Thread by @mbmpolicy

The Justice Committee starts its Stage 2 scrutiny of the Hate Crime and Public Order Scotland Bill a week today (Tues 2 February). This is where the detailed content is formally considered and agreed, and the Bill can be amended./

@JohannLamont MSP has put down an amendment adding "sex" to Part 1 of the Bill. Part 1 provides that an offence can be treated as "aggravated by prejudice" if it is motivated "by malice or ill-will" towards certain listed groups. beta.parliament.scot/-/media/files/…

The Bill as drafted provides that sex might be added at some later date using secondary legislation, after the Working Group on Misogynistic Harrassment reports. The amendment switches the default assumption in the Bill to *including* sex, until any alternative is identified./

Secondary legislation (orders and regulations) is subject to a simpler process of approval than Bills, involving less detailed scrutiny. If the Working Group proposes an alternative to just adding sex, that will need its own Bill process in due course./

A related amendment inserts a defintion of "sex" that follows the model in the Equality Act. At present, the Bill leaves sex to be defined using secondary legislation when (if) it is added in future./

This new definition section could be added now, whether or not sex is also added as a characteristic. Inserting a definition into the Bill makes it clear what the Parliament means by sex as protected characteristic for hate crime purposes, whatever else happens at this stage.

The deadline for laying amendments is tomorrow. They will be published the following day, so by Thursday all the changes being put forward to the Bill for the committee to discuss will be clear, and we will do a further round-up then.

We have looked at the SG's records of its discussions with local women's orgs about including a sex aggravator. We conclude they were "overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill treating hatred against women on a par with hatred based on other characteristics"
murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2020/12/04/leg…