 Welcome to the 32nd meeting of section 6 of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. Apologies have been received by Rachel Hamilton. Our first agenda item is consideration of an affirmative instrument, which is the draft, legal aid, advice and assistance miscellaneous amendments Scotland regulations, and a welcome to the meeting. Ileana Wmytham, MSP Minister for Community Safety and Officials, Keian Burke, Access justice in the Scottish Government and Emma Thompson, solicitor in the Scottish Government legal directorate. Good morning all, and I refer members to paper one and invite the minister to speak on the draft regulations. Thank you, convener, and good morning to yourself and to fellow members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee about the legal aid and advice assistance miscellaneous amendments Scotland regulations 2023. This instrument has been brought forward to deliver changes to legal aid regulations, primarily to ensure continuing access to justice for people experiencing vulnerabilities in our society. Firstly, it will do so by supporting the response to the cost of living crisis by enabling the Scottish legal aid board to disregard for means assessment additional state benefit payments made in recognition of increased economic hardship currently suffered by households reliant on social security support. Unless this instrument is approved, the Scottish legal aid board will be unable to disregard such payments across all aid types. That means, for example, that additional money to recipients of disability benefits could have these payments formed part of an assessment should publicly funded legal assistance be sought. Secondly, the instrument will enable the Scottish legal aid board to disregard for means assessments compensatory awards from the state arising from a person receiving contaminated NHS blood or blood products prior to September 1991. Again, those payments by the state and which recognise a wrong against a person can only be disregarded for all types of legal aid if this instrument is approved. Finally, the instrument will also extend the provision of a type of legal aid known as assistance by way of representation, ABWAR, so that it may be available to siblings to a child who is subject to a hearing, children's hearings proceedings, and who have either have or are seeking rights to participate in those proceedings. Under current legislation, ABWAR provision is available only to a child subject to the proceedings or persons with or seeking to be deemed a relevant person to that child. The availability of ABWAR to siblings will be non-means tested and subject to an effective participation test approved by the Scottish legal aid board. That record recognises that, whilst the role of siblings in the children's hearing system is important, it is limited. There are other procedural safeguards in place that can facilitate that regard that regard be had to their views. That gives a brief overview of the regulations and their context and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much minister. Any questions, comments? Okay, that being the case, we move straight on to item 2, which is a formal business in relation to the instrument. I invite the minister to move the motion S6M-06777. Thank you convener, family moved. Thank you. Do any members have any final comments? Okay, if that's not the case, given there's no further comments, are we all agreed? Okay, that being the case, the motion is agreed and asked the committee just to delegate to myself publication of a short factual report on our deliberations on this affirmative SSI that we've considered today. How are we all agreed? We are agreed so that complete consideration of the affirmative instrument and I thank the minister and her officials for attending. We'll suspend briefly to allow a change of witnesses. Okay, thanks very much. The next agenda item is to hear from members of the independent expert advisory group on conversion practices. I welcome to the meeting our panel of witnesses, Nick Bland, who's the chair, Dr Rebecca Crowther, Dr Paul Behrens and Richie Edwards. You're all very welcome and thanks for taking the time to come and speak to us today. I refer members to papers 2 and 3 and invite each of our witnesses to make short opening statements starting with Nick Bland, please. Thanks very much, convener. I want to thank the committee for inviting members of the expert advisory group on ending conversion practices to give evidence today. I welcome the opportunity as chair to make some brief opening remarks, which I'll use to provide some background to the establishment of the group by the Scottish Government to describe its purpose, to summarise the work that the group undertook and which was reflected in the final published report. The Scottish Government has committed to introducing legislation by the end of 2023 that will be comprehensive in banning conversion therapy practices as far as possible within our devolved competencies. As a first step in November last year, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robeson, announced in Parliament the Government's intention to establish an expert advisory group on ending conversion practices to inform the approach to ending conversion practices in Scotland, which covers both sexual orientation and gender identity. Given the far-reaching impact of conversion practices in society, it was essential to secure a diverse group of individuals who could provide their expertise to develop broad action-based recommendations with a focus on the end goal of introducing legislative and non-legislative measures to ban conversion practices in Scotland. The membership of the group included individuals that are experts in their field from LGBTI organisations, faith and belief organisations and communities, mental health, law, human rights, academia and, importantly, people with personal lived experience of conversion practices. The group was time limited. The terms of reference defined the expert advisory group's purpose as to consider and advise on proposed actions to ban conversion practices in Scotland. Its scope was to explore both legislative and non-legislative measures, which would ensure protection and support is given to those who need it, and freedoms, including freedoms of speech, religion and belief, are safeguarded. The Scottish Government supported the group through my role as chair and in providing secretary at support. The group met for the first time in March this year and held eight meetings in total with the final one in August. During the early meetings, the group discussed core issues such as initial thoughts on the definition of conversion practices and how to support victims and survivors. As meetings progressed, members worked collaboratively to lead discussions on human rights implications and how criminal and civil measures could work in practice. The group also heard directly from members about their lived experience of conversion practices and its impact on their lives. Additionally, it was clear that deeper insight into the specific impact and experiences of conversion practices on minority ethnic faith communities and communities of colour was necessary. That work was taken forward through a member-led subgroup, which involved wider engagement with a range of organisations and a literature review. That work was considered a later meeting, identifying key themes and recommendations for the group overall to consider to ensure that all victims of conversion practices are sufficiently protected. The expert advisory group also sought to better understand how conversion practice legislation has worked in other jurisdictions. For example, the group heard from Inclusion Melbourne, who provided very useful insight into the development of conversion practice legislation in the state of Victoria in Australia. The group's report was published on 4 October 2022. The report includes 32 guiding principles that offer a framework to guide the Scottish Government in its approach to developing criminal and non-criminal measures to end conversion practices. Those are supported by specific recommendations that specify how the group sees the guiding principles taking shape, both within legislation and in other measures. Let me conclude by taking this opportunity to again thank members for their knowledge, their expertise and experience, and their absolute commitment to the group's work. Thank you very much, Nick. Can I hear from Rebecca, please? Hello, yes, thank you. I would like to thank the committee for inviting us here today to discuss the work of the expert advisory group on ending conversion practices. We understand that we are invited here today in order that the committee can formally close the petition on ending those practices, and we hope that there will be space given to fruitful and constructive feedback on the extensive work of the EAG following on from the committee's own recommendations and moving forward to a bill and series of civil measures that will finally see an end to conversion practice in Scotland. We are grateful for that opportunity. I am going to add a reminder that we are here to share the work of the group and on behalf of the group and we cannot speak on the continuing work or decisions made by the Scottish Government. Each of us here today comes to this work with differing expertise, and we hope that each of us will be able to enlighten on the many principles within the main report from the group as well as on the additional report looking at the experiences of conversion practices in minority ethnic faith groups and on communities of colour. It was and is vital to understand the relationship between an overarching culture and environment of anti-LGBT plus sentiment within some communities. It is also important to understand individuals' desires to be accepted and to fit into societal norms, where family, faith and community are integral parts of life and self-identity. As the policy coordinator of a quality network, my focus on the expert advisory group was always ensuring that the voices of LGBT people, diverse LGBT people with intersecting identities and those who are multiply marginalised, survivors and LGBT people of faith in all that diversity replace front and centre. It is also important to challenge the pervasive and harmful anti-LGBT ideologies and in turn conversion practice ideology that leads to those harmful practices. Tackling conversion ideology in Scotland is still sadly necessary. We need a bill that will finally and permanently tackle a still pervasive idea that to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans or having a gender expression or expression of sexual orientation that does not fall within the normative societal gender binary or heteronormative is a problem that needs to be fixed, suppressed, inhibited or changed and to finally bring an absolute end to conversion practices that cause such mental, emotional, psychological and physical harm in Scotland. This work needs both criminal and civil measures in order to succeed and I'll pass to Richie. So the voices of survivors in this work has been absolutely imperative within the work and in the principles and recommendations of the group. Autonomy for survivors and potential victims was central. As a survivor myself of so-called conversion therapy, though for avoidance of any doubt this is absolutely not what we would all know as therapy and now rightly refer to it as conversion practices. I am here today in my capacity within the expert advisory group as a person with lived experience of this important practice. I am however only one voice out of far too many who have endured this and I would like to put on record my thanks to not only both this committee and the Scottish Government for ensuring that survivors have had an integral role to play throughout this whole process but also to the others with lived experience on the expert advisory group as well as within the survivor subgroup that we established. None of this work would be possible without their collective voices. It hasn't always been easy and at times has been re-traumatising. Sadly all too often this is our reality but we mustn't forget the why and what we are doing here and I do believe that this committee and the Scottish Government get it and our inclusion throughout has not gone unnoticed. It's just a little foreign sometimes when you are used to a certain level of pushback and broken promises. I speak from experience when I tell you that conversion practices robbed me of so much. It robbed me of love because when you are told over and over again that who you are is inherently wrong you cannot be surprised when you then also have an inability to not only love yourself or love other people but you also struggle to truly accept the love of others too and sometimes as I am ashamed to admit unfortunately this also then comes at a cost to other people's feelings so it has a ripple effect beyond just yourself. It robs you of joy the effects of such experiences don't just stop when the abuse stops that permeates your whole life for the rest of your life causing a path of poor mental health destruction that we don't have time to talk about today. You cannot underestimate the deep psychological and mental trauma associated with these practices and I'm one of the lucky ones I'm still here to tell my story even if only just. And of course when it robs you of joy you had better believe that it also robs you of opportunity. Any logical path to your hopes and dreams that everyone roundabout you is embarking on isn't destroyed because you just don't have the