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75-542: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that allows adults in the United Kingdom who have gender dysphoria to change their legal gender . It came into effect on 4 April 2005. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 enables transgender people to apply to receive a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). A Gender Recognition Certificate is the document issued that shows that

150-532: A gender dysphoria diagnosis. Instead, they would have been required to make a statutory declaration that they intend to remain permanently in their acquired gender. In addition, applications would have been handled by the Registrar General for Scotland instead of a UK-wide gender recognition panel . The UK Government has ruled out implementing similar changes in England and Wales. The bill passed by

225-531: A "spousal veto" on their legal transition. In 2019 and again in 2024, the Liberal Democrats included the removal of the "spousal veto" as part of their manifesto. Baroness Barker introduced a private member's bill to amend the law in 2019. By contrast, some wives of trans women with Gender Recognition Certificates have called the provision a "spousal exit clause", describing it as a "well-designed piece of law which protects heterosexual Trans Widows from

300-478: A GRC can be excluded from single sex space so far as it is for a "proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim", which could be for "reasons of privacy, decency, to prevent trauma or to ensure health and safety". The Gender Recognition Act 2004 aimed to safeguard the privacy of transgender people by defining information in relation to the gender recognition process as protected information. Anyone who acquires that information in an official capacity may be breaking

375-505: A State's sovereignty, the Court will intervene only when it is absolutely necessary to do so." This discretion (to properly interpret Article 12 in the context of domestic norms) is not unlimited and goes hand-in-hand with European supervision through the court. Second, Article 12 places a specific duty of conduct on national authorities to uphold the right in the context of national laws governing marriage plainly by its wording. And finally,

450-540: A contracting party to the Convention. The right contained in Article 12 is closely related to Article 8 of the Convention, which secures a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence." Article 12 has not been as widely used as Article 8 in arguments for rights regarding family and relationships, but it has played in a role in counter-arguments to sham marriage accusations and it

525-449: A full GRC are from the date of issue, considered in the eyes of the law to be of their "acquired gender" in most situations. Two main exceptions to trans people's legal recognition are that the descent of peerages will remain unchanged (important only for primogeniture inheritance) and a right of conscience for Church of England clergy (who are normally obliged to marry any two eligible people by law). The ECHR has stated that people with

600-486: A full GRC, bypassing the "spousal veto". Some parliamentarians, such as Evan Harris , viewed the original requirement as inhumane and destructive of the family. MP Hugh Bayley said in the Commons debate "I can think of no other circumstance in which the state tells a couple who are married and who wish to remain married that they must get divorced". Despite this opposition, the government chose to retain this requirement of

675-588: A limited period can then be used as grounds for annulment of the marriage, but otherwise has no status. Section 16 provides that acquiring a new gender under the act does not affect the descent of peerages or estates that devolve with them. The Act does not allow children to change their legal gender. The act was drafted in response to court rulings from the European Court of Human Rights . The previous precedent dated back to 1970, when Arthur Cameron Corbett, 3rd Baron Rowallan had his marriage annulled on

750-519: A natural consequence becomes situation-oriented margins of appreciation . In respect of the ECHR, a margin will be narrower where there is a substantial degree of European consensus among member states around acceptable limitations on a certain Convention right, and wider where there is no such consensus. This has become particularly evident in the case of Article 12 and the right to marry, especially in relation to same-sex marriage. In more than one case,

825-506: A person has satisfied the criteria for legal recognition in the acquired gender. The act gives people with gender dysphoria legal recognition as members of the sex appropriate to their gender identity allowing them to acquire a Gender Recognition Certificate. People whose birth was registered in the United Kingdom or abroad with the British authorities are able to obtain a birth certificate showing their recognised legal sex. People granted

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900-408: A prisoner. The Court departed from its historical reasoning against finding a breach of Article 12 of the Convention in this case. The transgender applicant argued that she and her partner could not marry because the law treated her as a man because of the biological criteria which determined gender for the purposes of marriage in domestic law. The UK Government maintained that neither Article 12 of

