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With regard to the £2,000 per head, those are Scottish Government figures—they are not open for debate or discussion unless you disagree with them.

I go back to body-worn cameras. The Scottish Government has set aside £20 million for constitutional matters next year. Now that a referendum is not likely to happen as a result of the ruling in court today, could that money be used for body-worn cameras?

Do you think that people would be surprised that £51 million has been paid out through incompetence or wrongdoing but no one has been held to account?

My question was about body-worn cameras.

Good afternoon to you all. From what we have heard today, it sounds as though the Scottish Government has not asked some pretty big questions, has sometimes asked the wrong questions and has provided answers that can best be described as questionable to other questions.

I find it perplexing that justice social work was not properly consulted on this. Given the fundamental and pretty serious concerns that you have all articulated in response to Jamie Greene’s questions, we are pretty clear about what you want to happen.

I just want to take a step back. Do we know why the Scottish Government chose not to listen to those who know best? Do you have confidence, given what you have said today, that it will do so now?

Yes, I would appreciate that.

It has been noted on social media that a member of the public who was present was wearing a purple, white and green scarf, and has been asked to either remove the scarf or leave the room. Can I seek some guidance as to why that happened?

Thank you; that is reassuring.

I will make a number of points, and it is worth repeating my opening comment, which the cabinet secretary acknowledged: this not about trans people; it is about male offenders—in the main, male sex offenders. I welcome the commitment that has been given today to amend the sex offender notification requirements, which goes some way towards addressing the issue, albeit nowhere near far enough. I do not agree with many of the cabinet secretary’s views on the matter. Her statement that there is no evidence of sex offenders having exploited, or being likely to exploit, the GRC process is ill-judged and perhaps even naive; it is not only likely, but inevitable. I am keen to know when the mechanics in her amendment would come into being.

I did not hear anything from the cabinet secretary to suggest an interest in discussing common ground, although I may be mistaken. The supposed incompatibility of some of the amendments with human rights legislation is debatable. I therefore think that it is important that I press the amendments.

Before I do that, I will make a final point, which is that what is being proposed is the equivalent of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. My amendments are preventative. They are about protecting women and protecting the criminal justice system from abuses in quite a commonsense way, so I will press them.

Can I make a point of order?

Let us start with what should be a statement of the obvious: my opposition to the bill as it stands has nothing to do with the rights of those who identify as transgender. The eight amendments in my name are not directed towards trans people. They are to do with criminals—male criminals, who use lies, cunning and deception to commit and get away with serious wrongdoing; male criminals who commit serious crimes, especially acts of sexual violence; and male criminals whose victims are almost always women and girls. The overarching purpose of my amendments is to ensure that, if the bill is passed, it will contain vital public safeguards.

I will address my amendments in numerical order. Given the constraints that have been imposed at stage 2, I am mindful of my limited time and intend to be concise.

The eight amendments are grouped under the heading “Applicants with criminal charges or convictions”. Lead amendment 114 would prohibit anyone on the sex offenders register from being able to acquire a gender recognition certificate. GRCs on the basis of self-identification should not be available to those who have been convicted of sexual offences of a seriousness requiring their inclusion on the register. As it stands, the bill would allow a registered sex offender to change gender and thereby acquire a new birth certificate that would hide their true identity. That would make it incredibly easy for predators to erase their past. Society would be prohibited from knowing whether a legally defined female was actually a male sex offender. Prisons are full of men who exploit whatever mechanisms or loopholes are available to gain access to women and girls and to commit sexual offences. The bill would be a gift to such predators. It would increase public risk—a risk that is predominantly to women.

Amendment 118 is a consequential amendment to amendment 125, and amendment 119 is a consequential amendment to amendment 124. I will speak about amendments 125 and 124 later. Amendment 123 would require GRC applicants to disclose criminal convictions. It is proper for an applicant’s criminal offending history to be taken into consideration, given that the bill does not contain the safeguard of a medical diagnosis. However, as things stand, and as I understand it, gaps in the bill mean that we do not know how the amendment would work in practice. Specifically, it is not yet known to whom those proposed disclosures would need to be made. Therefore, we need more information from the Government, and I look forward to the cabinet secretary’s response. However, I hope that she agrees that those deciding on the granting of GRCs would benefit from being as fully informed as possible. Amendment 123 would help to achieve that.

