position in the 2004 act.

I do not consider that amendments requiring applicants to provide evidence that they have been living in their acquired gender, beyond any evidence that is required for statutory declaration, are in keeping with the general principles of the bill, as supported by Parliament at stage 1. Such amendments would introduce another set of barriers. For that reason, I ask the committee to reject Graham Simpson’s amendments.

That is why I have said that the requirement is not about looking or dressing a certain way but about the ways in which a person may demonstrate their lived gender to others. I have given examples of how that might be done with documentation that might provide evidence about how people are living their lives. National Records of Scotland will provide guidance for applicants on how to make an application and will be able to refer to examples based on the guidance to the 2004 act.

As the name of the group suggests, the amendments in this group are of a minor and technical nature. Amendments 53, 64, 65, 69, 70, 78 and 82 have been lodged at the suggestion of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. The bill refers in a number of places to the role of the sheriff, either in giving notice that a certificate has been issued or in giving copies of such certificates to the registrar general. Although that is technically competent, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service has suggested that for the sake of clarity those references should instead be to the sheriff clerk as, in practice, it would be the sheriff clerk who would carry out that function.

Amendment 79 relates to a consequential amendment to the 2004 act, which was inadvertently omitted from the bill as introduced. This amendment repeals subsection (1C) of the 2004 act, which provides that, where a full GRC is issued by the gender recognition panel to a person who is a party to a civil partnership or

“a marriage under the law of Northern Ireland ... the Secretary of State must send a copy of the certificate to the Registrar General for Northern Ireland.”

The bill already repeals a similar provision in relation to England and Wales, and amendment 79 does so for Northern Ireland as well.

I move amendment 53.

First, let me say that Sarah Boyack’s amendment is not really about reporting; it is about the appropriate support and information that would be made available to people. We have to be clear about what that is, who provides it and what it is for. If it is about the process, that will already be provided for. The additional safeguards in Christine Grahame’s amendment lay out the process for 16 and 17-year-olds, so that is all there.

On Rachael Hamilton’s final point, I have spent a lot of time in meetings with members from across the Parliament, including her and others from the Conservative Party, Pam Duncan-Glancy, Sarah Boyack and other Labour members.