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We are very clear that the bill has no impact whatsoever on the Equality Act 2010 provisions, including the exceptions. Everything that stands now will stand in the same way after the bill is enacted.

Of course, we know that the EHRC has updated its guidance. That guidance, which is for public bodies to use, is on the application of the provisions under the 2010 act and how that works in practice, because there are complexities in that. There are complexities now, and there will be the same complexities after the bill is enacted, so that guidance is important. However, to be clear, there will be absolutely no changes to the exceptions.

The issue does not relate directly to the bill—you alluded to that. It is about healthcare, whether we are talking about now or after the bill is passed.

Let me say a couple of things about that. The NHS tries to give a person their wish, where it can, if they want a man or a woman to provide care, whether we are talking about personal care that social care staff deliver or a smear test or other procedure. If a person specifically requests a doctor or nurse of the same gender, for whatever reason, the NHS will of course try to accommodate their wish as far as possible. Obviously, there are never any guarantees, given the availability of staff with the appropriate skills to manage the patient’s condition. I know, for example, that it can be quite difficult when a man requests male social care staff, because the workforce is predominantly female. It can be difficult to grant such wishes.

The patient rights charter sets out the preferences, culture, beliefs, values and level of understanding that will be taken into account and respected when using NHS services, which means that people’s wishes will be accommodated where possible. Moreover, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has published statutory codes of practice and guidance to help employers understand the relevant issues including some of the issues that you have raised. There is also the genuine occupational requirement exception, which can provide that a person appointed must not be a trans person where there is an occupational requirement, due to the nature or context of the work. There are a lot of what I guess might be described as safeguards in this area. Finally, the Scottish Human Rights Commission mentioned in its evidence the fair amount of case law that predates the bill and balances religious rights and the right to freedom from discrimination.

In the case of someone who did not disclose, I would have thought that that would be something for the employer to deal with. We are talking about very hypothetical situations here, but I cannot imagine that most people, particularly those in the caring professions, would not want to do anything other than respect the person’s wishes. That would be my view. I think that employers, guided by the guidance from the EHRC, have probably been dealing with such issues for many years, and the aim, particularly in the NHS, will have been to ensure that people’s wishes are respected as far as possible.

The different systems are just the processes for obtaining a GRC. The fundamental rights that protect transgender people, which are reserved under the 2010 act, remain the same. They will be the same on the day before the bill becomes legislation and on the day after it becomes legislation—if it does, as I hope it will. There is no change to any of those provisions in the 2010 act. That is why we have written back, asking for clarification of what the EHRC means, because we do not understand what it means.

Are you talking about what the NRS would gather or about what we might gather through annual reporting?

First, I would point again to the evidence from the Scottish Human Rights Commission. The SHRC was very clear that there is no body of evidence, at least in the countries that now have a system of statutory declaration, that points to bad-faith actors trying to use the process in order to abuse women and girls.

All the evidence points to the abuse of women and girls coming from predatory men, and there is no evidence of such men using a system of statutory declaration for gender recognition in order to abuse women and girls. There is just no evidence of that.

On access to single-sex spaces, as I said in my opening remarks, the Equality Act 2010 provides for exceptions, including for trans people with a gender recognition certificate, if those exceptions are proportionate. The example that is given under the 2010 act is, I think, a counselling service for rape victims; there could be an exception whereby transgender women would be excluded from that service.

Other spaces, such as toilets and changing rooms, which have had a lot of attention in the discussion in the public domain, do not require and have never required a gender recognition certificate. As people in the trans community go about their daily lives, as they have done forever, they will use or not use those spaces. If that had been an issue, we would probably have been aware of it before we got to the confines of the debate around the bill.

Where single-sex spaces have a reason to exclude trans people, for the reasons that I outlined, that will not change as a result of the bill. That will remain the same, and it is important that it does.

No. In cases where there might be criminal investigations or concerns about criminality, that information would be disclosed. Those are the kind of circumstances in which there would be disclosure.

I have tried to speak as much about what this bill does not do as I have spoken about what it does. I have said many times that the bill has no impact on the Equality Act 2010. It could not have, because the 2010 act is reserved, and we would not want it to, because we think that the exceptions are important.

To be honest, we all have a responsibility to try to set out not only what the bill is about but what it is not about. It is difficult to do that on social media, because their nature means that it is difficult to use them to have a conversation. We have continuously tried to put across key points in terms of our interaction with the mainstream media. When I made the statement about the legislation in Parliament, I tried to say as much about what the bill’s purpose was as I said about what its purpose was not.

There are always lessons to be learned when we do anything, and we will always try to ensure that we learn them. However, the discussion around this issue is polarised and, even if you say things over and over again, that does not mean that people will accept what you say. There is not an awful lot that I can do about that, other than to reiterate the case and try to reassure people about it.

Ultimately, I hope that people’s concerns will be allayed by what happens in practice after the bill becomes law, as I hope it will. It should also be reassuring for people to see that other countries that have gone down the statutory declaration route have not seen some of the concerns that were expressed in those countries come to fruition.

My hope is that, once people see the legislation working in operation, they can see the tiny numbers that are involved and the fact that it is not working in the way that some people are concerned about, their fears will be allayed.

Earlier, Peter Hope-Jones said that we understand that the senator’s concerns related to Ireland’s census questions. Is that right?

I will come back to that specific point in a minute. Earlier, I touched on where the evidence is on the matter. The evidence was led by the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which said that there was no evidence from other countries about people self-excluding due to feeling uncomfortable. In countries where there is a statutory declaration process, there was no body of evidence to support that.

On the specific issue, people do not need a gender recognition certificate to go into toilets and changing rooms, so it is not directly related to the bill. However, I saw a piece of evidence that chimed with me about how changing spaces have changed over the years, and have moved away from being communal facilities to being more private spaces, which benefits everybody. I accept that there might be some facilities that are on a journey in that respect, but that is more about how retailers and shopping centres provide facilities. I think that people are keen to have private spaces, such as cubicles, rather than there being one changing room—which, when I was young, was a horrendous experience. We have moved a long way away from that, which is a good thing. The issue is not directly related to the bill; it is more about people’s expectations when they access services.

That would not be the case if, when the person applied for their gender recognition certificate, that was clearly and honestly what they wanted to do. They would not be making a false declaration because, at that point, that was their intention. If, a year down the line, someone changed their mind and wanted to use the process to detransition—for lack of a better word—they would still not be making a false declaration. Clearly, at the time, it was an honest view of where they were in their life—they were not trying to mislead or make a false declaration. Therefore, they would not face a fine or imprisonment; that would happen only if they make a false declaration.