capacity to breathe let alone function. When you're in survival mode 24-7 your new normal isn't that of your peers it holds you back. There is so much potential missing out there because of these practices and the final thing it robs you of is your voice and I don't just mean figuratively though that is also true I mean quite literally before you know it you're not only speaking quietly if you're even speaking up at all but you're living small constantly cautious when it when it really matters just in case you run out you run the risk of having to muster what little fight you may or may not have left in you and who knows when you'll need those reserves next and frankly I'm done I'm done with being voiceless I want my voice back I want to see my potential fully realised like it always should have been and to grasp opportunities with the fullness of joy without living in fear that I'm only destined to live small and of course I would love nothing more than to love firstly myself unreservedly and secondly others unashamedly and trust me this bill should it pass won't just make a difference to my life or the lives of the other survivors represented throughout this whole process but generations of LGBTQ plus people to come in Scotland and I really hope one day soon across the UK and the rest of the world now it is a fact that conversion practices result in psychological harm to the victim within our report we have made it absolutely clear that alongside criminal measures and within civil measures survival survivor support measures are essential these should be holistic person centred and trauma informed therapeutic professionals must be specialists and crucially informed by those with lived experience support must be free and available across Scotland to anyone who needs it mental health services religious bodies services for children and young people and other professional bodies must to be supported to provide appropriate services with emergency support services for survivors available where necessary medical institutions must be true trauma informed and of course create a safe space for survivors they must encourage trust and provide choice for survivors by providing clear and consistent information as well as options for treatment and care they must work with and empower survivors whilst taking into account and respecting all aspects of a person's life experience and identity with regards to civil and legislative measures the group recommends that any person including victims and potential victims are able to report conversion practices and that an investigation can then follow removing the onus from survivors onto a public body a wide range of options to enforce change should be available and could include targeted education written notice from the perpetrator agreeing to cease the practice a compulsory notice from the authority or a voluntary written agreement agreed by all parties involved I look forward to conversation with the committee on why this is important and on what principles and recommendations we included within our report to ensure the autonomy of survivors and potential victims thank you thanks very much Richie I have now hear from Paul please thank you thank you very much my name is Paul Behrens I'm a teacher international not at the University of Edinburgh and I do research among other things into LGBT rights but my access point to conversion practices is more from the field of comparative criminal law so I looked at various jurisdictions that have already enacted laws on conversion practices Malta and Victoria you've heard of Germany Ireland is preparing a bill and so forth I just want to say a few words about why it is necessary to have a law in the first place of conversion practices we always take the reasons for granted but they are actually quite useful later on because they inform our view of the details of the proposed legislation and there are at least I think three points that can be identified one of them is that there is a societal dimension to that Richie has just referred to the fact that we is the expert advisory group called this conversion practices not conversion therapy but they are still offered under the name of therapy and society as a whole has a legitimate interest in the the fact that practices that are offered with the appearance that they are based on a medical basis are really based on a scientific basis and that is clearly not the case when we are talking about conversion practices there are other points that filter into that for instance the reputation of the health care profession the trust of the public in the medical profession and so forth the second point is the question the fact that conversion practices also sent out inevitably a discriminatory message about the LGBT community and that too is something that is often not discussed in much detail but it is helpful to look at the realities of that thing it is not just the fact that the providers of conversion practices sent out a message that is homophobic and transphobic and bifobic that would be bad enough the independent expert has referred to the fact that conversion practices sent out the implied message that LGBT people fall short of a particular standard that the perpetrator seem to see that that would be bad enough by itself but they go a step further they are engaging in active efforts to remove all of the features that characterize LGBT persons as such in other words far from saying far from appreciating that the LGBT community has an important role to play in society is an important member of society they are saying it would be better if LGBT people did not exist and that is the heinous the offensive nature of the message about conversion practices and the third point it should be the first point is really of course the interests of the victims the direct victims that are affected by that and here too it is quite helpful to look at the realities of the situation conversion practices are hardly ever I would think offered to you know say a 50 year old guy who lives for has lived for 30 years happily with the same sex partner they're offered to young people they're offered to children in 2019 global survey has found out that it's staggering 80% more than 80% of those who participated in the survey and who had to undergo conversion practices where people under the age of 25 years so these are people at a very vulnerable stage of their development and of course there are human rights that come into play at that stage as well everybody has the right to a sex to their own sexual orientation to their own gender identity these are rights that correspond to long settled case law in the european court of human rights where children are concerned additional rights come into play the right to their own emerging autonomy the right to live a childhood free of abuses but I'm happy to say a bit more about that if that comes up later in the questions but it is interesting to note when I'm listening to those who are critical of laws against conversion practices that they tend to refer to their own rights that apparently would give them a basis for carrying out these practices that seems to be a reversal of the perpetrator victim roles really it is not the lesbian gay bisexual transgender people that are causing a problem here they just want to exist it's not the children that are causing a problem they just want to have their free development a right that we accept without any questioning where their sister and where their heterosexual peers are concerned it is the providers of conversion practices that interfere with established rights of the victims and that to a certain degree even say that certain rights are not supposed to exist and it is for that reason that a law against conversion practices is indicated and is necessary okay thanks very much that was a really good summary actually of the issue so thanks hugely for that when this committee obviously we were unanimous in our in our views that the law needed to change when we took the evidence we did but one of the things we were very keen to do is something that richie you mentioned and that was around making sure that as we progressed through the parliamentary process we made sure we weren't re-traumatising people either who are giving evidence or even folk who are watching so it's a really important point that you raised richie do you think we've managed to work away of doing that we've certainly had the bill team and it felt like progress had been made to maybe do this bill just a little bit different but we couldn't hear particularly from richie but also anybody else yeah it's been i mean the fact that you know we were even invited at every stage whether it was you know a year ago i actually first gave evidence to this committee in a private session so to be included in that and then as well throughout this the expert advisory group as well but also along the way you know we've been offered support as well through lgbt health scotland which has been just known as well that that's there should we need it has always been has been reassuring as well and that just goes to show as well the importance within our report and our recommendations why on-going support for survivors and potential victims is important for this because it isn't just that you know like i said that it doesn't just stop when abuse stops but you know i think it's been really good just to add to that you know trauma informed awareness trauma informed practice didn't just sit at the heart of the work of the expert advisory group and the created subgroup of survivors it also sat at the heart of all of the work that we were doing you know ultimately we're talking about abuse we're talking about traumatic life events alongside survivors and alongside experts in human rights and law and lgbt organisations like myself all of us came at it from that trauma informed space that i think really helped and i think it's vital that it continues in that vein and i know that both Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament are very open to that Scottish Government were really helpful when we were working on kind of starting the work of the expert advisory group to set up that extra space for clear from lgbt health to be there as a councillor to make sure that works online you know when when all of these meetings are online people are at home on their own so it was really important that that happened similarly Claire is here today and the Parliament have made allowances for that to work we'll also do a debrief afterwards and stuff and i think that mindset for this work moving forward is really important particularly how it's we know it's going to be covered in the media as everything is at the moment with lgbt rights and to just be cognisant of that that as we move forward towards the bill it's likely that people will be further traumatised and to minimise that if we can okay thank you sorry reflection i think so first of all to be explicit that that support was available at every formal meeting in the expert advisory group from lgbt health and wellbeing um i think richie's reflection that its availability whether it was drawn on or not was a sort was a sort of support that it was there if needed i didn't have to be asked for it was it was sitting and waiting so to speak so i think that was really important for us in establishing the group and i think the other thing i would just reflect on is a lot of the work of the group was highly technical in relation to human rights paul's spoken about that in relation to criminal law uh and so to bring the voice of experience into the group as members of the group as equal members of the group to play a role in that technical element but then also specifically to have time to speak to their own personal experiences felt really important okay thank you muggy chairman so thanks very much and thank you all for for joining us this morning and for your opening statements um richie can i can i say thank you especially to you for sharing your story with us and again i'm i'm really sorry that you've you've been through that but thank you for being here and and helping us understand why this this is so important um i've got two two questions that my first question is around the the definition and we've spoken in this committee before and and it was made clear in in our report that the definition of conversion practices we wanted to draw that as widely as possible and you know issues around consent issues around intention to harm um we're all part of that and i suppose i'm just curious curious you came up that the advisory group came up with a very clear definition of what this is why was it so important to draw it the way to draw it as widely as you did and i suppose within that how do we ensure that something like affirmative care is still okay because i think we will recognise that that's important um becky i don't know if you want to i'll take that question so there's i guess there's a lot to say on the wider definition of what conversion practices are we say that it's any effort a directed directive effort on an individual or group to change suppress or inhibit who they are the reason we use practices there's two reasons one they're not therapeutic we know that they cause significant harm but also we refer to practices because we don't actually know what shape they take across all cultures across all communities you know and to refer to them as anything other than that kind of broad practices would have a danger of missing things out so it's anything that somebody does that intends to change suppress or inhibit somebody's sexual orientation gender