Hansard

I apologise for giving short notice of my intention to speak on the business motion and my amendment.

Throughout the journey of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill through Parliament, we have consistently asked for more time to be given to the legislation, against a background of tunnel vision from the Scottish National Party, which wanted to wrap everything up before Christmas.

The SNP has ignored our requests, with excuses that seem to change each time the matter is raised. The most recent excuse, from the First Minister—that, because the issue was loosely mentioned by the Government six years ago, that somehow counts as half a decade of scrutiny of the text of the bill—is utterly ridiculous. On another occasion, the Minister for Parliamentary Business told me that there is such a busy programme that we cannot possibly take our time over the bill, meanwhile granting an extension to the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill to allow the minister to fly to Egypt. Further, that busy programme did not stop business from other parts of the Parliament being completely sidelined by the drive to avoid a gender vote in 2023.

In the last week before Christmas, there could be a Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee debate, an update on the national planning framework or perhaps more scrutiny of the budget than the 40 minutes of questions to which we are currently limited. Even the Parliamentary Bureau’s strategic planning meeting has been punted into the new year.

There is no good reason for the Government to be going to this length to push everything else out of the way. We are simply asking that adequate time be given for scrutinising the bill and that that does not come at the expense of other important parliamentary business.

What possible reason could the Scottish Government have for being so opposed to having stage 3 in the new year? Last time I raised the issue in the chamber, I alluded to a secret answer being the true factor behind the hurry. Whispers and rumblings from around the Parliament, including in some SNP corridors, conclude that it is to do with one thing: ensuring that the Scottish Government does not lose any more ministers. That is quite simply not an acceptable reason to rush legislation, and it should certainly not be the reason why we delay discussing the many other issues that the country faces.

Therefore, we are seeking to amend the business programme to take the bill off the agenda for the rest of this year. We should focus on the business that was sidelined and, at the same time, allow more time to take evidence on the bill from stakeholders who are being prevented from giving evidence.

We will, however, support next week’s business—namely, the budget—taking place, so we will support the business motion. However, that does not rule out our trying again next week to ensure that the Scottish Government sees reason. I urge members to support my amendment so that that does not have to happen.

I move amendment S6M-07120.1, to leave out from “Tuesday 20 December 2022” to “12.45 pm Decision Time”.