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Good evening, and thank you for joining us this evening. In your opening remarks, you mentioned the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, and her report, in which she talks clearly about the stigmatising discourse that Government officials and certain parliamentarians have contributed to, which has contributed to the culture wars around trans rights and the distortion of human rights that has pitted trans rights against women’s rights as a zero-sum game. Could you comment on that and give us a bit more of an explanation about why you have come to your view?

Good evening, Reem. Thank you very much for joining us—I appreciate your making the time to be with us.

I have two questions for you. I would like to explore your reflections on the report by Dunja Mijatovic, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, in which she said,

“Both government officials and certain parliamentarians have actively contributed to an intolerant and stigmatising discourse.”

After that, she critiques the “culture wars” surrounding trans rights in Scotland. She also says in the report that

“trans persons in the UK face increasingly hostile and toxic political and public discourse.”

What your thoughts on her report in general, but also on those two points specifically, given the context in which we are discussing and debating this bill?

I understand that. Professor Chadha, there is something interesting about not necessarily the social security system, but the labour market being a barrier by not enabling flexible work, part-time work or shorter working weeks, for example. What are your comments on that? We often talk about employment and the labour market separately from all the other support mechanisms, but I am trying to make the connections.

I have a last question on a different tack. Emma Congreve, I will come back to you for it.

The Fraser of Allander Institute published an article about the economic context for businesses in Scotland. Something that struck me in that was the difference between the impact of the broader economic situation on small and medium-sized enterprises and its impact on larger businesses. Turnover has fallen much more for SMEs than for larger businesses, relatively speaking.

What is your analysis of the long-term consequences for local and regional economies, of which SMEs are often the bedrock? How do we ensure that the disproportionate negative impact on SMEs does not continue to drag? If it carries on in the same direction, the situation of our local economies will just get worse and worse.

I suppose that the trends that we have seen in the past 10 to 12 years, since the financial crash, might come back in part to one of Gordon MacDonald’s other points, which was about the composition of labour market inactivity and a potential increased reliance on social security.

Do you have any comments or pointers for us around that focus on employment of people who have chosen to take themselves out of the employment market or have come out of it for health reasons, caring reasons and so on? Do we need to focus more on getting more people, such as single parents, back into employment?

I am not talking about the employability figures, because we know that the current employment figures are high. It is about the untapped potential of a group of economically inactive people who probably want to work but cannot for a whole range of other reasons, social security being one of them. How can we tease that apart and make a connection that is economically positive rather than an economic drain in the long term?

Emma, I do not know whether you have any more to say on that, but I will come to you first, and then Professor Chadha.

Good morning to the witnesses. Thank you for joining us this morning, for your comments so far and for the materials that your organisations have provided. I want to follow up on some of Gordon MacDonald’s questions about the interaction between the economic outlook, the budget discussions that we will have tomorrow, the broader recovery that Professor Chadha and other witnesses have talked about and the consequences of Covid and Brexit.

Emma, I will come to you first. In the Fraser of Allander Institute’s “Scotland’s Budget Report 2022”, which was published this week, there is a very stark comment about social security, the consequences of some of the labour trends that we have been talking about and the increased reliance on social security. We know that social security spend is going up for significant policy and other reasons, but will you say a little more about how you see those things interacting and potentially leading to a more unstable or volatile economy in the future if people cannot get the social security support that they need even though the spend is increasing?

That is helpful.

I thank you all for joining us and for your opening statements. Richy, I especially thank you for sharing your story with us. I am really sorry that you have been through that. Thank you for being here and helping us to understand why this is so important.

I have two questions, the first of which relates to the definition of conversion practices, which the committee has spoken about before. We made it clear in our report that we wanted to draw the definition of conversion practices as widely as possible. Issues around consent and intention to harm were part of that. The advisory group came up with a very clear definition of what conversion practices are. Why was it so important to draw that definition as widely as you did? How can we ensure that affirmative care—which we all recognise is important—is still okay?

Thank you—that was really helpful. I will leave it there for now, convener.

Sandra and David, I have learned so much from you this morning, so I thank you both for what you have said so far. I also thank you for bringing in the point about health settings, because I was going to ask about widening our consideration of the issue. However, I know that you are focused on the justice issue and the question of vulnerability, which David has just mentioned.

I will play devil’s advocate a little. I should say straight up that there is definitely something here for us to explore, although we will need to consider in more detail exactly what route we might take. One of the challenges that we might encounter as we pursue this work is the argument that there are already facilities for when somebody does not have “normal” mental capacity. For example, there are mental health provisions and learning disability provisions for those people. It could be argued that those should be the routes that we use to enable their involvement in and engagement with the justice system.

One of the challenges that I expect will come along with that is that legislation on mental capacity, for example, comes with measures to safeguard the best interests of the person who lacks capacity. What is your response to such challenges? It would be useful for us to hear from you, given your personal experience with your sister, how that wider legal framework supports her—or not, as the case may be.