UK government might block Scottish gender recognition reform bill

Westminster may use rare power to block Scotland’s gender recognition bill on women’s safety grounds, UK minister says

Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, has hinted that the UK government might block the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill passed by MSPs this afternoon. In a statement responding to the vote, he said:

We share the concerns that many people have regarding certain aspects of this bill, and in particular the safety issues for women and children.

We will look closely at that, and also the ramifications for the 2010 Equality Act and other UK wide legislation, in the coming weeks – up to and including a section 35 order stopping the bill going for royal assent if necessary.

Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, has suggested the Scottish bill could have a detrimental impact on the rest of the UK because it would not be possible for the legislation to be “fully contained” within Scotland. She set out our concerns in a letter to Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, that was leaked to the Times earlier this month.

Under the Scotland Act that set up the Scottish parliament, the UK government has the power to block a bill passed by the Scottish parliament if it can argue that it would have an “adverse effect” on the operation of the law on a reserved matter (a policy area where Westminster, not Holyrood, is in charge). In this case, the UK government would be arguing that the Scottish legislation would have a harmful effect on equality law.

This power has never been used and, if Rishi Sunak’s government were to invoke it now, that would be seen as highly provocative in Edinburgh.

But during first minister’s questions today Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, argued that opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the bill is not popular with Scots, and that claim could embolden Westminster to intervene.

Michael Foran, a law lecturer, has written a good blog on how section 35 orders work at the UK Constitutional Law Association website. Here is is conclusion.

If the secretary of state did issue a s.35 order it would certainly be subject to judicial review. Given that the order must be made within four weeks of the bill’s passing, any challenge will be based on whether there were reasonable grounds for concluding that the advancement of equal opportunities for biological women would be frustrated. Whether the UK government wishes to wade into this political quagmire, given both the gender politics and the devolution politics, is another question entirely.

The Scottish government has hailed a “historic day for equality” after MSPs approved plans to make it easier and less intrusive for individuals to legally change their gender, extending the new system of self-identification to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time. In response, Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, said the UK government was considering blocking the legislation, using a power under the Scotland Act that has never been used before, on the grounds that it would have a negative impact on equality law in the rest of the UK. (See 5.06pm.)

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Rishi Sunak has appointed a former banker and quango head to be his ethics adviser after a six-month delay in filling the post, but will not allow the new incumbent to launch his own investigations into potential wrongdoing.

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More than three-quarters of firms say the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU has not helped them to expand their business in the last two years despite promises that Brexit terms were “oven-ready”.

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We share the concerns that many people have regarding certain aspects of this bill, and in particular the safety issues for women and children.

n

We will look closely at that, and also the ramifications for the 2010 Equality Act and other UK wide legislation, in the coming weeks – up to and including a section 35 order stopping the bill going for royal assent if necessary.

n

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This power has never been used and, if Rishi Sunak’s government were to invoke it now, that would be seen as highly provocative in Edinburgh.

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Michael Foran, a law lecturer, has written a good blog on how section 35 orders work at the UK Constitutional Law Association website. Here is is conclusion.

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n

If the secretary of state did issue a s.35 order it would certainly be subject to judicial review. Given that the order must be made within four weeks of the bill’s passing, any challenge will be based on whether there were reasonable grounds for concluding that the advancement of equal opportunities for biological women would be frustrated. Whether the UK government wishes to wade into this political quagmire, given both the gender politics and the devolution politics, is another question entirely.

n

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Unite says about 1,000 of its members in the Welsh ambulance service have voted to go on strike over pay in the new year. The strike dates will be announced after Christmas.

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Explaining the background to the vote, which was 88% in favour of strike action, the union said:

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Unite’s Welsh ambulance service members say such is the decay across the entire health service, that where they once saw 10 patients a day, often they can now deal with only one per shift, spending hours and even whole days at a time sitting outside A&E with patients waiting to be seen.

n

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Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said:

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Unite’s ambulance service members in Wales are striking because they see first-hand every day how the NHS is collapsing. They are dedicated life-saving professionals and are taking this step because they know the NHS itself needs saving.

