Meeting of the Parliament 21 December 2022
It will absolutely affect those people. Indeed, some of my amendments talk about that, and I have mentioned the issue many times in committee and in this chamber. We must have balanced rights for everyone. I come from a minority ethnic background; I will talk about that and about letters that I have received, and I hope that the member will be eager to listen later.
I stand here today, hoping that the Parliament will support my amendments, which seek to offer women a minimal level of reassurance that the Parliament is committed to upholding their rights. The process has come down to lodging minor amendments in the hope that there will be at least some form of reassurance for women and some comfort that their rights under the Equality Act 2010 are not being completely eroded.
At stage 2, I lodged amendments that would have required Scottish ministers to publish information on the bill’s impact on single-sex spaces and services. To no one’s surprise, those amendments were voted down. Today, at stage 3, I ask the Parliament to support my amendments 61 and 123.
Amendment 61 would place a requirement on ministers to
“prepare and publish a report on the impact of this Act on self-exclusion from activities or services”
and to do so
“no later than one year after section 2 comes into force”.
I also ask for that report to include information on self-exclusion by both women and men and in different activities and services.
17:45Amendment 123 would place a requirement on ministers to
“prepare and publish a report on the impact of this Act on funding of single-sex services”
and to consider
“what steps, if any,”
the Scottish Government considers
“necessary to ensure appropriate funding is available to single-sex services.”
For years, the Parliament has made genuine progress in its attempts to ensure that victims feel heard, that they have a safe space and that they have a support network. However, the bill risks doing the opposite; it risks marginalising women who are already marginalised and retraumatising victims. Vulnerable women—in particular, the victims of domestic violence—may forgo seeking refuge in domestic abuse shelters in which they might encounter biological males. Amendment 61, therefore, calls for data to be collected to obtain a figure for the number of women who exclude themselves from such activities.
The issue is highlighted by the fact that single-sex victim support services are so few and far between that Beira’s Place, which opened its doors last week, is set to be the sole single-sex support service for victims of sexual violence in Scotland’s capital. That raises the question: why does it take feminists such as JK Rowling to step in and provide a solution to a problem that has been identified, while the SNP Government sits on its hands and denies that such problems exist?
On Monday, at the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, I asked Reem Alsalem, the United Nations special rapporteur, whether, given that the ring fencing of funding was outwith the scope of the bill, the next best option was to place a requirement on ministers to review the impact of the bill on funding for single-sex services. Ms Alsalem agreed that placing such a requirement on ministers would be justified.
In addition, I refer members to Ms Alsalem’s letter, in which she writes:
“In the case of Scotland, it has been difficult to determine the exact scale of self-exclusion, given that hard and comprehensive data is lacking for several compelling reasons ... General Recommendation No. 28 makes it clear that in complying with their obligations to eliminate discrimination against women under article 2”
of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women,
“State parties should ‘provide for mechanisms that collect relevant sex-disaggregated data, enable effective monitoring, facilitate continuing evaluation and allow for the revision or supplementation of existing measures and the identification of any new measures that may be appropriate.’”
It is vital that service providers in Scotland are enabled to provide single-sex services. Reem Alsalem believes that
“funding must be ringfenced for a certain proportion”
of services
“to be single sex, balancing the needs of the different demographics without placing them in conflict”,
but I was told that ring fencing a certain proportion of single-sex and gender-based services was outwith the scope of the bill. However, Ms Alsalem also made it clear that it is not our job to question why some women want to access women-only spaces, saying:
“It is our job, as states and as organisations, to reduce the barriers to access ... That is ... what is required in taking an intersectional approach”.—[Official Report, Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, 19 December 2022; c 26-7.]
I therefore propose that, at the very least, the Scottish Government monitor and review the legislation’s impact on self-exclusion and funding for single-sex services. I urge members to back my amendments 61 and 123.
I support other amendments in the group, including amendments 111, 120, 121, 72, 73, 127, 130 and 92, which seek guidance on the protection of single-sex spaces and services. I also support amendments 117, 128 and 133, which seek guidance on how GRCs impact the Equality Act 2010.
I will support amendment 112, which seeks to ensure that the bill does not affect the provisions in the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and I also support amendments 118 and 119, which require ministers to issue guidance on the disclosure of protected information related to GRCs for the purpose of occupational requirements. I also lend my support to amendments 129 and 136, which seek to ensure that interest groups, such as public authorities and women and girls, are consulted.
However, I will vote against the cabinet secretary’s amendment 54, which will require ministers to consult and provide guidance on the legislation to bodies that they deem to be promoting equality and human rights. Ultimately, it is clear from the consultation on the bill alone that many groups still feel unheard, and I do not have complete faith that the Scottish Government will consult on a fair basis.