identity gender expression or sexual or expression of sexual orientation the reason those last two are there the expression parts is to prevent any loopholes that might allow for encouraging somebody to just suppress who they are be celibate don't express your gender outwardly don't act on your sexual sexual orientation that was really important to include that part in terms of including the lack of ability to consent that has three three aspects to it i guess one we are very aware that in many situations coercive control comes into play they are abusive situations where there are power dynamics depending on the situation that could be family power dynamics it could be community leadership power dynamics but in a lot of cases it's within religious settings where the ultimate power is god and that is a quite significant power dynamic which can lead to coercion you know if somebody is told by their community that they are inherently wrong their sense of self is inherently wrong and they are told that by a figure of authority then that's coercive and it's abusive and so that's the first reason the second is you can't consent without full understanding of what you're putting yourself up for and we can be pretty sure that people are not told hey it doesn't work hey it'll cause your lifetime of psychological damage it will affect the rest of your life negatively people aren't told that so it's not informed consent and thirdly as Victor Madrigal Barlow says the un expert on soji you can't consent to torture and abuse is torture whether that's emotional psychological physical any guise of conversion practices it can amount to torture so that's why that sits there and the last part on affirmative care so affirmative care doesn't fall within the definition of conversion practices quite simply because it doesn't it's non-directive it doesn't set to seek to change somebody it doesn't seek to suppress somebody or inhibit who they are instead it allows for an exploration for within healthcare it refers to an approach that validates and supports the identity and lived experience expressed and stated by an individual as I said it's not directive a healthcare professional will take an unobtrusive role so that free expression is encouraged importantly it also covers providing a safe space for someone to explore their sexual orientation expression or sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression in a safe and non-judgmental way and this is kind of a counterargument to the opinion that is voiced at times that a ban on conversion practice would ban talking about sexual orientation and gender identity this is far from the truth indeed many lgbt plus people need to talk about it and if that's the case we'd encourage that they talk about it as do many who are uncertain of of their sexual orientation agenda identity and as part of this affirmative healthcare affirmative support and supportive pastoral care is also not conversion practices it just allows somebody to openly reflect on where they're at and how they're feeling that's really clear and really helpful and I think really important to outline the different elements of both the the issues with that wide definition and as you say the importance of of enabling and supporting and encouraging affirmative affirmative care if I can if I can ask paul you thank you you I thought how you laid out the sort of societal context of the need for for this kind of legislation really really clear and incisive and you started talking about the the human rights context and I wonder if you could just you offered so I will ask do you want to say a little bit more about about some of the specific issues that are maybe discussed and maybe questioned around potential conflicts potential tensions or or indeed important provisions around particularly younger people in a human rights context that'd be really helpful sure yes yes I'm happy to can I just add a few little point to the question of consent that that Becky had addressed because I very much on what I'm aligned that point that the it can be very difficult to establish the autonomy of the victim and I found it very interesting that in this committee in november last year Pam Duncan Glancy had made that point that you can have internalized stereotypes as well you can grow up with the stereotypes that are actually directed against you and the reality is that our conversion practices are very often carried out by communities in which the victims have been grown up all their lives so that is one of the difficulties the other one is that we're coming back to one of the points that I tried to outline in the opening statement that the discriminatory message against the LGBT community against LGBT people in general has not gone away even by somebody who has given consent even in a situation like that on the question of human rights so I think I've outlined some of the human rights already that exist on the side of the victims and of course Becky has added to that freedom from torture in in cases where that applies is of course a an important right as well the the state might have a duty also to intervene when there's a danger that a person subjected to conversion practices might commit suicide so the right to life has a positive aspect to that duty as well on the other side of the divide I think the right that is most often brought forward by critics of laws against conversion practices is freedom of religion you have heard of that in this committee as well now the first thing that we should say about that is that religion is not a monolithic block we had no fewer than four members representatives of faith communities among the 15 members of our expert advisor group and we know that we have supportive messages from Christianity Judaism Islam Sikh religion from Buddhism as well or supporting a ban on conversion practices the right to freedom of religion is not by itself an absolute right it there are two dimensions so that one of them is the internal dimension as established by the European Court of Human Rights in other words you can believe whatever you want to believe that is not something that the law can interfere with it I would say it is a problem by itself when when we are talking about homophobic and transphobic belief there's a lot that can grow from that but that is outside the reach of the law but it is different when we are talking about the manifestation of the belief that is where an external dimension is entered and there it limitations must be able to come in the state must be able to restrict that I would phrase it like that that you can hold whatever personal belief you want to hold but as soon as you send your beliefs into the marketplace of ideas you must be aware that there are other stall holders there as well and if your belief is that they don't even have the right to exist then the state is perfectly entitled to come in and to say that is not acceptable and we need to regulate the market here so that is where these these limitations come come in in in legal terms you have article nine of the European Convention on Human Rights that talks in the first paragraph about the right that exists and in the second paragraph about the limitations that come in where they are required we feel they are required in this case okay thank you that's really helpful i'll leave it there for now thank you and can Adam please be a convener i want to thank the panel for coming along this morning particularly Richie your witness statement there was extremely powerful and really helpful and i think we can't underestimate the power of lived experience when it comes to making laws and shaping laws so i really thank you for that when we're determining how this can fit in regards to criminal law in Scotland that was something that you had recommended and spoke about how do you see that working in practice when it comes to perhaps parents of children medical professionals and faith leaders so we make recommendations on criminal and civil aspects paul is probably the best to speak to the criminalisation and to speak directly on the kind of suggestions for different leaders if you like who might practice and parents i think an important thing to say is first and foremost the autonomy of the victim comes into play so when somebody reports convert what our idea is that if somebody comport reports a conversion practices that they will be taken seriously that they will be supported they will help to do that report but that doesn't necessarily mean that the perpetrator will be criminalised or that indeed they have carried out anything criminal but that autonomy should come first and foremost there are suggestions and recommendations in the report for what we would like to see in legislation of how people will be penalised for practice and conversion and that's different across the board whether you're a faith leader or a parent or whatever that might be paul's definitely best placed as the lawyer to talk exactly on that we followed in large regards some of the laws that already exist in jurisdictions around the world so these points that we outlined in our recommendations on offering on carrying out conversion practices referring a person to conversion practices to somebody who carries them out also the removal of a person from scotland to another jurisdiction all of these you can find in various jurisdictions around the world malta victoria germany island and the the irish bonus well i can give you further references if you're interested in that so that that that by itself is is nothing new apart from from perhaps certain aspects like the the question of an aggravated crime where children for instance are concerned as victims of the crime but there too we have a precedent in scotland we have the domestic abuse act that independently from us incidentally came to the same solution that children should be considered in a particularly protected position there you mentioned the question of parents rights and i think it might be useful to say a word or two about that as well rebecca was quite right the it is the autonomy of the victims that is really it is like a golden threat that goes through our report and we listen to the victims very carefully and to their uh to their concerns there and uh it it is to and we acknowledge that that there are very many different ways of in which conversion practices can be carried out there may be situations in which parents are not even aware that what they are doing amounts to conversion practices and are not aware of the consequences for the children that is why education is so such a very important part in our recommendations and we also listen to the victims where the question of criminal prosecution is concerned i would phrase it a bit differently from from becky i would not say that that it's not criminal and that conversion practices are not criminal in substituations but that criminalisation does not necessarily mean criminal prosecution that is why we offer a whole range of options below that level that are particularly helpful when victims are still in a relationship with the perpetrators and want to continue that relationship with the persons that have carried out conversion practices so for instance targeted education can be given to the providers of conversion practices a kind of arbitration procedure can come in with the help of the commission that we are suggesting a written undertaking can be taken from the provider of conversion practices that they would no longer engage in these practices having said that we have also heard from survivors who were subjected over years and years to what can only be described as psychological terror by their parents by people who were supposed to take the best interests of their children at heart and instead put the particular belief system above the free development of the children and in those situations i think it cannot be right for the state to say stay stay aside and to say this is still a situation where we are dealing with parents that are fit for for the job of bringing up the children in that particular way just to add to that i mean one very clear thing is if a child is being abused we would hope people would want to step in and in many cases conversion practices does amount to that but i also wanted to add the importance of offering those options for for people who are within communities we don't want to put them at risk by automatically at being criminal prosecution this is why it's so important that it comes from the autonomy of the victim because we heard a lot from from survivors both at the expert advisory group and they lead up to that in other work that quite often their parents or their or their church members or their family members or whatever meant no harm and they meant to do what they saw as good and to do the right thing and to protect people but that doesn't mean it's not wrong and that doesn't mean it's not harmful so that's one reason why these options are really important to keep communities together to keep people able to stay within their their communities and help to help people through that but it's also important in terms of minority ethnic and marginalised communities where there has been historic criminalisation of of communities and we heard very clearly that that is not what people need they need conversations they need awareness raising they need support and they need to not be put at risk of complete isolation from their religious or faith community based on reporting and that is so important that victims and survivors are not put at further risk by not providing those options that are non-criminal I touched on the idea