975-663: A vote of 86–39 within the Scottish Parliament on stage three in December 2022. On 17 January 2023, the UK Government used Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to prevent the bill from being proposed for royal assent, the first such time Section 35 has been used. Act of Parliament A draft act of parliament is known as a bill . In other words, a bill is a proposed law that needs to be discussed in

1050-608: A whip mandating MPs to take a particular stance on the bill, instead allowing its MPs a free vote. Twenty-five Conservative MPs voted in favour and 22 against the bill at its second reading, and 20 voted in favour and 39 voted against the bill at its third reading. Less than half of the Conservative Party's 166 MPs participated in either vote. Among those who voted against the bill were Ann Widdecombe (who opposed it on religious grounds), Dominic Grieve , Peter Lilley and Andrew Robathan . Among Conservative MPs who supported

1125-493: Is immeasurable as in the case of a Scottish couple. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) appreciated the challenges to married transgender people and their partners presented by schedule 2 of the act and in a recent submission to government they recommend: "The government amends the Gender Recognition Act to allow for the automatic conversion of a marriage into a civil partnership upon one member of

1200-452: Is known as a private member's bill . In territories with a multicameral parliament, most bills may be first introduced in any chamber. However, certain types of legislation are required, either by constitutional convention or by law, to be introduced into a specific chamber. For example, bills imposing a tax , or involving public expenditure , are introduced into the House of Commons in

1275-448: Is passed by Parliament it becomes an act and part of statute law. There are two types of bill and act, public and private . Public acts apply to the whole of the UK or a number of its constituent countries – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Private acts are local and personal in their effect, giving special powers to bodies such as local authorities or making exceptions to

1350-643: Is playing a growing role in challenges to laws regarding same-sex unions. Because Article 8 has been a reliable source for claims relating to family, relationships and home, jurisprudence on Article 12 has been left fairly thin. Similar provisions exist in a number of other International human rights documents . The ECHR was the first instrument to give effect to certain rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and made them binding within Europe, so as expected, Article 16(1) of

1425-496: The Beaumont Society pressure group said that it was "not fair that people in this situation should have to annul their marriage and then enter a civil partnership. The law needs tidying up. It would be easy to put an amendment in the civil partnership law to allow people who have gone through gender-reassignment, and want that to be recognised, to have the status of their relationship continued." The emotional stress caused

1500-483: The Civil Partnership Act 2004 allows the creation of civil partnerships between same sex couples, before 2013, a married couple that included a transgender partner could not simply re-register their new status. They had to have their marriage dissolved, gain legal recognition of the new gender and then register for a civil partnership. This is like any divorce with the associated paperwork and costs. Once

1575-592: The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides for two constituent rights: the right to marry and the right to found a family. With an explicit reference to ‘national laws governing the exercise of this right’, Article 12 raises issues as to the doctrine of the margin of appreciation , and the related principle of subsidiarity most prominent in European Union Law . It has most prominently been utilised, often alongside Article 8 of

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1650-407: The Parliament of England did not originally have titles, and could only be formally cited by reference to the parliamentary session in which they were passed, with each individual act being identified by year and chapter number. Descriptive titles began to be added to the enrolled acts by the official clerks, as a reference aid; over time, titles came to be included within the text of each bill. Since

1725-646: The Parliament of India , every bill passes through following stages before it becomes an Act of Parliament of India : In the Irish Parliament, the Oireachtas , bills pass through the following stages. Bills may be initiated in either the Dáil or the Seanad, and must pass both houses. In New Zealand, the bill passes through the following stages: A draft piece of legislation is called a bill ; when this

1800-507: The head of state . In some countries, such as in France, Belgium, Luxembourg , Spain and Portugal, the term for a bill differs depending on whether it is initiated by the government (when it is known as a "draft"), or by the parliament (a "proposition", i.e., a private member's bill). In Australia, the bill passes through the following stages: In Canada, the bill passes through the following stages: The committee considers each clause of

1875-457: The "subsidiary" international supervision." This understanding distinguishes subsidiarity and the doctrine of the margin of appreciation as two separate concepts. The right to marry as contained in Article 12 of the Convention could be considered a specific example of Mowbray’s understanding of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) application of the substantive limb of the principle of subsidiarity. First, "In order to avoid trespassing on