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The Welsh government must put a better offer on the table to help resolve the recruitment and retention crisis that is crippling the service. But it is also incumbent on the Conservative government in Westminster, who hold the ultimate responsibility for the years of destruction inflicted on the NHS, to meet with heath unions and urgently address staffing and pay levels.

n

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Rishi Sunak has had a telephone call with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. According to the No 10 readout, they agreed “the UK and the EU would remain steadfast in our military economic and diplomatic support for Ukraine and in countering Russian aggression”.

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The two also discussed Northern Ireland, where the UK and the EU are supposed to be negotiating reforms to the Northern Ireland protocol that would make it acceptable to the DUP. But this has been going on for months, and the No 10 readout implied a breakthrough is no closer. It just said:

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On the Northern Ireland protocol, they agreed on the importance of working together to agree a solution.

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Joe Biden, the US president, is expected to visit Northern Ireland for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement next year – but only if the protocol issue has been resolved by then. In the i Arj Singh and Paul Waugh say that, if the dispute is still ongoing, Washington plans to send Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, instead.

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The gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill has passed. MSPs voted it through by 86 votes to 39. There were no abstentions.

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There is loud applause from the public gallery as the result is read out.

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But as the applause starts by die down, there are shouts of “shame on you” from the public gallery good.

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The presiding officer, Alison Johnstone, suspends business.

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Here is my colleague Libby Brooks’ summary of what the bill willl do.

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Back in the Scottish parliament, Shona Robison, the cabinet secretary for social justice, is winding up the debate on the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill.

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She says a clear international consensus now exists in favour of self-declaration for gender recognition. She says only yesterday Spain passed the first stage of a law that would implement this.

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And she also says this was recently acknowledged in a report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights. Here is an extract from that report.

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The UN independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has also recommended that legal gender recognition should be based on self-determination, be a simple administrative process, and not require applicants to fulfil abusive requirements, including medical certification.

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The commissioner considers that, from a human rights perspective, selfdetermination models for legal gender recognition represent a best practice, and the introduction of such a model in the UK would therefore constitute an important step forward.

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The commissioner notes that the number of Council of Europe member states that have eliminated the requirement to provide medical certificates or diagnoses for legal gender recognition has more than doubled since 2018, with nine having adopted such models, and proposals pending in other member states.

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To the commissioner’s best knowledge, there is no evidence of these self-determination procedures being misused or leading to issues in relation to the rights of others.

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Someone starts heckling Robison from the public gallery. The presiding officer suspends the sitting.

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Rishi Sunak has finally found someone to serve as Downing Street’s new ethics adviser. The last one, Lord Geidt, resigned in June because he was unhappy with Boris Johnson’s approach to ethical standards and compliance with the ministerial code. Geidt’s predecessor, Sir Alex Allan, also resigned, in November 2020, after Johnson in effect ignored the conclusions of his inquiry into Priti Patel.

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The new adviser is Sir Laurie Magnus, a former banker and corporate finance specialist who is chairman of Historic England. Downing Street said, in the news release announcing his appointment, that he would bring “over 40 years’ experience in the financial services sector, with particularly relevant professional experience of audit, compliance and corporate governance”.

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Magnus’s official title is independent adviser on ministers’ interests. As well as being available to investigate alleged breaches of the ministerial code when asked by the prime minister, the adviser also oversees the regular publication of the register of ministers’ interests.

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The Committee on Standards in Public Life, and others, have said the adviser should have the power to initiate investigations into breaches of the ministerial code without having to get permission from the PM. No 10 has resisted this, and this reportedly was one reason why Sunak found it hard to find someone willing to take up the job.

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But when Geidt was in office, he did get Johnson to agree terms of reference which say that, if the adviser wants to carry out an inquiry and the PM blocks it, there is an expectation that a reason for this should be given, unless there are public interest grounds for keeping that confidential. Magnus will operate in line with these terms of reference.

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In his letter accepting the job Magnus said:

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As chairman of Historic England, I have had the privilege of working closely alongside Ministers, officials and many other public servants. I have seen up close the dedication and expertise required of public service, and the commitment to maintaining high standards that is an essential part of such work. I look forward to drawing and building on this experience in helping to uphold these standards within government.