of the intent to cause harm there but I might if that's of interest I'll pass it back to you that's really helpful thank you I was just I wanted to add on to this question really you spoke Dr Crowder earlier about you know how we're still very much in a in a society where cisgendered heteronormative is the default seen as the default setting for a human being and it's quite hard to to break through that narrative for people and Richard you spoke about that ripple effects throughout society it doesn't just harm the individual it harms whole society if this was to come into practice as a criminal offence would this be helpful in regards to changing those kinds of mindsets in society and have good positive effects absolutely of course as you know if we have in legislation that it is wrong to do those things and that being LGBTI plus is a perfectly healthy beautiful diverse way to be and is celebrated and to try to squash that is wrong and illegal of course that would have a positive effect in the same way as bringing in inclusive education in the same way as bringing in equal marriage it's a clear message of acceptance and understanding of the diversity of humanity you know in no circumstances should somebody be suppressed or inhibited or forced to change who they are when it's an inherent part of them so I think for all LGBTI plus people seeing that seeing the Scottish government and parliament making a commitment to that and not only that but seeking to get it right for every person meaning work within communities work within diverse communities marginalised communities communities of colour faith communities seeing that effort to not only do it but to do it right and ensure that everybody is actually helped by that legislation rather than potentially harmed is extremely powerful yeah just that as well I think this is why it's so important we we do have you know we're not just here we don't just want to criminalise this like that's why we have all the recommendations for the civil measures as well because ultimately you know as a person with lived experience of this you know I'm not I'm not just interested in seeing people criminalise for this I want it to end and the only way that's going to happen is if we all work together and you know and whether that's through education but you know we need to see like a culture shift there across whether it's religious settings or you know healthcare community like anything like that yeah I guess that ultimate goal is to to end it and so that it's it is consign to history and it's you know we don't need to criminalise people anymore for it because it just doesn't exist and I'm confident that we can get there so just to add to that and I'm sure you're all very aware um but the realities in life for LGBT plus people at the moment um rhetoric around LGBT identities and orientations um who we are what we do uh how we should be protected whether they were equal whether we deserve human rights um a kick back against that is very much on the rise um you know you see it in social media you see it in the mainstream media and so it's it's not like conversion ideology or anti-LGBT ideology is something of the past it's very much here and it's getting worse so we need it you know there are still people being subjected to these practices and it will get worse if nothing's done about it so that's important because I think the question was also about the does does the law help to address the problems that we have and I very much agree with with Becky and Richie on that that we we hope and believe that the law will do that and there are things that we can do at the level of the law of the drafting of the law to ensure that that happens to have a particularly clear law with clear definitions and so forth but the important thing is that the message is brought across and in criminal law we have this ongoing discussion of whether the law still fulfills its communicative function as it were that is why we are including the recommendations and recommendation 12 also an awareness raising recommendation the recommendation to raise awareness of the law to give publicity to the law and ultimately points of wider education come into fit into this point as well yeah and that has to have diverse messaging you know that publicity needs to reach everywhere it needs to reach not just you know the usual suspects not those that are already on board but deeper than that because this is quite insidious it's really helpful thank you thank you and Pam Gossel please thank you convener and thank you for your opening statements and the briefings you've provided and especially thank you to Richie for sharing his story. My question is around in the briefing and today Nick you mentioned the expert advisory group included a diverse group of individuals from a range of faith and belief organisations and communities mental health professionals and legal professionals can you tell the committee whether you felt there were any gaps in the expertise and whether there were any areas of conflict or even disagreement and if so what were they and how did you reach a consensus? Thanks very much I think the makeup of the group the size of the group reflects the importance that the government placed on ensuring that diversity of perspective and ensuring that those range of expertise is that you've just described and I set out in the opening statement was present so I think the short answer is yes I think we did have the necessary expertise. I think in addition the additional work with irish ethnic faith communities and communities of colour that was taken forward Becky was one of the members who took that forward with Crip Al Bula another one of the members that was an extension to the work very much a reflection within the work of the group an identification of the need for that work so that was an extension in a sense within the the terms of reference to the group to do that work and to bring it back in so the whole group was able to hear the results of that towards the latter stages of the of the expert advisory group in terms of differences not really I would say I as chair was very certainly very keen that we were able I hoped to reflect a consensus in the final report but that if there wasn't a consensus then we would want to reflect where there was some disagreement so the fact that the report doesn't reflect that is a demonstration of the excuse me of the clear sense of the collective view of the expert advisory group. Quite quickly into the process I think very soon after being invited to be part of the expert advisory group we decided that we wanted to have a few more voices heard so we actually set out two subgroups one was a survivor subgroup which Richie led on which allowed I think we have 14 survivors on that group some of whom had given oral evidence before some of whom had heard of the work now that it was a bit more out there in public some had started to feel a little like they needed some support because it was in the media and things were happening and that can be re-traumatising so that group was set up to not only hear wider diversity of voices and what practices they experienced and where and kind of feed into the group in that way also provided a space of support for for those people we also pushed for the creation of the additional subgroup to the expert advisory group to specifically look at the experiences of LGBT people from minority ethnic faith groups and communities color. I and Pritpal from Sarbat Seeks took a lead in establishing this and in facilitating stakeholder engagement here and also I wrote the secondary report on these issues so we as a group we took it upon ourselves to write an entirely separate report specifically looking at the experiences of minority ethnic groups and faith groups. We did this because we recognised that there was a lack of wide representation on the expert advisory group though we should note that there were members who did diversified demographics here including Reverend G. D. Macaulay from the House of Rainbow who is an expert in the faith experiences of LGBT people of color in the UK. Pritpal Bullar from the Sarbat Seeks speaking mostly on the experiences of South Asian LGBT people in the UK although Sarbat Seeks is a Sikh organisation they also have many people from other South Asian faiths and offer support to a lot of people who have experienced conversion practices and we are also aware that the initial oral evidence session that you had there was evidence given from a Muslim LGBT person of their experiences. As part of this additional work we took evidence from stakeholders and gathered evidence via a literature review quite I would think quite a reasonable literature review considering the time looking at the experiences of Muslim people, Sikh, South Asian and Jewish people, people of color including survivors. For this we worked with the Nazan Mat Foundation who support Muslim LGBT people, Shakti women's aids from right here which is mostly South Asian women and they have experience in female genital mutilation, honour abuse and forced marriage also working in legislation around that and have a very strong understanding of how these kind of practices can happen. Keshet which is a Jewish LGBT persons organisation Sarbat Seeks as I have said and Circular 3 which is an organisation from down south who is specifically trying to represent the voices of Black and people of colour living in the UK experiencing conversion. From them it was very important to engage with them because we are not just talking about faith cultures we are talking about cultures and from Patrick work we know that there are cultures within the black community that perpetuate a conversion ideology so this was really important. We used extensive evidence from the honour abuse matrix in former thinking. Harm is a multidisciplinary research network focused on so called honour based abuse, violence and killing, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and other under research and often misunderstood forms of domestic abuse. Conversion practices is seen as honour abuse in those situations and can lead to forced marriage and is considered a form of coercive abuse here. We also looked at the expertise of academics who work highlights the specific needs of LGBT people from minority ethnic and minority faith communities, those who have the authority to speak on those experiences. It is important here to note that they simply cannot speak about this and many people in these communities cannot speak on that subject because it would put them at such risk. Finding individuals in order to have a diverse representation is extremely hard and will continue to be so until legislation comes into place. We have done really well to represent as many as we have been able to hear. It was important here to hear from LGBT people of diverse faith those which the bill would actually affect and, more important, protect, where clearer picture in the shape that practices take and the effect of which they have had on those communities. Since we finished our work, I have also been aiding Tara on the bill team to find further voices to speak here as we progress towards their consultation. This is not a matter for finding more people to talk on whether or not conversion practices should be banned and should be ended. It is about giving more LGBT people from diverse faiths a chance to speak about their experiences and how the bill can be shaped. We do not want to give further platform to people who want to continue abuse, so that is not the plan. It is to hear from more LGBT people of faith. Through research conducted by the group, it is clear that there are feelings of apprehension around reporting of conversion practices in ethnic minority communities who have experienced historical prejudice and discrimination within the criminal justice system. The majority of conversion practices happen within domestic settings in those communities, so there needs to be visible support. As we have said, that is intersectional and culturally competent. That was one of the most important things that came out. That is a problem across the board for LGBT people. Competent mental health support, et cetera, is hard to find, but for people of colour and minority ethnic people who are LGBT, it is even harder. Those services need to understand the structures and governance in diverse faith institutions and the significance and potential danger of the abuse of honour and shame within those communities. It is well established that this is a human rights issue, as Paul has said. All LGBT people and freedom of religion expression is not challenged in ending them. Going back to what you just said, you said that sometimes it is difficult conversations with certain religious groups. We heard concerns throughout the previous evidence session that the ban would restrict religious freedoms. I want to just tap on a little bit on that. You have mentioned many organisations that I have heard of. They are all organisations, which are absolutely very worthy and do a great job. However, I did not hear any faith organisations from the Jewish, Muslim or Sikh organisations. How is that for you to reach out to them? What I am trying to get at here is what Richie said earlier on. It is not about punishing people here. We need to educate people. I know that those faith groups come from a Sikh background. There is much education needed so that people can start accepting that this is normality. Those people are around and we all live together. That is the way it should be. It is just educating them a little bit more. You need to reach into them