1950-642: The 43rd act passed in 1980 would be 1980 chapter 43. The full reference includes the (short) title and would be the Magistrate's Court Act 1980 (c. 43). Until the 1980s, acts of the Australian state of Victoria were numbered in a continuous sequence from 1857; thus the Age of Majority Act 1977 was No. 9075 of 1977. Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights Article 12 of

2025-510: The Bill. Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, David Lammy , speaking for the Government, said "it is the Government's firm view that we cannot allow a small category of same-sex marriages". It was suggested in the debates that the number of transgender people who have undertaken gender reassignment and who are currently living in a marriage was no more than 200. Although

2100-475: The Convention has placed a duty of specific conduct on the national authority; and third, through the Court’s creation of the margin of appreciation doctrine. Mowbray argues that the doctrine is the product of subsidiarity: "it is a technique developed to allocate decision-making authority to the proper body in the Convention scheme to delineate in concrete cases the boundary between "primary" national discretion and

2175-460: The Convention, nor the closely related Article 8, required a state to permit a transsexual or transgender person to marry a person of his or her original sex: "if any change in this important or sensitive area were to be made, it should come from the UK’s own courts acting within the margin of appreciation which this Court has always afforded." The Court considered the terms of Article 12 which referred to

2250-415: The Convention, to challenge the denial of same sex marriage in the domestic law of a Contracting state. Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right As a right contained in the ECHR, Article 12 is available to anyone within the jurisdiction of a Council of Europe member state, otherwise considered as

2325-528: The Court has said that in relation to Article 12, Contracting states enjoy a "particularly wide" margin of appreciation in determining the measures necessary for Convention rights such as this one to be secured within their jurisdiction. Schalk and Kopf alleged discrimination because, being a same sex couple, they were denied the possibility to marry or to have their relationship recognised by law in Austrian domestic law. The applicants argued that civil marriage

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2400-468: The Court no longer considered that the right to marry enshrined in Article 12 of the ECHR must in all circumstances be limited to marriage between two persons of the opposite sex. As matters stand, the question whether or not to allow same sex marriage is to be left to regulation by the national law of the Contracting State, and no violation of Article 12 was found. The Court reasoned that

2475-563: The House of Commons, or S- if they originate in the Senate. For example, Bill C-250 was a private member's bill introduced in the House. Bills C-1 and S-1 are pro forma bills, and are introduced at the beginning of each session in order to assert the right of each Chamber to manage its own affairs. They are introduced and read a first time, and then are dropped from the Order Paper . In

2550-420: The House of Lords, including a wrecking amendment from Lord Tebbit (who has described sex reassignment surgery as "mutilation"), and from Baroness O'Cathain , who introduced an amendment to allow religious groups to exclude transgender people. However, this amendment was narrowly defeated after opposition from Peter Selby , Bishop of Worcester , and Michael Scott-Joynt , Bishop of Winchester . Support for

2625-544: The Scottish government published its review of the GRA with intentions to reform it "so that it is in line with international best practice." The "Ministerial Foreword" to the review acknowledges that the 2004 GRA is "out of date" and places "intrusive and onerous" requirements on the person applying for the gender change. The government recommends keeping the existing requirements for applicants to declare that "they fully understand

2700-535: The Strasbourg organs is to examine domestic interpretations of the Convention and decide whether they are compatible with the universality of the Convention’s norms and whether they should be sanctioned for derogations which "restrict the right in such a way or to such an extent that the very essence of the right is impaired." Therefore, the margin of appreciation can be better understood as "a matter of who takes

2775-543: The UDHR contains a similar provision: Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) also guarantees that the right to marry will be recognised in Article 23(2): The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized. Protocol No. 15, not yet in force, introduces specific reference to

2850-508: The UK government published the results of the public consultation which showed wide support for all aspects of reform, including 64% in favour of removing the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and 80% in favour of removing the requirement for a medical report. However, the UK government decided not to change the current law, which was described as "a missed opportunity" by the Equality and Human Rights Commission . Concerns about

2925-447: The United Kingdom (2006) In these cases the court found that the inability of transsexuals to marry a person of the sex opposite to their reassigned gender was not found by the Court to be in breach of Article 12. This was based on traditional concepts of marriage; the continued adoption of biological criteria in domestic law for determining a person’s sex; and, that such regulations in national laws could not be regarded as restricting