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In line with my terms of reference, I will aim to provide my annual report to you in May 2023. An early priority for me will be to scrutinise the declarations of interests that have been made by ministers appointed under your tenure and to prepare the first list of ministers’ Interests for publication.

n

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Rail fares in England and Wales will rise by up to 5.9% in March after what the government called “its biggest ever intervention” to keep the cost of travel below soaring inflation, my colleague Gwyn Topham reports.

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MSPs are due to hold their final vote on the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill later this afternoon. At first minister’s questions Nicola Sturgeon strongly defended the legislation, which is strongly opposed by some Scots who claim that it will make changing gender too easy and that women might be at risk in some settings as a result. Strugeon dismissed these concerns.

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Sturgeon passionately defended the bill, saying it was her job to make life easier for “stigmatised minorities”. She said:

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Removing the need for medical diagnosis for a trans person who wants to legally change their gender is actually one of the purposes of this legislation, because the need for that is one of the most intrusive, traumatic and dehumanising parts of the current system.

n

And as a woman, I know very much what it is like to live with the fear at times of potential violence from men. I’m a feminist. I will argue for women’s rights. I will do everything I can to protect women’s rights for as long as I was.

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But I also think it’s an important part of my responsibility to make life a little bit easier for stigmatised minorities in our country, to make their lives a bit better, and to remove some of the trauma that they live with on a day to day basis.

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And I think it is important to do that for the tiny minority of trans people in our society and I will never apologise for trying to spread equality, not reduce it in our country.

n

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She strongly rejected the claim that the bill would put women at more risk from predatory men. She said:

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Over the course of the last two days we have heard set out in this chamber many of the different ways in which predatory men can abuse women.

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My argument is not – and it has never been and never will be – that these are not very real ways in which predatory men abuse women. My argument is that none of these ways are created by this bill. Nor would it be the case that any of these ways are addressed by denying rights to trans people.

n

The fact of the matter is a man who wants to abuse a woman, even a man who wants to masquerade as a woman in order to do so, does not need a gender recognition certificate to do that, and nor does having a gender recognition certificate give that man any more ability or rights to do that than is currently the case.

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What we must focus on are the men who abuse women, the predatory and abusive men who do that, and this government always will in a range of different ways.

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She insisted that safeguards had been added to the bill to stop the gender recognition process being abused by sexual predators. She said under provisions now included in the bill an application for a gender recognition certificate cannot proceed “where the police have applied for the sexual offences prevention order, sexual harm prevention order or sexual risk order that would prevent a GRC application”. She went on:

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These are safeguards in this legislation that don’t exist in the current gender recognition legislation.

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She described the bill as “possibly the most scrutinised piece of legislation in the history of this parliament”.

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At the Scottish parliament Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, is taking questions. Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, asks about the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill and amendments rejected by the Scottish government. He says the bill would allow a man standing trial for raping a woman to force his victim to refer to him as a woman, not a man, and he asks Sturgeon why she voted against an amendment that would have prevented this.

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In response, Sturgeon says many amendments have been rejected in the past days. She says where amendments were rejected, it was often because there were alternative ways to add safeguards to the bill. These new safeguards covered sex offenders, she says.

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The Royal College of Nursing says today’s figures about A&E waiting times at hospitals in England (see 11.04am) show the need for nurses to be paid more. Patricia Marquis, the RCN’s director for England, said:

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n

Health and care is under huge strain in the run-up to Christmas. These figures suggest there is absolutely no slack in the system, which is dangerously close to overheating completely.

n

A key part of the problem is that the vast majority of hospital beds are full – around 95% – including with thousands of patients fit to be discharged. The lack of community and social care means they’ll be spending this Christmas in hospital.

n

The real cause of this is record nursing vacancies in the NHS and tens of thousands more across health and social care.

n

Ministers can only begin to fix this by addressing the record nursing vacancies and valuing the profession properly by paying nurses fairly to retain and recruit the staff that patients need.

n

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Close to one in four ambulance patients in England waited more than an hour with crews before being admitted to A&E, in what was the worst winter week on record.