to educate them so that they allow your voice to be heard in their faith groups. I think that there are a few things there. First, in terms of working within communities to raise awareness and to educate and to support, that happens after the bill and after, hopefully, that those measures are factored into the writing of the bill. That is one thing and we really hope that that does happen. In terms of faith communities being heard, of course, that went to consultation as a petition. That was open to anybody to respond. There was a significant number from faith communities that responded. Of course, there will be another consultation on the content of the bill. That is not for me to comment on. In terms of representation on the expert advisory group and making sure that those voices were heard, our number one priority is LGBT people of faith. If they are not LGBT people, that bill does not affect them. In terms of religious freedom, as Paula said, religious freedom and freedom of expression are not absolute rights. If they harm others, that is where there is a crossover. Religious people, regardless of what faith they are from, whether they are Muslim, Sikh or Hindu, are still free to believe whatever they would like to talk about, but they should not be free to directly subject others to practices that intend to change who they are. A simple way to answer that question is that everybody is open to and able to respond to the consultation. We hope that people do and have their voices heard in terms of the work of the expert advisory group. Our primary aim was to gather the understanding and experiences of those who support LGBT people and those who those practices could harm. I think that that will remain the case. Thank you, Dr Rebecca. I really look forward to, when the bill goes through, that education piece goes out because there is no use listening to people's lived experiences and punishing those who have done wrong if we cannot educate. That is very important, and that is an area. I know that you have mentioned it, but it is very important. Mostly speaking to Shack the Women's Aid of the Nazan Mat Foundation, it is absolutely vital that the civil measures come in. Otherwise, it is just not going to work. We have said that from the very beginning. If you only legislate and you only criminalise and do not do any of that other work, you may as well not, because it will just put people in certain communities at further risk, because the base-level work has not been done. We cannot forget that victims of those practices in many cases still have faith or they are still grappling with it. It is certainly from my point of view that it is not a them versus us sort of thing. It is about educating and working together. It is in everybody's best interests for that to coincide. Most of the people in the expert advisory group and on the survivor groups who have experienced conversion practices are still of faith. They are not just Christian faith or denominations of Christian faith. There is a real wide representation there. Of course, people should be supported to maintain their faith if that is what they want to do and be within their community. Thank you very much. Thank you, convener, and good morning. Thank you for everything that you have shared so far, particularly to Richard for your testimony. It is much appreciated. I can imagine that it must be very difficult to do that, especially timing again. I just want to pick up on part of the discussion that we have just had and then I have a couple of other questions, if that is okay, convener. As we have already discussed the importance of education after the bill as one of the kind of non-legislative measures, it will be absolutely essential. I also think that we do need to reach into various different communities before the bill, given the context that some of you have mentioned already around LGBT people's rights and the push-back that there is. I hope that there is room to do that so that we can try our best to take people with us. Do you agree that that would be quite important? Obviously, we are not going back to the drawing board. As I said, I will continue to work with the Scottish Government and Tara, who is leading on the bill, to make sure that that work is done as best as it can be. We are talking about a really tight timeframe, the consultation that I believe is opening early next year. However, I am aware and maybe Nick can speak more on this, that the Scottish Government is already doing some of that work. For example, I gave Tara a list and put her in contact with many different faith leaders, community leaders and people who have influence within certain communities so that she might be able to get in touch and start those conversations ahead of the consultation. I probably should not name them here, but we are talking about people that are very considered highly within the Muslim community, within the Sikh community, within the Christian denominations across the board on religions. I think that that is where there is a big concern. As far as I know, the Scottish Government will be doing that work. I do not want to stray too far from the expert advisory group, but we are still up to 12 months from the introduction of any bill. Over that period, I planned for more public consultation and engagement. As Rebecca mentioned, there is already engagement between the policy and bill teams with a range of organisations as part of that policy development process. You will have the formality of the public consultation and some very proactive engagement through that process. There is a lot of time and a lot of work still to be done in which that kind of engagement that you are highlighting will very much be to the fore. I appreciate that. The questions that I had ahead of hearing some of the conversation. In your view, does the Scottish Government have the power under devolved legislation to deliver the full and comprehensive ban that is needed? Partly because it falls within health measures, but the Scottish Government itself has made clear that when it came to gender recognition that that, for instance, would be a matter that would fall squarely within its competences. When other members mentioned that, there are other examples to be drawn from existing legislation around domestic abuse, forced marriage and so on, where some direct analogy can be drawn between that. Obviously, that is a distinct set of practices, but there are definite analogies and similarities that can be drawn on there. I would not want to give a blanket statement, but the Government's intention absolutely is to work to the maximum of its competencies in this space. On the point that Dr Berins mentioned about gender identity, I know some of the comments from the UK Government around a ban on conversion practices only covering sexual orientation, and not gender identity saying that that would be too complicated at this time. I think that that is a really important point because that is where we probably see divergences between the Scottish situation and the situation and Westminster, but it is quite strange to see these divergences because from a human rights point of view it has been clear for more than 20 years now that gender identity is as well protected as sexual orientation, both protected under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights going back to the Christine Goodwin case to other cases, reaching back even before 2002. When you look at laws around the world on conversion practices, and especially the laws of Europe and Victoria Australia, that does not even seem to be a matter that comes up making the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity. Of course, gender identity is embraced by those laws as well, so I do not see any reason to make that artificial differentiation here. We also know that in the UK and in Scotland trans people are as likely, if not more likely, to experience conversion practices, and ultimately both gender identity and sexual orientation are inherent in who you are, and it can be changed. The idea to protect one group over another from essentially the same thing that comes from the same ideologies, that comes from the same place of anti-LGBT conversion ideology, the idea that we are all cis and heteronormative, the push towards conversion practices comes from the same place, whether it is gender identity or sexual orientation, and it is abuse. I think that I would just add that as somebody who has been through this, I should not be any more protected than a trans person should be. The experience and the lifelong psychological damage and trauma is damaging for everybody. It would not sit comfortably for me as a cis white gay man that I would be more protected than a trans person who is more likely to experience it as well. I am not worth any more than any of these other people who experience it. That is an important point to be made. Becky touched upon that on the question of vulnerability especially of trans children. We have had evidence, we are aware of cases where trans children suffered greatly under being misunderstood, under being misgendered as well by their parents. There was one famous case that made it to the High Court where a boy who had been consistently transgendered by his parents for years had on two occasions tried to commit suicide. We are talking about very grave situations there that can cause considerable harm to the children. We should probably add before that is misinterpreted somewhere that to misgender somebody we would not say is necessarily conversion practices, but to accumulatively belittle and undermine and demean who somebody is over a period of time can amount to significant harm, as Paul is referring to. We thought quite a lot about accumulative practices and how that might amount to crossing a threshold into conversion, although we do not suggest a threshold. A lot depends on the context of the words that are said, the practices that are carried out, because our question is always does that constitute an effort, for instance, to suppress the gender identity of a person? If it is, then it does fall on the conversion practices, as we have defined it. Good morning to the panel and to my colleagues from Sunny, but very cold to Colbridge. I have a question for yourself, but first I just wanted to say what other colleagues have said. Thank you very much for the evidence so far, particularly yourself, Richard Edwards. I know it must be difficult to talk about your experience again, but I want to put on record my thanks for you doing that, because you continue to do it and in the hope that it will help others. I will put on record my thanks again, as other colleagues have done. My question is a bit about one of the recommendations that comes from the commission, and it is about a commission, whether it is a single commission or another body, given specific responsibility. I think that that comes out of a model in Victoria and Australia that we did hear from. How do you think that that can be undertaken by an existing body, or do you think that it will need to be a new body that is created in what powers and responsibilities you think that it should have? As I said, that is probably fair, Nick. Thank you very much. That is a very good, very interesting question, because that is also a question that we had discussed within the expert advisory group. There is an attempt to say that there are certain bodies that already exist in Scotland that could take on some of these functions. You are right, we were largely inspired by the law of Victoria, where the commission was concerned. We took inspiration from other laws, where other areas of our report were concerned, and in Victoria the functions were simply all given to the Human Rights and Equality Commission there. There are a range of bodies that we had discussed without coming to a conclusion on that, but the Scottish Human Rights Commission would be an obvious candidate for taking on some of the functions. We have talked, I think, about the children's ombudsman at some stage as well. I have not heard of a persuasive argument telling me that the Scottish Human Rights Commission could not take on the functions, but there may be certain conditions that have to be fulfilled. For instance, the Human Rights Commission itself would have to agree to taking over additional functions. There are different views held, but there are different views on whether it makes sense to give all the functions to one particular body or to leave them to perhaps already existing bodies, which has the advantage that it might be easier to structurally easier to deal with this particular recommendation. There are, however, some disadvantages that I think we have outlined in the report as well to scattering the functions all over various authorities. One of them is more of an organic question, i.e., we want to avoid duplication of work. It may be useful to have two related functions in the same hands, so it might not make much sense to perhaps have a body sitting at Aberdeen that is dealing with research and a body that is stay dealing in sitting in Glasgow dealing with the creation of outreach and education programmes, because the two functions are very closely linked. That is one thing. The other point is from the point of view of the victims. I think it is quite important to have a clear guidance as to whom they can access if they want to complain about conversion practices, if they want to stop conversion practices from happening, and that too can weigh on the consideration as to whether that should be given or given to one body that probably makes it easier to identify