3000-474: The United Kingdom, Canada's House of Commons , Lok Sabha of India and Ireland's Dáil as a matter of law. Conversely, bills proposed by the Law Commission and consolidation bills traditionally start in the House of Lords . Once introduced, a bill must go through a number of stages before it can become law. In theory, this allows the bill's provisions to be debated in detail, and for amendments to

3075-420: The act were raised by supporters of transgender rights, particularly regarding marriages and civil partnerships. Due to marriage being restricted in UK law to opposite-sex couples and the lack of availability of civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples, the act required people who are married to divorce or annul their marriage in order for them to be issued with a Gender Recognition Certificate. This requirement

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3150-502: The annulment was declared final and the GRC issued, the couple could then make arrangements with the local registrar to have the civil partnership ceremony. The marriage was ended and a completely new arrangement brought into being which did not in all circumstances (such as wills) necessarily follow on seamlessly. This is also true for civil partnerships that included a transgender partner: the existing civil partnership needed to be dissolved and

3225-526: The basis that his wife, April Ashley , being transgender , was legally male. This argument was accepted by the judge, and the legal test for sex in the UK had been since been based on the judgment in Corbett v Corbett . The European Court of Human Rights ruled on 11 July 2002, in Goodwin & I v United Kingdom [2002] 2 FCR 577, that a trans person's inability to change the sex on their birth certificate

3300-423: The bill in the House of Commons was split broadly down party lines. At both the second and third readings (i.e. before and after amendments), all Labour Party , Liberal Democrat , Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party votes were in favour of the bill; all Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist Party votes were against. Conservative Party MPs were split on the issue, and the party leadership did not issue

3375-567: The bill were Kenneth Clarke , Constitutional Affairs spokesman Tim Boswell , and future speaker John Bercow . In 2016, the Women and Equalities Committee published a root-and-branch review of the Gender Recognition Act, noting its deficiencies and making recommendations for its review. At the same time, it noted similar deficiencies in the Equality Act 2010 as it affected the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. In November 2017,

3450-453: The bill, and may make amendments to it. Significant amendments may be made at the committee stage. In some cases, whole groups of clauses are inserted or removed. However, if the Government holds a majority, almost all the amendments which are agreed to in committee will have been tabled by the Government to correct deficiencies in the bill or to enact changes to policy made since the bill was introduced (or, in some cases, to import material which

3525-451: The choice of the wording of Article 12 must be considered deliberate. The right was granted in the context of strictly traditional concepts of marriage and a lack of European consensus upheld the wide margin of discretion afforded to Contracting states. In these two cases married couples being a woman and a male to female post-operative transsexual, made a complaint to the court that under Article 12 they were required to end their marriage if

3600-742: The clause stand part of the bill are made. In the Report stage, the debate is on the motions for specific amendments. Once a bill has passed both Houses in an identical form, it is presented to the Governor General , who gives it royal assent . Although the Governor General can refuse to assent a bill, this power has never been exercised. Bills being reviewed by Parliament are assigned numbers: 2 to 200 for government bills, 201 to 1000 for private member's bills , and 1001 up for private bills . They are preceded by C- if they originate in

3675-561: The consultation on the Gender Recognition Act would come from the starting place that "transgender women are women". In a June 2020 report, the European Commission classified the legal procedures for gender recognition of 28 European countries into 5 categories based on the barriers to access. This placed the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the second from bottom category with "intrusive medical requirements" that lags behind international human rights standards. In September 2020,

3750-402: The couple could then enter into a marriage afterward. For a couple in a marriage or civil partnership where both partners are transgender, they could have their gender recognition applications considered at the same time; however, they were required to dissolve their existing marriage/civil partnership and then re-register their marriage/civil partnership with their new genders. Tamara Wilding of

3825-551: The couple obtaining a gender recognition certificate." These concerns were ameliorated somewhat by the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 , since marriage is now available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples alike. Under the current law, when a married couple includes a transgender person, the transgender person’s spouse must either give their approval for the change in legal gender, or else divorce. This has been described, and opposed, by transgender activists as