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The record numbers came a week before thousands of ambulance workers, paramedics and others in England and Wales went on strike yesterday, leaving the NHS unable to respond to many 999 calls.

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Almost 24% of patients arriving at English hospitals by ambulance waited more than an hour to get treated in A&E in the week to Sunday 18 December, or 16,379 patients, eclipsing the figures witnessed in the past six winters and likely the highest figures ever.

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Just over 40% of patients arriving at hospitals by ambulance are waiting more than 30 minutes to be seen.

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Other pressures are also being brought to bear: flu is adding pressure to an already embattled service with the number of patients with flu in hospital increasing by two-thirds in one week, similar to the previous week’s increase.

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More than 2,000 beds were taken up by flu patients on average in the week to 18 December; in the equivalent week last year that figure was just 32.

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There were an average of 60,583 absences due to staff illness, up almost a fifth on last month, while the number of staff off due to Covid rose by a third since mid-November, to 7,218 each day.

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There was near-record demand for the 111 service, with call levels up almost 60% on the same week in 2021, partly due to parents’ concerns over strep A.

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In a statement NHS England said it had “prepared extensively for winter and industrial action”, including additional bed capacity, extra call handlers and community falls services.

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Prof Sir Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, said:

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n

With more industrial action scheduled for next week, there will be disruption but we urge the public to continue to use services wisely by continuing to call 999 for life-threatening emergencies, use 111 online for other health conditions, and take sensible steps to keep yourself and others safe.

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Demand for NHS services is expected to go up after yesterday’s ambulance strike in England and Wales. In an interview this morning Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health trusts, said that demand was “significantly down” yesterday, but that that would change. She said:

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What we think today, tomorrow, the next few days will bring us, actually, is quite a surge in demand for emergency treatment, people turning up at A&E, potentially calling ambulances because they are in a condition that has significantly deteriorated.

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My colleague Caroline Davies has the full story here.

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As reported here yesterday, the Centre for European Reform has published an analysis claiming that Britain’s GDP is 5.5% lower than it would have been without Brexit.

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Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary and leading Brexit enthusiast, has published an article for the Daily Express criticising the methodology used by the CER. The CER has identified a clutch of countries whose economic performance closely matched the UK’s in the decade or more before Brexit, and it has compared the performance of this “doppelgänger” UK (a statistical fiction, based on the performance data for the comparator countries) since 2016 with the performance of the real UK. Rees-Mogg claims this approach is “absurd”. He says:

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[The model] maintains that by membership of the EU the UK economy will do better but then goes on to argue that this country should not be compared to the economies of Germany, France and Italy but to faster growing nations. These two arguments contradict each other.

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If as the CER says the major continental economies are inherently slower growth than the UK surely we would want to be less associated with them and freer to operate globally. The fact that, since we voted to leave, we have performed better than all the major European economies save France, shows our success.

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From the third quarter of 2016 to the second quarter of 2022 the UK grew at 6.2 percent, Germany 5.4 percent, France 7.6 percent, Italy 4.2 percent and Spain 5.9 percent.

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Rees-Mogg is not the first person to criticise the CER methodology on these grounds, and in his report the CER’s John Springford responds to these arguments. He does not accept that France, Germany and Italy would be better comparison countries to provide data on what would have happened to a “doppelgänger” UK that did not vote for Brexit in 2016. He argues:

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Just because countries are of a similar size in a similar region, they do not necessarily have a similar economic model or growth rates. Better doppelgänger countries may be found elsewhere by the algorithm. Indeed, the UK’s growth rate between the introduction of the euro in 1999 and 2016 was markedly different to France, Germany and Italy’s. It was far closer to that of the US.

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The UK is currently the worst-performing G7 nation in terms of quarterly economic growth, my colleague Graeme Wearden writes on his business live blog. He says:

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The 0.3% contraction in UK GDP in Q3 reported this morning is worse than Japan’s 0.2% fall in GDP, while Canada and the US both expanded pacily, by around 0.7%.

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France (+0.2%), Germany (+0.4%) and Italy (+0.5%) all grew in July-September too.

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Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, claims this shows the Tories have lost control of the economy.