that body or whether the function should be distributed across the board. Again, I am not necessarily speaking on behalf of the group. If I put forward my own position, there are different positions that can be held on that particular question. To add to that, the recommendations from the group did call for the hope of our commission to carry out the functions, but it recognises that, as long as the functions are carried out, the work can still be done. Some of those functions would fall outside of any commission or on any public body or legal body because they lie within grassroots community organisations. Partly to do with the work that we were talking about before of specialist support organisations, LGBTI organisations but also support organisations that work with specific faith communities and communities of colour. Some of that would fall on them and it would be imperative that there is capacity given there. When I say capacity, I mean support and funding, so that it is made clear that those people can continue to do the good work that they are already doing within communities in order to make that work. Without grassroots organisations that have that kind of tap into communities, there is no body that could do that specific work, but that is just one of the functions. Fulton Scott. Thank you very much for that. I suppose that for a lot of questions, there was also a range of civil measures proposed, and that includes outreach education programmes, survivor support measures and a commission undertaking investigations. Do you think that there are any specific measures that could be put in place without requiring any legislative changes? Papi, for everything. The starting point sounds very technical, but since we are asking the Scottish Government to implement recommendations, technically there ought to be a legal basis for everything that they are doing, but that does not mean that all of the functions need to be carried out by the Scottish Government itself or by state authorities. I can perhaps refer to two examples in that field. One would be the academic project that we had also recommended, whose purpose it would be to evaluate the existing laws against conversion practices in other countries, also to engage with stakeholders in various countries and with legislators, which may be able to fulfil functions that the Scottish Government might find more difficult to fulfil, for instance, being critical about the laws abroad and saying what does not work very well, what are the weaknesses of particular reports. That would be an academic led project rather than something carried out by state authorities. The other point, obviously, is the question of education and outreach programmes, which would very much involve people in the communities, people from faith organisations, people from medical organisations as well, so private parties that would play an important role here apart from state authorities. Representing the expert advisory group, I would say that we do believe that legislation needs to come first, because, as we have said before, that message needs to be very clear. This is wrong. This is harmful. In fact, this is potentially criminal. There is a lot of conversation in the group about how we could ensure then that the civil measures or the non-legal measures, the support, the awareness-raising, the academic project and things happen, whether that means that they need to be named in legislation, which is contentious, or whether there needs to be some kind of formal commitment to build on the capacity to do that work. However, they go hand in hand, and they have to. Okay, thank you. I think that that ends our question, so thanks hugely for that. It now is up to the committee to decide what to do with the petition. Given that the Government is committed to bringing forward legislation in a relatively quick time, I would suggest that we should close the petition. Is that agreeable to members? Okay, so the committee therefore agrees to close the petition under rule 15.7 of standing orders on the basis that the Scottish Government has committed to bringing forward legislation on the matter. Again, a huge thank you to all four of you for a really informative session. We look forward to continuing to work with the Government as the bill moves forward at a pace. So thanks very much again and we nice to spend for about 15 minutes. Okay, welcome back and our next agenda item is to hear more about the petition on Macaton sign language. The petition was kept open by our predecessor committee and included in its legacy paper for us to consider, so I welcome to the meeting Sandra Docherty, the petitioner, who is accompanied by David Bain. So you're both very welcome. Can I please invite Sandra to speak to the petition? Sandra, over to you. Thank you very much. Morning everybody. I'll just start with what we've written down on paper. Please excuse my nervousness. Macaton started over 40 years ago and it was created by Margaret Walker. She's now MBE. She's a trained speech therapist and she founded this Macaton sign in back in 1970s. Little did Margaret know and think that it would become such a widely known, well-known all over the UK by children and adults with severe communication and learning disabilities at home, at schools, at colleges and within the community and at work. No-one thought that it could or would be used in 40 countries from Kuwait to Japan, from France to India. How did Margaret come up with this idea of Macaton? In 1968, Margaret was working in a large hospital south of England, Botley Park. It wasn't a hospital for people who were medically sick. It was for children who and adults who were severely disabled. Though there were 1,100 adults and children within there, they were all classified as patients. It was a huge institution for children and learning with disabilities. Expectations on these patients was low. They didn't expect them to be able to communicate and they didn't think they had anything beneficial coming out of them. So no education and social interaction activities were on a very low level. The staff only communicated with patients with speech, so many patients couldn't even express how they thought their feelings which led to frustration. This was brought to Margaret's attention one day when working with one of her boys. He turned round at an bitter unarm through frustration. She decided that she wanted to lead it forward and start doing an assessment on all the people within Botley Park. That was 1,100 people. To get a better understanding on the communication problems, and this had never been done before, Margaret discovered that 60 per cent had severe communication problems, 50 per cent had little or no speech, some had additional problems, hearing impairments, visual impairments, physical disability or autism. As a speech therapist student, Margaret could sign British Sign Language. Margaret all had worked with profoundly deaf children, so she knew the iconic and important of many basic signs that were for everyday life experiences. Margaret wondered if adding signs from BSL using just the keywords in speech might help a patient understand, for example, do you want a drink and signing you and drink being you drink. Margaret went on to create a vocabulary of signs that would reflect on patients' everyday lives. Margaret spent six months talking to staff, talking to patients and patients attempting to respond. Margaret ended up with thousands of pages of results that she had to give to her students, and she was able to communicate with them and patients attempting to respond. Margaret ended up with thousands of pages of results that gave her around 350 consonants, ranging from simple ones, you, me, eat, sleep, good, bad, to more difficult ones, to think, to understand, to ask why and because. Linguiskrits confirmed that there is a pattern in every spoken language, and it is a smaller range of vocabulary of essential consonants called a threshold or a corva vocabulary, which was put in the Oxford Dictionary. In 1976, Margaret held the first ever Macaton workshop for 40 people. The workshop was a huge instant success. A book with pictures of signs of hands and arrows was created. Some more workshops quickly followed to the response of the growing interest all over the UK. Margaret established a charity trust, and it was originally called Macaton Vocabulary Development Project, which later became the Macaton charity. Following the original success from signing, Margaret noticed that some patients with severe physical disability were unable to make the signs and clearly express themselves. What they needed was a symbol system to match the words and the signs in the core vocabulary. That was another huge task for Margaret. It took about five years to research and design symbols for dramatic elements such as sounds, verbs, prepositions, etc. Macaton signs are now an integration part of the Macaton language programme. Thankfully, in the 70s, 80s, 90s, attitudes changed, and institutions such as Wosley Park began to close. The patients were recognised as children and adults, entitled to have normal lives in the community like the rest of us. With the help of others, they produced a large resource vocabulary library of additional signs and symbols that arranged run topics that would be used as core vocabulary. It is a present and at present we have over 7,500 consonants in the Macaton resource vocabulary. It seemed that Margaret had unintentionally produced a threshold core vocabulary and that made the core. The Macaton core vocabulary broadening experience through the staged approach, as no-one had tried speech before with these patients. Margaret needed to know could they learn and how many? Would they be able to use the signs to communicate with others? Margaret started her research evaluation in 1972 and lasted nine months. Margaret found that the patients could learn the signs. 50 per cent of the group learned 90 per cent of the signs, but even those with lower scores learned about 60 per cent of the signs. Margaret also found that some were tempting to sign to each other, which would be a huge improvement on their life and understanding. It was most noticeable that all the patients became more alert, attentive and more sociable and were, to our surprise, some patients tried speech. Something never expected. Soon after this, Margaret repeated the same evaluation with school children aged between the ages of three and seven. They all had similar disabilities as the adults. The main difference was that they were living at home and in the community and not in an institution. The results showed similar positive outcomes, but extra vocabulary was needed to cover community life. Margaret enlarged the core vocabulary and called it Macaton. The name simply is made up for MA, Margaret, KA, Cathy and Tom for Tony. Cathy and Tony were two BSL signers who were working along MA. Macaton was pronounced as Macaton, but now it is Macaton, is how it is said nowadays. It has also entered full mainstream. Also professionals working in mainstream education and training began to see the potential of using Macaton signs and symbols for development of literacy and number skills. The creation of Macaton had been very challenging and the work for Margaret, Cathy and Tony. However, what must have been an incredible experience and so rewarding to see how it can change the lives of users and their families, carers, professionals, personally for myself as my sister signs Macaton. She amazes me every day. She uses Macaton signs every day, polite ones, and that a few that she has created herself are not quite so polite, but they are still her signs and she still does it. She is amazing. It is amazing to see how others have expanded on Margaret Walker's work on ways that Margaret would never have thought it could have gone this way. With new exciting resources, it is different from smile with baby to Macaton nursery rhymes and to the BBC award-winning children's series called something special. Using Macaton signs and symbols on YouTube, Macaton, Carpark, karaoke, Macaton topics, feelings, emotions and also YouTube, along with other many more, using signs, symbols, speech and connections on the computer to see different things. Margaret has said that she felt that she was privileged to work with professionals in many different countries, adapting British Macaton programme to different cultures and providing essential training. Now tens of thousands of people have been trained to use Macaton language programme through the network of tutors and finally, Margaret is grateful for the commitment and the interest in people who gave the same hopes to improve the lives and chances with opportunities, with disabilities from all over the world. So much Sandra, that has been really good. If we were to stop now and do nothing more on this petition, you have already achieved a significant raising of awareness in this place and probably a wider field as well. So thanks for that because I do think that it is really important. I will go around and ask a few questions. The petition specifically talked about the use of Macaton in the legal system, so I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about that and maybe whether you think that actually if we are going to look at this we should look at it in a wider than just legal. We are the civil justice committee but we are also the equality of human rights committee, so we span all of that area. That is the history of Macaton and how it started and there is no doubt about it. It has benefited so many people through the years but there is a problem with people