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3900-441: The criteria for issuing a Gender Recognition Certificate have been met. The evidence must show a documented mental health diagnosis of gender dysphoria. If the person involved is in a legally recognised marriage, they require spousal consent for the certificate to be issued, after which a new marriage certificate can be issued; if the spouse does not consent, the person will be issued an Interim Gender Recognition Certificate, which for

3975-436: The decisions, rather than what those decisions might be." Hutchinson explains that in practice the margin of appreciation as to a State's domestic implementation of Convention standards can become wider or narrower depending on the surrounding circumstances of the alleged breach being heard by the Court. Derogations from the Convention ultimately rest on the concept of domestic necessity in Contracting State societies, and so

4050-493: The implications of their application and intend to live in their acquired gender for the rest of their lives" but proposes eliminating the requirement "to provide medical evidence and to have lived in their acquired gender for two years before applying." In 2017, Minister for Equalities Justine Greening considered reforms to the Gender Recognition Act to de-medicalise the process, with the principle of self-identification. One of Greening's successors, Penny Mordaunt , affirmed that

4125-540: The institutional design of the Court via the requirement that applicants exhaust domestic remedies prior to being eligible to lodge an application at Strasbourg. Other legal origins of the principle of subsidiarity in the ECHR have been found in Article 1 (obligation to respect human rights), 13 ( right to an effective remedy ), 19 (establishment of the Court) and 35(1)(admissibility criteria). Mowbray has explained that

4200-522: The law if they disclosed it without the subject's consent. However, in the first seven years of operation, birth certificates drawn from the Gender Recognition Register were immediately distinguishable from a natal birth certificate, since they had only nine columns of information, omitting the item "Signature, description and residence of informant" that appears on birth certificates. These Gender Recognition Certificates also replaced

4275-619: The law in particular geographic areas. In the United Kingdom Parliament, each bill passes through the following stages: In the Scottish Parliament, bills pass through the following stages: There are special procedures for emergency bills, member's bills (similar to private member's bills in the UK Parliament), committee bills, and private bills. In Singapore, the bill passes through these certain stages before becoming into an Act of Parliament. Acts passed by

4350-499: The mid-nineteenth century, it has also become common practice for acts to have a short title , as a convenient alternative to the sometimes lengthy main titles. The Short Titles Act 1892 , and its replacement the Short Titles Act 1896 , gave short titles to many acts which previously lacked them. The numerical citation of acts has also changed over time. The original method was based on the regnal year (or years) in which

4425-422: The original bill to also be introduced, debated, and agreed to. In bicameral parliaments, a bill that has been approved by the chamber into which it was introduced then sends the bill to the other chamber. Broadly speaking, each chamber must separately agree to the same version of the bill. Finally, the approved bill receives assent; in most territories this is merely a formality and is often a function exercised by

4500-446: The parliament before it can become a law. In territories with a Westminster system , most bills that have any possibility of becoming law are introduced into parliament by the government. This will usually happen following the publication of a " white paper ", setting out the issues and the way in which the proposed new law is intended to deal with them. A bill may also be introduced into parliament without formal government backing; this

4575-632: The possibility of being trapped in legally same sex marriages that they did not sign up to". In March 2022, the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill was formally introduced in the Scottish Parliament . If enacted, this bill would have amended the Gender Recognition Act and changed the process of applying for a GRC. Under the changes, applicants would no longer have needed to prove having lived for two years in their acquired gender and would no longer have had to obtain

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4650-585: The principle of subsidiarity in the Preamble of the Convention. Subsidiarity was included in the Treaty on European Union and later the Maastricht Treaty and is a fundamental part of the functioning of European Union law. Von Staden, an international organisations academic, and Jean-Paul Costa, the former President of the Court, have said that an element of subsidiarity that has been integrated into

4725-460: The principle of subsidiarity is twin limbed. The first is the procedural limb requiring all domestic remedies to be exhausted before lodging complaints at Strasburg. The second in the substantive limb through which the Court limits its own ability to review a domestic authority’s decision. The latter has three parts. First, the Court does not seek to supplant domestic courts' primary role in delivering interpretations of national law; second, where