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NEW: GDP data has been revised down, leaving the UK with the worst growth in the G7 in the last quarter.

The Tories have lost control of the economy and are leaving millions of working people paying the price.

Only Labour has a proper plan to get our economy growing.

— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) December 22, 2022

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Graeme has more on this story on his business live blog.

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Good morning. Two years ago on Saturday, Boris Johnson announced that he had finalised a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. Never at a loss for superlatives, he said it was “the biggest trade deal yet, worth £660bn”. In his statement he described it as:

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A deal which will if anything should allow our companies and our exporters to do even more business with our European friends.

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He also claimed – falsely – that under its terms there would be “no non-tariff barriers to trade”.

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This morning the British Chambers of Commerce has published a damning report on how that trade deal (the trade and cooperation agreement, or TCA, to give it its formal title, is performing, and it’s damning. As my colleague Heather Stewart reports in her write-up, more than 1,000 business leaders were surveyed and three quarters of them said the deal was not helping them to increase sales, or to expand. Here is her story.

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And here is the chart that shows the key result. (The chart comes from the BCC report, but it contains a typo; the light grey shading represents somewhat agree, not somewhat disagree, as the text makes clear.)

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I’ll post more from the survey soon.

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There has not been much response from the government, but Mark Spencer, the farming minister, has been giving interviews and he told Times Radio this morning he claimed the government did want to reduce “red tape” for exporters to the EU. He said:

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n

There’s always more that we can do to try and ease the way and the passage of trade. We’re very keen to do that. We’re a free and open trading nation, we want to work closely with our EU colleagues, and we want to try and reduce that red tape, if there is any red tape, on their side of the Channel. So, of course, we want to keep those channels of trade open in both directions.

n

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In London parliament is not sitting. But in Edinburgh Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, is taking questions at 12pm, and then MSPs are due to conclude the debate on the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill. The final vote is due at 2.45pm. It had been expected yesterday but, as my colleague Libby Brooks reports, the debate ran over time.

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I’ll try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

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If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

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Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.

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Afternoon summary

The Scottish government has hailed a “historic day for equality” after MSPs approved plans to make it easier and less intrusive for individuals to legally change their gender, extending the new system of self-identification to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time. In response, Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, said the UK government was considering blocking the legislation, using a power under the Scotland Act that has never been used before, on the grounds that it would have a negative impact on equality law in the rest of the UK. (See 5.06pm.)

Rishi Sunak has appointed a former banker and quango head to be his ethics adviser after a six-month delay in filling the post, but will not allow the new incumbent to launch his own investigations into potential wrongdoing.

More than three-quarters of firms say the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU has not helped them to expand their business in the last two years despite promises that Brexit terms were “oven-ready”.

Glenn Campbell from BBC Scotland has details of the MSPs who defied their party colleagues in the vote on the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill.

Going through voting list, nine SNP MSPs including @AshtenRegan votes against

Two Labour MSPs also voted against@CMochan @clairebakermsp will have to quit their frontbench roles

Other Labour critics @pauline4glasgow @michaeljmarra did not vote

— Glenn Campbell (@GlennBBC) December 22, 2022

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Three Conservatives backed the bill @jamiegreeneUK @Jackson_Carlaw @Sandeshgulhane

Looks like the nine SNP rebels are those who opposed or abstained at stage 1 – biggest rebellion since party took power

— Glenn Campbell (@GlennBBC) December 22, 2022

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Westminster may use rare power to block Scotland’s gender recognition bill on women’s safety grounds, UK minister says

We share the concerns that many people have regarding certain aspects of this bill, and in particular the safety issues for women and children.

We will look closely at that, and also the ramifications for the 2010 Equality Act and other UK wide legislation, in the coming weeks – up to and including a section 35 order stopping the bill going for royal assent if necessary.

This power has never been used and, if Rishi Sunak’s government were to invoke it now, that would be seen as highly provocative in Edinburgh.

Michael Foran, a law lecturer, has written a good blog on how section 35 orders work at the UK Constitutional Law Association website. Here is is conclusion.

