Meeting of the Parliament 17 April 2024
That is a preposterous intervention. I am talking about the many thousands of crimes that have been deemed not to have been crimes at all—that is, the vast majority of the 9,000 hate crimes that have been reported to the police. That is what we are talking about.
As the Scottish Conservative Party and many others warned that it would be at the time of its passage, the legislation is a disaster. It is a disaster on paper and in reality. The Scottish National Party backslapping of 2021 was crass and ill-judged. It was the celebration of bad legislation by a Government that specialises in bad legislation.
Liam Kerr and others worked hard on amendments to fix the worst elements of the bill. Back then, just two SNP members defied Nicola Sturgeon’s whips to abstain on it. How many will find the bravery and the steel to do the right thing today? How many will listen to senior nationalist figures who understand that freedom of speech is much more precious than party loyalty?
What of Scottish Labour? Former leader Johann Lamont tried to protect the rights of women and girls. The legislation protects men wearing women’s clothing, but not women. When Johann Lamont’s amendments failed, she voted against the bill, along with one other Labour member. As usual, Anas Sarwar sided with the SNP—not for the first or the last time. Will he repeat that same mistake today?
The chilling effect of the legislation is real. Some fear being subject to investigation and prosecution for stating the truth about biological sex. When J K Rowling put that to the test on social media, Police Scotland confirmed that she had not committed a hate crime, but what about those without her cash and clout? Even if prosecutions are unlikely, being subject to an investigation can be daunting, disruptive, humiliating and financially costly. Police arrive at a person’s home or workplace, the person is taken away in handcuffs, their phone is seized and they are forced to pay for a lawyer—that is stigmatising and damaging to personal reputations and employment prospects.
I am particularly struck by the phrase “the process is the punishment”. Anyone who has ever taken on Scotland’s powerful and unaccountable public bodies will know exactly what that means. Even before the act was enforced, a street preacher in Glasgow was wrongfully arrested over false hate crime allegations.