 Good morning and welcome everyone to the 30th meeting of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee in 2018. Can we please ensure all electric devices are on silent mode? Our first item of business today is to consider a notification from the Scottish Government seeking consent for the UK Government to legislate using powers under the European Union with drawl act in relation to a UK statutory instrument. The instrument is the equality amendment and revocation EU exit regulations 2018. This is proposed to address defects in relation to the operation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the civil partnership act 2004 as a result of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. Members have a cover paper from the clerk setting out the background to the notification. Members will also be aware that the committee sought comment from stakeholders on the SI notification. Both the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Equality Network responded. Both indicated that they were content with the proposal and the SI notification. Do members have any comment on the SI notification? I do, thank you, convener. Speaking for the Liberal Democrats here, this is obviously a position that we do not wish to be in in terms of paving the way to make our country demonstrably worse off. Just a couple of comments on process, I will reluctantly support this. I do not have any problem with the specifics that we are being asked to support today. From our experience of other committees, we are concerned at the rapidity in which these are coming forward and the brevity of time with which Parliament is given to consider it, while those are not complex, others will be. I think that we need to be sure that we have the appropriate time for adequate scrutiny and cross-examination of the Scottish Government. On that note, we will support this today, but there is potential within some of those SI's to confer unfettered power to ministers to make snap decisions in very important areas. I think that there is a duty on this committee and the wider Parliament to effectively scrutinise that. Is the committee content with the view of the Scottish Government set out in the SI notification that the UK Parliament should address the defect by way of the proposed UK statutory instrument? Does the committee agree to delegate authority to me as convener to write to the Scottish Government setting out our view on the SI notification? The next meeting of the committee is on Thursday, 6 December, where we will have an evidence session with the Minister for Older People and Equalities. I now move the meeting into private session.