Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Section 35 Power

Debate between Ian Murray and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

We put in protections on the age limit in Scotland. We have the leader of the SNP at Westminster accusing the Scottish Labour party and the UK Labour party of different positions on this. There is nothing between the positions, but we should have devolution at the same time. The leader of the UK Labour party has made his position perfectly clear, and Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, and his team put in significant protections for 16 and 17-year-olds, including the notary public measure, which means that a person has to swear in front of a notary public for this to take effect and they have to get a responsible adult over the age of 18 to be able to do any of this under the age of 18.

Essentially, the hon. Gentleman is challenging people not to have different views on this, but two of his Front-Bench MSPs voted for the legislation. People are entitled to have slightly different views on what is an incredibly important subject. He has managed to do only one thing in the past week, which was not to get both Governments together to try to resolve this, but to write to me to ask my position on the Bill. I would rather that the two Governments came together. [Interruption.] We want the Bill passed and we want section 35 resolved; it is as simple and as straightforward as that. It has been our position for some time that we should modernise the GRA. That position has been eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, and it is still the one that we hold.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) made the crucial point—and this goes back to an earlier intervention—that gender recognition certificates can already be issued under the Equality Act. As we sit here today, single-sex spaces are protected by exemptions under the Equality Act. The adverse reasons that the Government are giving us on that are not about the process of getting a GRC, but about the process that is currently already in place. The Government are all over the place on this, and it is little wonder that the only result is to fan the flames for people who wish to break up the United Kingdom.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not right that, in the passing of the Equality Act 2010, it was noted then that the GRA needed to be reformed and depathologised? The party that came in straight after the passing of that Act—the party currently in Government—has spent 12 and a bit years twiddling its thumbs and fanning the flames of fear and hatred, and then, when one Parliament of this United Kingdom takes decisive action, rather than stepping up and working to resolve the issue, the party has constructed a constitutional crisis that will benefit its voting.

[Ian Murray]

That is what I have been saying. We desperately want the legislation to pass, but we also desperately want to make sure that the issues raised under section 35 are resolved. There are only two ways to do that: either through the courts, which is where I think this is heading, or through the Governments getting together. We do not have the power to make either of those things happen.

Opinion polling shows that the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland just want their two Governments to work closely together in the interests of the country, and, on this particular issue, in the interests of equality. Let me say to both Governments that these issues are not irresolvable. We can create an environment where protections exist for women at the same time as strengthening the rights for trans people. We can create a legal framework where GRCs issued in Scotland are entirely compatible with the UK-wide equality legislation. We can have a country where both the Scottish and UK Governments act like grown-ups, get round the table and resolve these issues. That is what used to happen. That is the way that Donald Dewar designed the legislation that this Government are now implementing. We need genuinely constructive discussions between the two Governments. Let us lock them in a room and not let them out until they find a solution. I can assure Members that there is a way through this, but both Governments are unwilling to take it.