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I was going to say that how meetings are recorded and how the committee manages its business are not matters for me.

On prisons, the committee received some very detailed evidence from the Scottish Prison Service. How a trans prisoner or anyone else in our prisons is managed is obviously a matter for the Scottish Prison Service. I cannot comment on another country’s prison service, but I know that the Scottish Prison Service is already making decisions about how to manage trans prisoners absolutely on the basis of an assessment of the person’s risk to themselves and others. It is already the case that trans women may be held in the male or the female estate, depending on that risk assessment, and 75 per cent of trans men are held in the female estate in recognition of the risk to themselves, which has been deemed to be a factor. The Prison Service does that already; that is the current process and it will continue after the bill is passed.

There is a review on-going in which the Prison Service is looking at its gender identity policy and whether any further changes need to be made. The review is looking at evidence gathered from the prison population, service users and stakeholders and the Prison Service is looking to publish an updated policy thereafter, once it has gone through that process.

Let me be very clear: the Scottish Prison Service has made it very clear that whether someone has a gender recognition certificate is not the issue. Someone could have a gender recognition certificate and still be placed in the estate that is not in line with their acquired gender, if that is the risk that is assessed. The Prison Service could not be clearer about that. It is already operating that policy and has done for some time.

I have made clear my views. Because of the process—the consultations on the bill and all that went on around scrutinising it before it even reached the committee—we know what the issues are and I think that everybody has had a chance to give their view. I do not think that any major changes would be made or that there would be any further benefit from delaying it any further. We really need to get on with this—that would be my view.

We will work with National Records of Scotland to provide guidance to applicants on the application process. NRS will look at how it can confirm some documentation, if that is required. It is a statutory declaration process. If NRS has concerns, it can use various methods to check documentation, should that be required.

Do you have anything to add to that, Peter?

The EHRC has raised a number of issues in relation to its own position on the bill—which, obviously, has changed—and a number of other matters. We have had a significant amount of correspondence with the EHRC as we have tried to understand the nub of its concerns. I am mindful that the Scottish Human Rights Commission has, likewise, had quite an extensive correspondence with the EHRC to understand the evidential and legal basis for some of the concerns that it has raised. The SHRC is continuing to correspond with it, as are we, to understand what lies behind those particular concerns. Peter might want to come in on the specifics.

We would want to pick up that issue with health colleagues. Peter Hope-Jones might want to add some detail. It is a fair point.

I know that concerns have been expressed about whether asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland would meet the requirement to be ordinarily resident and therefore eligible to apply for a GRC. I am sympathetic to those concerns. As you know, asylum and immigration are reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. Whereas we have responsibility for things such as access to essential services that enable integration, such as healthcare and education, this area rubs up against devolved versus reserved matters.

Obviously, refugees are in a bit of a different situation compared with asylum seekers in terms of their rights. There would be potential competence issues with the bill legislating for asylum seekers specifically to have access to gender recognition, as well as practical issues that would need further consideration. Peter Hope-Jones might have something to say about that further consideration.

The fact that so few people in the trans community—only 6,000 people, compared to the estimated number of up to 500,000 people in the UK who are trans—have obtained the gender recognition certificate confirms the evidence that we have heard about the process, which is that it is really off-putting to people. A process of statutory self-declaration will enable people to gain legal recognition of the way they have been living their lives for many years. Many trans people will have already changed other documentation.

I suspect that the spike that Ireland saw when it changed the process to one of statutory self-declaration probably represents people who had been living in their acquired gender for many years who took the step of gaining legal recognition. The numbers settled down after that spike.

One of the most powerful pieces of evidence that I heard was from an older person who said that the most important thing to come out of it all was that they would be able to have their death certificate record the gender that they had lived their entire life in. For the tiny number of people whom the change will affect, it could be really important. That evidence highlights that it is a very important and very personal thing. Hearing about the importance of having end-of-life recognition of the gender that a person has lived their life in was very powerful.

The registrar general will have an important role, not least in making sure that the guidance is clear and supportive and explains things in clear language. Work on that guidance will obviously involve a number of organisations. For example, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland gave evidence that the language used in the guidance needs to be clear for 16 and 17-year-olds. There would potentially also be signposting to other organisations that are beyond the registrar general’s ambit for providing guidance.

Peter Hope-Jones might want to add something about making any changes to the regulations.

That would be a matter for us around the mechanics of the legislation once the bill has finished its passage through Parliament, rather than being part of the bill as such. There is nothing odd about that; it is just the normal course of events. It is a technical issue with which we do not envisage there being any issues.