If the secretary of state did issue a s.35 order it would certainly be subject to judicial review. Given that the order must be made within four weeks of the bill’s passing, any challenge will be based on whether there were reasonable grounds for concluding that the advancement of equal opportunities for biological women would be frustrated. Whether the UK government wishes to wade into this political quagmire, given both the gender politics and the devolution politics, is another question entirely.

Unite ambulance staff vote to go on strike in Wales in new year

Unite says about 1,000 of its members in the Welsh ambulance service have voted to go on strike over pay in the new year. The strike dates will be announced after Christmas.

Explaining the background to the vote, which was 88% in favour of strike action, the union said:

Unite’s Welsh ambulance service members say such is the decay across the entire health service, that where they once saw 10 patients a day, often they can now deal with only one per shift, spending hours and even whole days at a time sitting outside A&E with patients waiting to be seen.

Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said:

Unite’s ambulance service members in Wales are striking because they see first-hand every day how the NHS is collapsing. They are dedicated life-saving professionals and are taking this step because they know the NHS itself needs saving.

The Welsh government must put a better offer on the table to help resolve the recruitment and retention crisis that is crippling the service. But it is also incumbent on the Conservative government in Westminster, who hold the ultimate responsibility for the years of destruction inflicted on the NHS, to meet with heath unions and urgently address staffing and pay levels.

And here is a tweet from Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, on her call with Rishi Sunak. (See 3.59pm.) On the Northern Ireland protocol, her language is almost identical to No 10’s.

Happy to exchange with @RishiSunak on our continued close coordination on support to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

We will also push for ambitious #G7 and #G20 agendas.

On IE/NI Protocol, we concur on the importance of working together to agree on solutions. pic.twitter.com/CndTSjQgaD

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 22, 2022

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Happy to exchange with @RishiSunak on our continued close coordination on support to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.

We will also push for ambitious #G7 and #G20 agendas.

On IE/NI Protocol, we concur on the importance of working together to agree on solutions. pic.twitter.com/CndTSjQgaD

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 22, 2022

No 10 hints breakthrough no closer after Sunak and Von der Leyen discuss Northern Ireland protocol

On the Northern Ireland protocol, they agreed on the importance of working together to agree a solution.

Shona Robison, the Scottish government’s social justice minister, has issued this statement about the passing of the bill.

This is an historic day for equality in Scotland with the gender recognition reform bill being approved by parliament and by members of all parties.

It simplifies and improves the process for a trans person to obtain a gender recognition certificate – which many currently find intrusive, medicalised and bureaucratic.

The legislation makes no change to the reserved Equality Act 2010 and that principle is enshrined in the bill. As I have made clear, the Scottish government continues to support the provision of single-sex services and the rights of women.

The passing of this bill is a significant step forward in creating a more equal Scotland, where trans people feel valued, included and empowered.

And here is a briefing from the Scottish government on what the bill does.

And here is my colleague Libby Brooks’ story on the vote.

This is from Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green MSP, welcoming the result.

Finally! pic.twitter.com/HC4tdJymWx

— Patrick Harvie 🇪🇺🌈 (@patrickharvie) December 22, 2022

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Scottish parliament passes gender recognition reform bill by 86 votes to 39

The gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill has passed. MSPs voted it through by 86 votes to 39. There were no abstentions.

There is loud applause from the public gallery as the result is read out.

But as the applause starts by die down, there are shouts of “shame on you” from the public gallery good.

The presiding officer, Alison Johnstone, suspends business.

Here is my colleague Libby Brooks’ summary of what the bill willl do.

The suspension of the Scottish parliament is over, and Shona Robison, the cabinet secretary for social justice.

Referring to a comment made by the protester, she says as a woman she knows what a woman is.

She ends by urging MSPs to tackle transphobia. It can happen anyway, including in this Scottish parliament. She refers to a case where a trans woman in the building was referred to as “it”. If MSPs witness transphobia like this, they should call it out, she says.

She ends by quoting Martin Luther King.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

MSPs are now voting on the bill.

Scottish parliament suspended after protester interrupts final speech before gender recognition vote

Back in the Scottish parliament, Shona Robison, the cabinet secretary for social justice, is winding up the debate on the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill.