Amendment 125 is, in some ways, an extension of amendment 123. It would require any GRC applicant to disclose convictions for various crimes, those being sexual offences, violent offences, domestic abuse and fraud. The same requirement would apply to those who are on the children’s barred list—the database of those who are unsuitable to work with children. Amendment 125 would also require all such applicants to provide evidence of gender dysphoria in their GRC application. The registrar general for Scotland would not be able to issue a GRC unless the applicant provided authentic evidence.

I am aware that some of the measures in amendments 123 and 125 are not in place under current law, but that is because they are not necessary given the other safeguards that exist. Those include the need for a medical diagnosis when applying for a GRC and the requirement to have lived in your acquired gender for two years. It is in the interests of public safety that extra care be taken and extra scrutiny be given in respect of those with such serious convictions and those who are unfit to work with children. I note that, yesterday, the Equality and Human Rights Commission highlighted a lack of clarity about the use of the phrase “living in the acquired gender” in the bill. The EHRC duly recommends that amendments, including this one, should be considered to improve “precision and workability”.

I turn to amendment 127, which would stop a GRC application where an applicant is charged with any crimes that would be prosecuted under solemn proceedings. As it stands, the bill would allow people to change gender after just three months. We know that most, if not all, solemn cases—that is sheriff and jury trials, and High Court trials—typically take much longer than three months to proceed. Therefore, an alleged rapist would be able to seek a GRC before coming to trial. In such circumstances, we would achieve the ludicrous situation where a rape victim may have to refer to her male-bodied rapist in the dock as “she” and “her”. It is worth noting that the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 states that rape is when someone without consent penetrates another person’s vagina, anus or mouth with their penis.

When the Criminal Justice Committee took evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans, Keith Brown, and a Police Scotland deputy chief constable on 15 December last year, I asked whether a female rape victim might be required to use the pronouns “she” and “her” in court for a male rapist. The answer was unclear. I asked whether the police would inform a victim if a rapist changed gender before standing trial. The answer was unclear. I also asked whether media reports that Police Scotland already records the sex of criminals based on their self-declaration were accurate. The answer to that appeared to be yes.

Mr Brown told me that he does not control the courts. That may be so, but the courts will be obliged to adhere to this legislation. The consequences will surely be that a male rapist with a penis could legally be a “she”. Mr Brown said that

“nothing in the proposed gender recognition reforms should impinge on this area.”

I fail to see how that can be. He went on to say that courts, prisons and the police

“are very cognisant of the rights and safety of individuals”,—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 15 December 2021; c 31.]

but whose rights prevail? Is it those of a female rape victim or those of a male who can exploit the ease of acquiring a GRC?

That is absurd, and I believe that most reasonable people would agree. It risks making a mockery of the justice system and retraumatising victims of sexual violence. Amendment 127 is therefore as obvious as it is vital.

Amendment 129 would require the registrar general for Scotland to inform Police Scotland whenever anyone with a criminal record is granted a GRC. It would exclude those whose convictions are spent. I believe that it is in the interests of public safety and the police’s ability to detect crime for the police to be made aware when GRCs are issued to convicted criminals, as they would have no other way of knowing that under the terms of the bill as drafted. That is especially so with certain types of crime, including sexual offences and fraud. Some sex offenders will almost certainly seek a self-declaratory GRC as a means of re-offending by gaining access to single-sex spaces. More generally, and as I touched on earlier in my comments, it is likely that some will attempt to erase their offending history by acquiring a GRC.

I was surprised and concerned to learn that more than 500 registered sex offenders in Scotland have recently been allowed to change their name. I would rather that it was not the case that they can do that, but that would require a change in law that can perhaps be discussed another day. However, at least the police must be informed when that happens. It would be logical and consistent for the police also to be informed when offenders are issued with a GRC.

Finally, amendment 131 would allow a sheriff or judge to revoke a GRC of someone who was later convicted of rape or another sex crime. As I stated in relation to amendment 127, the legal definition of the act of rape states that it can only be conducted with male genitalia. If a man commits rape or sexual assault, it would be an affront for the law and an insult to victims to continue to categorise him as female.

Many of my amendments are common sense. We cannot allow Scotland’s criminal justice system to be undermined by ill-conceived legislation that has the most profound of consequences. The effects of the bill will ripple through the police, prosecution, prison and court services. Unchecked, it could harm crime victims, enable criminals and skew crime statistics by rendering the recording of a criminal’s sex to be in effect meaningless.

The prime purposes of my amendments are public safety and the preservation of the rights of women and girls who might fall victim to sexual violence. I urge members to give my amendments their support.

I move amendment 114.