who sign Macaton. There are four things that are always required for anything in life, who, what, where and when. People that are signing Macaton might not be able to do where and when but they might be able to do who and what. If there is a situation that was to arise where police were involved, the police need the information who, what, where, when. Personally, from my sister's side of the things, my sister can tell you who, my sister can tell you what, where and when she's not got the capacity and that isn't just for one person, my sister. This is going to affect thousands of people all around the UK and even if we go further afield and into Europe. If these people can't get these two bits of information out, it's great as the police are and they are supportive, they understand it and they can only go so far into checking what's going on but they can't take it to any level of criminal because they've not got the four things that they need. They can look into it and I've spoke to quite a few different police officers and have gone, we can't take this any further, we don't have the where, we don't have the when. That's what we need and that's where Macaton is not really able to push it forward because of how the justice system sits at the moment. I don't know how to change the justice system, I don't know what kind of law or if it's a change in the word or it's something that needs to be looked at and hopefully get changed for people with disability that use Macaton because it's people who sign BSL, they are a lot more capable in signing and communication. Macaton is very much so, a lot easier, it's a lot simpler and as I said it's a case of using words that a GU want to drink and there's no extra signing from the BSL that would be involved in that. It is a situation where I think and I believe that Macaton should be helped and the legal system should be made aware of people who have used Macaton and don't have the capacity to do the where and when or whatever else is involved. So I guess one of the questions would be whether someone who is able to communicate using Macaton, how often do they come across people in the legal system or elsewhere who can understand and communicate back in Macaton and whether that's something that we'd want to be looking at too to make sure that whatever information someone's had, even whether it's saying I want a glass of water before I go any further, being able to communicate that and have it understood and a response back? As regards to the police I mean they would have to get somebody, a specialist done, which takes time and within the police and the structure out of it is and getting interpreters in to actually do it, it also you have to have the person who uses Macaton has got to make a connection with that person because if that person doesn't know the sign person, it doesn't matter how good they are and how kind they are to them, they won't be feeling apprehensive and they'll find it harder to probably get the information over because anybody who has no problems when you go in and get the information, you can feel a bit tense, feel nervous like myself this now and it can be difficult to deal with it but when you've got disability and incapacity thrown in there as well, it is a lot harder for that person and it would be nice to see that there's hundreds of thousands of people all around the UK that probably got this situation going on right now unfortunately and it would be nice to be able to know that the legal justice system is going to cover the Macaton side of things and help it get into the court. Okay, thank you. Fulton MacGregor, please. Thank you very much for your presentation. I found it very interesting and helpful in giving me the history of Macaton and you apologised a couple of times to the committee today during your presentation. I think that you absolutely no need to. It was a very clear and concise history you gave, so I want to thank you for that. Just following on from the convener's line of questioning, which was around about how it fits into the legal system and you've spoken a bit about the police, do you have any not data, I wouldn't expect you to have that, but any information about how often Macaton is used in court settings, either civil or criminal? Is it something that you've heard of or have people requested that Macaton be used in court settings and is this made available to them if it is? Macaton is not the legal system, they know that Macaton and signing BSL is a lot more forward to going than Macaton. The problem with Macaton is that it's a case of it's very basic and if you've got somebody who signs Macaton, they have got real incapacity problems on speech, which makes their communication skills 10 to 12 times harder. I did actually have a situation where I had to go to the police and we were discussing a situation that I had arose and explaining to them what she can do, who and what but where and when she didn't have the capacity to give you that information and they couldn't get at that time a Macaton signer to come in and be able to assist her in getting it all forward. The police did checks on it and because it was who what they couldn't take it any further because they didn't have the where and the when, the justice system needs to change to open this door up for people who can't do this. It could be a case of they see something and they witness something but they can't do the where and the when. It's so hard and it's upset that the thought of those people are not getting an opportunity to have the legal system actually protect them and see them actually getting something back on a situation that was negative in the life at whatever area it was, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. No, thanks very much for that. I'm wondering if there are any examples of if you came across any examples or maybe we need to ask the government or or somebody would keep records on this but any examples of where individuals or perhaps an advocate or however it might be has made requests during court proceedings that Macaton be used and that that hasn't been provided, is that a question? I've never found anything in the legal system that's got that far. I have had a look, I couldn't find any particular cases where Macaton's been able to get right far into court and proceedings have gone that way. It's a case of there's a starting block but we're getting stuck at the start and the police can't pick it up and push it forward so we can get to the stage of having evidence and then being able to go into court with it. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, that's not happened yet but this might sound strange. It would be good to find a way of anything like that happening to somebody with these disabilities that can get put into court and they can get fairness, they can get justice on them because everybody's entitled to justice, everybody's entitled to be able to speak and communicate and be part of the world and if they're not happy with it then they should be able to speak out or sign out and the legal system should be able to pick it up and push it through for them because they're all human beings just like everybody else and there's a word that I hear regularly used, normal. Sorry, what's normal in this world? What is normal? It's normal is a hard thing to describe when you can see somebody in front of you who has problems, speech problems, understanding problems and they're wordled, they're normal but between them and the legal system there's a great big jump and that has to be filled in that gap because it's a case of, it's still that line of them and normality and that is so such a shame, I mean it was in Bothell Park, they were, they weren't called adults and children, they were classified as patients and all these hospitals didn't shut until sort of late 90s so there's still a list today of disability and normality and I think that's unfair. Can I say something that was... It could be game ball with what you're saying. Sorry, I suppose that that shows the importance of the petition, Sandra as well. Thanks, convener, that's me, I'm not sure if somebody else was trying to come in. Sorry, David was one. Can I say something? The Macaton thing, as Sandra said, it's hard for people to express themselves. Usually when people are using Macaton compared to the BSL, these people have learning difficulties as well. The situation that Sandra was referring to there was an assault even though this person's face was marked down the one side visibly, the police still could not do anything about it. There were seven different stories told about how the Markner face came about and still no one believed her because this person could not explain what had happened to them fully. It's also, even I heard you talking about interpreters for Macaton, different people have different interpretations of Macaton. This is a big problem with Macaton. We had a thing, it was an adult protection thing where people that had responsibility to these people were sitting round their tables and adult protection thing and this person was saying that was bad but their organisation was using this as bold. So that was manipulation. They tried to say that this person was saying bold and this person wasn't. It's very easy to abuse Macaton and we have found that. We need a voice for people. We need a place to try and get round the communications thing and find another way to gather evidence so that people can be brought to justice. That's a helpful intervention, David. I was only aware of the detail that you had in the history of Macaton. It was fascinating. I was only aware of what it is. I didn't understand the history of it. So thanks for that. It was really helpful. I also for answering the questions. David, your point on justice actually really gets to the heart of what this is about. It's about justice for, as you both described, disabled people, many of whom in the circumstances that you're talking about are people with learning disabilities. One of the things that you said about interpretation was the need for the person to connect with the interpreter. Are you aware, has there ever been a situation where somebody who already connects with that person in their family or the friendship group or provides interpretation in another context has been allowed to support that person in a legal situation and where that has carried any weight? I've never found a case yet where it's been Macaton and it's got to court. As an interpreter to the person, yet there are a lot of people that I've seen make people that are signing and their life's Macaton and they can go in there and start signing and it's great to see the two people signing away to Macaton and being able to understand each other. There's something that's important about Macaton as well is when you actually sign, you speak, so it'd be coffee, drink, whatever it is you put the two words together because some people have got a lot of belief that if you can't speak, you can't hear and that's not the case. Susie might not be able to speak, my sister, but she can certainly hear a pin drop and she doesn't miss a lot, I can assure you. That's just another point of how things are between the disability side of the fence and the normal side of the fence. It's unfortunate that I've not found anything that's gone into court and that an interpreter has been in there and it's worked, but hopefully if ever it has to be that way it would be good to see it being supported in court by an interpreter, but no, not as of yet. Have you heard of anyone having that support before things go to court? The support from a Macaton signer is a case of yes, I've heard of a lot of people being able to get support from Macaton signers, but again it's a legal system, I've not heard anything on that, but any activities or sports or whatever it is that the person's interested in, they can make the connections with people so they can actually start going and getting involved in sport or getting involved in cooking or arts and crafts or so on or whatever it is, so they can link from Macaton into different areas when the person's showing a sign that that's what they would like to do, but like I've said already the court side of things, no unfortunately. Can I get just one final point on that, so are people reporting crimes to the police but not getting support to use Macaton or to express themselves and therefore it never reaches court because it doesn't quite get that bar of evidence that you don't? That's it, I think there is a lot of people that have gone to the police but the police say right, who, what, where, when right, we need these four bits of information and like I said earlier I spoke to quite a few different officers and they've said look if we don't have these four bits of information we've got nothing to start on, we need to know who, where it was but if it was in the house on inner street or wherever, when, morning, afternoon and where, so they can actually then start doing the criminal investigation of CCTV and talking to people and all the rest of it. So, as far as I'm aware, no, nothing has got that far, it's gone to maybe to the police and the police have said look we can't pick this up and take it any further, we've got nothing more to work on when we need these four bits of information and that is, I think that that is a crime in itself against people who need to use Macaton. Thank you, thank you both. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you Sandra for your presentation, like my colleague I didn't know that much information behind Macaton so it was really useful to hear that and all the great work that Margaret has done as well. My questions round obviously in the briefing highlighted there's a lack of routine procedure for identifying individuals with learning disabilities and the lack of intersectional data has been routinely identified on this problem. Do you think that if there's more in-depth data collection on different types of physical and learning disabilities, would be something that could be considered helpful in identifying where Macaton would be used mostly and how best it would be delivered in certain services and what services as well? I think that just to get out there it's important that Macaton is a huge thing now and it's vitally important. Social workers in all the areas of that involving police and adult protection and all that type of thing, they are aware of Macaton being in there but the acts of them being able to sign Macaton back to a person, I've never found a social worker or a police officer that can sign Macaton, that all needs to get put into place, the data needs to be sort of like shaken up a bit and re-looked at and because everything's going forward in the world and I feel Macaton should be right up there and data that needs to be updated should be done and getting the whole legal system involved and it's vitally important and yet I haven't found anything that's gone into court as from the start of whatever has happened and it's gone right to the court process and there's been a result at the end of it, I have not found anything like that at all but yeah I do believe there is a lot of work that needs to be done and I do believe that there's data out there that needs to be re-looked at and reviewed and whatever's not up to scratch, I suppose you could put it, it should be looked at and then refreshed or restarted up again, I'm not sure which word I'm trying to find here, just to get a bit more life again and so it's going to actually give more people a chance to understand exactly where Macaton is for legal systems and every other system going and so yeah, I think updates are important and the data is important. Thank you Sandra. Thank you for bringing this petition to committee, I'm quite excited about this actually and be able to talk about assigned language and I think it's really important that your stress and the point that BSL is different from Macaton, I was brought up bilingual so to speak because my dad was deaf so I was brought up quite fluent in BSL so I know the difference is BSL in itself is a complete and full language and Macaton is more like a sign per word for somebody who may already understand their own English or spoken language and I've seen the difficulties in communication that there are for people who use sign language in any forms and I know how incredibly frustrating that can be just demonstrating the different words for different signs and that's why it's important that you get an interpreter that knows how you use the signs and so there is some crossover there in terms of that understanding so you know I completely get where you're coming from and that communication is so very important and I thought it was really interesting how you brought up the who what and where who what where when why how because I always add why how so it's who what where when why and how because I think those signs when you get those signs along with anything else you can begin to open up and really have communication with another individual and I think that was key to your evidence that you were given today particularly when it comes to the justice system because we're talking about people who are already in a vulnerable position and you know statistically more likely to be taken advantage of yeah and be in that position and that's why it's so vitally important we get that communication right so I'm saying all this because I just I want you to know that I'm really understanding in many ways where you're coming from yeah I've seen somebody with a learning difficulty be able to start using Macaton and the difference in their lives that it made for them and just their demeanor and being able to express them just to say that they're wanting something to eat you know makes it makes a massive difference so you know what I really want to ask in terms of communication and in the justice system we're focusing just on that but is there any other aspects that you think this could be opened up to or is this just one aspect that you really want to focus on is the justice I think it's a case of it should be opened up to right across the board it was the justice side of things that really made me aware that after speaking to a police officer and when they said no well we need four bits two bits aren't enough we need the four it suddenly made me stop and think look there's hundreds and thousands of people out there could be going through the same things as two and they're not getting anything further so yeah the justice system was the first place of thinking about it but then like you've just said there there are so many signs out there that can get crossed over and they don't understand people out there that are using Macaton for them it's their way of speaking to the world and everybody around about them and they're able to express their feelings and their emotions so in all other areas then yes I think Macaton should be included if anybody was unwell and went to hospital the staff in the hospital as great as they do the job and doctors they have a problem because Macaton is a sign language lesson BSL and sometimes you will find doctors that can do some BSL but they haven't either heard of Macaton or they don't know how to use Macaton to benefit that person and to understand them as well like you said as well everybody's got their own little bit and their own sort of like their own way of signing so she's got a certain set of words that she'll sign to me and I know exactly what she's saying sometimes they're rude but it's a case of their signs that we know together so there's other people that's around to say that she'll sign slightly different with them so she's got the capacity to be able to sign that way to that person that way to somebody else so it really does need to go open up I feel as if I'm no no it's really helpful you're saying that because it's making me think that some kind of documentation for the signs that a person uses would be really helpful as well to keep like we had information passed by us today showing us some signs you know on a we document and I was just thinking because even in terms of names my sign names this by the way because I have a dimple so but those kinds of things are quite individual even to family households we also have regional sign language because I talk mostly Doric BSL so you know I completely get that and understand so that's really opened up another aspect. Well we were looking up at the speech therapist that Susie has with a Macaton she created a folder and it's full of pictures and when Susie comes out to stay with us for holidays and things it means if she's trying to tell me something and I'm not getting it she can get that folder and she'll keep going through it back and forward until she finds the sign and then she'll go and she'll point at it and then she'll sign it so there is that help out there from our speech therapist and I think there's many speech therapists out there that have done that for a lot of people that use Macaton because it is a vital stepping stone for that person to be able to take the step forward it's not just as well that it's actual sign and using your hands there's disabilities out there where you cannot make a sign clear on the Macaton signs of events and they need to use something that's called talking maps and that's literally just a board and it'll have pictures of whatever we're trying to discuss on one side and then the other side that could be a happy face or a sad face and it can be easy enough for them to be able to tell you football sad face or swimming happy face and they want to do it and you can get that connection with them but again that's something else that needs to get pushed out there. I think Macaton was and as you've said there's a wonderful thing for people who use it it gave them the freedom to express themselves and it has a wonderful thing and yet this wonderful thing when it comes to the justice system can it let them down make them more vulnerable and yet it's something that enhanced people's lives so it's just to let down with the justice system sort of thing. That's really helpful thank you so much. Sandra thank you very much I've learned so much this morning from you and David thank you for what you've said so far and thank you also for bringing in the health setting that was one of the questions I was going to ask about you know widening this out but I know you are focused on the justice issue for the questions of vulnerability of as David's just mentioned if I can play devil's advocate a little bit one of the challenges I should start I should say straight up that I think that there's definitely something in this for us to explore exactly what root that is I think you know we'll maybe need to consider that in more detail but playing devil's advocate for a little bit one of the one of the challenges that we might encounter as we pursue this work is well there are already facilities and when somebody doesn't have normal mental capacity there are already facilities there are mental health provisions there are learning disability provisions for them and that should be the root those should be the roots that we use to enable their their involvement and engagement with the justice system and I suppose one of the one of the challenges challenges that I expect will come with that is that things like legislation like mental capacity legislation comes with measures to to safeguard the best interests of the person who lacks capacity and I'm just wondering what your response to those kinds of challenges are because it would be really useful to hear from your personal experience with your sister how you know how does all of that wider legis legal framework actually support her or or not as the case well the legal system at the moment I mean if she needs to go to speak to the police she would happily now go and speak to the police she thinks the police are great and they're friends and which is all positive yeah but the legal system at the moment here's this word again normal yeah it's a case if police can deal with the normal day-to-day things of incidents happening but when it's somebody that's got incapacity problems be it bsl mackaton or any other form of help that's needed in communication pushing it through the social worker whoever else they might be able to help a bit but there's still the legal bit where you still have to sort of like come back into the legal system again and it's still not fully there to pick it all up and to take it forward there's there's that stepping stone that's there where yeah you could probably get it I could could take it to the police but then the police would need to speak to Susie or whoever else would have to speak to Susie so she could get it forward but her capacity is only who or what or other things it would be where and when but she can't give you the four bits of information altogether or she could give you the where and the when but put somebody else into the picture because she's just thought of something else or she's thinking of something else so it can be difficult in certain areas to get them to actually sort of like concentrate on to one thing because and it's not it's sad because it's just part of the the condition of the incapacity side of things of whatever level it is with Susie it's cerebral palsy I mean and that's why she can't talk but she knows how she wants to live her life and she knows how to live her life and she loves life and I'm a proud big sister of her but yeah I wish the legal system was a bit more bendable and a bit more ready for Macaton if you understand what I'm meaning. Yeah no no I think I do thank you that that's really helpful I think I think so much or some of the challenges that that I think might come at us are because there is that very rigid very un inflexible justice system and and also then I think and you raise the point you know social workers and support workers can help up to a point but there's nothing that connects and there's nothing that joins joins the gap so no that that's really helpful and and I mean like I say you've given us a lot to a lot to think about and a lot to pursue so thank you thank you both for coming along this morning really appreciate it. Yeah so yeah a huge huge thanks Sandra and David you've raised a huge number of issues there and I guess we're all kind of thinking because you've kind of raised issues that maybe we weren't quite expecting so I think we kind of had an expectation of where we were going to go and I don't think I think you've raised more issues for us to consider so and I guess we want to take a little bit of time as Maggie suggested for us to do that and work out our approach but I wonder if I could suggest to members that for now we make a formal decision to keep the petition open and and also write to the Scottish Government for the initial thoughts on the evidence that Sandra and David have presented today is that agreeable? You happy Fulton? Agreed. Yeah okay brilliant thanks thanks very much and so that's what we'll do we'll keep the petition open right to the government and we'll then decide a future work programme discussion how to take this forward so again thanks thanks very much Sandra and David and we'll now move into private session.