Scottish Greens refuse parliament equality survey claiming sex data will be 'weaponised by bad actors'
Following the election of Holyrood’s first trans MSPs the sex category was removed from the parliament website and now some parliamentarians are refusing to take part
The Scottish Greens have staged a boycott of publishing MSP equality data, claiming information will be ‘weaponised by bad faith actors’.
Following a row over sex data on the parliament website, a decision was taken to remove listings showing the number of male and female politicians. A new survey was issued that included trans status as well as biological sex.
Despite the deadline for completing the survey being extended by a fortnight, just 62 of 129 MSPs have completed the survey.
The only party leader to return the data - necessary for monitoring under-representation of women in Holyrood - was Russell Findlay.
The entire Scottish Green group refused to consent to having their data published while 35 of 58 SNP MSPs, including John Swinney, either failed to respond or declined publication.
A spokesman for the Scottish Greens said: “The Scottish Green MSPs did not consent to making this data publicly available.
"Whilst we recognise the need to gather data for monitoring purposes, there was no clear need to publish it on the website.
“It was also already clear that bad faith actors would be weaponising this information against women and trans people.”
After the election in May of two Green trans politicians, the parliament removed the male and female category from its online search function.
It then said fresh data would be collected with MSPs able to consent to publication or not.
Dr Lucy Hunter Blackburn of Murray Blackburn Mackenzie said: “Accurate data on sex is key to effective policy-making in many settings.
“It will be telling if this is the first time since 1999 that the Scottish Parliament is unable to take forward measures supporting women's equal participation in public life, because some members are choosing to prevent it from doing so.”
A letter to politicians from Lorna Hunter, Director of People, Communications and Inclusion, said the plans to implement the Gender Sensitive Audit (GSA) had received cross-party support.
However, she said, “it is clear there is no consensus from all MSPs on how to fulfil its recommendations in practice”.
“It highlights the difficulty the Parliament will most likely have in publishing any further diversity data on other protected characteristics,” she added.
“It makes tracking and addressing under-representation all the more difficult, despite the laudable recommendations of the Gender Sensitive Audit.”
Susan Smith, of the campaign group For Women Scotland, pointed to the fact Scottish Greens MSP Kate Nevens had previously supported equality monitoring.
“This refusal to submit data is as performative as it is petty.”
Others were critical of the parliament’s attempts to collect and publish the data, despite this having been standard practice throughout all Holyrood terms.
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) introduced what it calls “an additional confirmation step” to confirm equality data directly with MSPs.
Some parliamentarians have provided the data but declined to have it made public while 67 have not responded at all.
Holyrood has consistently struggled to reach gender parity among MSPs, with the number of women MSPs falling for this parliament.
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