She says a clear international consensus now exists in favour of self-declaration for gender recognition. She says only yesterday Spain passed the first stage of a law that would implement this.

And she also says this was recently acknowledged in a report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights. Here is an extract from that report.

The UN independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has also recommended that legal gender recognition should be based on self-determination, be a simple administrative process, and not require applicants to fulfil abusive requirements, including medical certification.

The commissioner considers that, from a human rights perspective, selfdetermination models for legal gender recognition represent a best practice, and the introduction of such a model in the UK would therefore constitute an important step forward.

The commissioner notes that the number of Council of Europe member states that have eliminated the requirement to provide medical certificates or diagnoses for legal gender recognition has more than doubled since 2018, with nine having adopted such models, and proposals pending in other member states.

To the commissioner’s best knowledge, there is no evidence of these self-determination procedures being misused or leading to issues in relation to the rights of others.

Someone starts heckling Robison from the public gallery. The presiding officer suspends the sitting.

Former banker and quango chief appointed by Rishi Sunak as No 10’s new ethics adviser

In his letter accepting the job Magnus said:

As chairman of Historic England, I have had the privilege of working closely alongside Ministers, officials and many other public servants. I have seen up close the dedication and expertise required of public service, and the commitment to maintaining high standards that is an essential part of such work. I look forward to drawing and building on this experience in helping to uphold these standards within government.

In line with my terms of reference, I will aim to provide my annual report to you in May 2023. An early priority for me will be to scrutinise the declarations of interests that have been made by ministers appointed under your tenure and to prepare the first list of ministers’ Interests for publication.

John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, has posted a thread on Twitter responding to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s criticisms of his study saying UK GDP is 5.5% lower than it would have been without Brexit. (See 10.23am.) It starts here.

Cutting through the noise, @Jacob_Rees_Mogg makes two substantive criticisms of my cost of Brexit estimates in The Express. https://t.co/yrgtRWKI80

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

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And here are three of his posts.

The other criticism he makes: it's contradictory to argue that we should not compare the UK to slower growing European economies, while saying that the UK would have done better as a member of the EU. pic.twitter.com/ZR4bshWq2C

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

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The other criticism he makes: it’s contradictory to argue that we should not compare the UK to slower growing European economies, while saying that the UK would have done better as a member of the EU. pic.twitter.com/ZR4bshWq2C

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

There is no contradiction. Countries grow at different rates for various reasons – population ageing (which is faster in Germany and Italy), or macroeconomic mismanagement (euro crisis), or they have larger industrial sectors that are badly hit by fraying globalisation (Germany).

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

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There is no contradiction. Countries grow at different rates for various reasons – population ageing (which is faster in Germany and Italy), or macroeconomic mismanagement (euro crisis), or they have larger industrial sectors that are badly hit by fraying globalisation (Germany).

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

Rees-Mogg implies that, by erecting trade barriers with those countries, that will not have an effect on our growth because they are slow growing themselves. But trade barriers will reduce pre-existing trade that was built up over time – as well as reducing future trade growth.

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

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Rees-Mogg implies that, by erecting trade barriers with those countries, that will not have an effect on our growth because they are slow growing themselves. But trade barriers will reduce pre-existing trade that was built up over time – as well as reducing future trade growth.

— John Springford (@JohnSpringford) December 22, 2022

An analysis of the latest A&E wating time (see 11.04am) data by the PA news agency shows that, among those trusts reporting at least 500 ambulance arrivals last week, the highest proportion of patients waiting more than an hour to be handed over was 58% at both University Hospitals Bristol & Weston (381 out of 655 patients) and Gloucestershire Hospitals (345 of 595). PA says:

This was followed by Northern Lincolnshire & Goole at 53% (311 of 590 patients), University Hospitals of Leicester at 52% (446 of 865), University Hospitals of North Midlands at 51% (333 of 651), Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital at 50% (271 of 540) and University Hospitals Dorset also at 50% (409 of 817).

Royal Cornwall Hospitals had 470 arrivals last week, of which 337 – 72% – waited over an hour to be handed to A&E teams.

Source: www.theguardian.com