Hansard

I am pleased to open on behalf of Scottish Labour in the debate. Scottish Labour supported the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 and we continue to support the principle of the act. It is an important step towards achieving gender parity and increasing the representation of women through a robust level to promote equality.

However, we fully acknowledge that the amendment is necessary and therefore welcome the stage 1 debate and process. We recognise what previous speakers have said about the technical nature of the bill and that it has been introduced to tidy up the statute book. Recognising that fact and considering all the judgments that were passed down is the reason why the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, of which I am a member, produced what is perhaps one of the smallest reports that I have seen for stage 1 of a bill. It is an accurate reflection of the purpose of the bill.

I do not intend to try to rehearse the debates that we had during the passage of the bill, and I note that I was not a member of the Parliament at that time. Today is about acknowledging the judgments of the court and ensuring that we do our job to tidy up the statute book to deflect the possibility of any potential future confusion.

It is important to reflect on the fact that the bill does not change what is currently operating on the ground, because the definition in the 2018 act has become defunct since Lady Dorrian’s initial judgment, and the Scottish Government’s revised guidance has been in effect since its introduction. We are not changing anything today; we are just tidying up the statute book.

In the spirit of constructive criticism for the Scottish Government and for Parliament as a whole, as the convener and others have said, there are opportunities for reflection on some of the issues that the process has raised. We need to reflect on whether the confusion that often arises in legal cases could be avoided in the first place. Nobody wants legislation to end up in the courts, particularly in areas in which it is deemed to be outwith the legislative competence of the Parliament. We need to reflect on that more broadly in respect of a number of pieces of legislation and think about how we deal with those issues, particularly in the drafting process.

Another issue—we have heard this already—is whether this change to the statute book could have been achieved sooner. I appreciate what the cabinet secretary has said today and in committee about waiting to see whether there were alternative vehicles through which the amendment could have been made, rather than through this stand-alone bill. Obviously, the Government has come to the conclusion that there was no opportunity to do that before starting this process, but I note that this is not the first time that we have had to wait quite a while to tidy up legislation or to react to the rulings of the court—we can think back to the process around the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill. It is worth thinking about what we can do procedurally to speed up changes to ensure that issues do not sit unresolved for longer than needed.

Like the bill and its accompanying stage 1 report, I will be brief and leave my remarks there. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate and hope that we can move forward at pace to update the legislation.