4800-415: The relevant parliamentary session met. This has been replaced in most territories by simple reference to the calendar year, with the first act passed being chapter 1, and so on. In the United Kingdom, legislation has referenced by year and chapter number since 1963 ( Acts of Parliament Numbering and Citation Act 1962 ). Each act is numbered consecutively based on the date it received royal assent, for example

4875-453: The right in such a way that the very essence of the right was impaired. Cossey v. the United Kingdom (1990); Sheffield and Horsham v. the United Kingdom (1998) Measures against marriage of convenience . Ban of marriage before three years after divorce in which the applicant was found responsible. Ban of marriage between a man and the former wife of his son during son's and son's mother's lifetime. Lack of opportunity to marry for

4950-687: The right of a "man and a woman" to marry no longer had to be understood as determining gender by purely biological criteria. It was not persuaded to leave the matter entirely within the Contracting States' margin of appreciation, to prevent the margin extending so far as to allow the Contracting States to induce an effective bar on any exercise of the right by transsexuals. While it is for the Contracting state to determine conditions around legal gender recognition for post-operative transsexuals and its effect on existing heterosexual marriages,

5025-484: The right to marry has proven to be a right where the Court has developed a clear and wide margin of appreciation. The margin of appreciation (or margin of state discretion ) is a fundamental part of the jurisprudence of the ECtHR in interpreting and applying the provisions of the ECHR. Similar to subsidiarity, it is not explicitly referred to in the Convention itself but is the product of the Strasbourg organs. The task of

5100-530: The right to marry was by its very nature limited to different sex couples. The Austrian Government conceded that there has been significant social changes in the institution of marriage since the adoption of the Convention, but there was not yet any European consensus on granting same sex couples the right to marry. Having regard to Article 9 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union ,

5175-420: The role of marriage in their societies and did not flow from an interpretation of the fundamental right as laid down by the Contracting States in the Convention in 1950." It ultimately fell within the Contracting States margin of appreciation as to how to regulate the effects of the change of gender on pre-existing marriages, and consequently Article 12 had not been violated in either of these cases. R and F v.

5250-606: The rubric "Certified to be a true copy of an entry in the certified copy of a Register of Births in the District above mentioned", which appears on birth certificates, with the rubric "Certified to be a true copy of a record in the custody of the Registrar General". These issues were corrected by the Gender Recognition Register (Amendment) Regulations 2011. A Gender Recognition Panel , including medical and legal experts, considers evidence submitted to it to assess whether

5325-410: The second applicant wished to obtain full legal recognition of their change of gender to female. These cases were dismissed as manifestly unfounded. Again, the Court referred to the traditional concept of marriage which Article 12 was founded in. The Court acknowledged that a number of Contracting States had extended marriage to same sex couples but went on to say "this reflected their own vision of

5400-512: Was a breach of their rights under Article 8 and Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights . Following this judgment, the UK Government had to introduce new legislation to comply. The bill was introduced in the House of Lords in late 2003. It was passed by the House of Lords on 10 February 2004, with 155 votes in favour and 57 against, and by the House of Commons on 25 May with 355 votes in favour and 46 against. It received royal assent on 1 July 2004. The bill faced criticism in

5475-441: Was a union of two persons encompassing all aspects of lives, and the procreation of children was no longer a decisive element to the union of marriage. They considered the reference to ‘national laws’ in Article 12 of the Convention could not mean that states were given unlimited discretion in regulating that right. The government maintained that both the clear wording of Article 12 and the Court’s case-law as it stood indicated that

5550-492: Was abolished in December 2014, nine months after the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 permitted same-sex marriages. In England, Scotland, and Wales, such an application from a married person requires written consent from the spouse – the so-called spousal veto. Applicants in Scotland benefit from a workaround, where it is possible for applicants in Scotland to apply to the sheriff court to have their interim GRC replaced with

5625-504: Was not ready when the bill was presented). The debate on each stage is actually debate on a specific motion. For the first reading, there is no debate. For the second reading, the motion is "That this bill be now read a second time and be referred to [name of committee]" and for third reading "That this bill be now read a third time and pass." In the Committee stage, each clause is called and motions for amendments to these clauses, or that

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