Maggie Chapman to face vote on continued equalities committee membership

The Scottish Parliament’s equalities committee will vote on whether to remove Green MSP Maggie Chapman as a member.

It comes after Chapman accused the Supreme Court of “bigotry, prejudice and hatred” in the wake of its judgment that the definition of ‘woman’ in the Equality Act is limited to biological sex.

Conservative MSP and committee member Tess White has laid a motion that would see Chapman thrown off the committee.

Papers for the next meeting of Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee – to be held at 9:30am on Tuesday – show the first item on the agenda is to consider White’s motion.

Members of the committee will vote on it. The membership comprises three SNP MSPs, two Conservative MSPs, one Labour MSP and Chapman herself.

In previous parliamentary motions on MSP suspensions, the subject of those motions have been able to vote. Last year, Michael Matheson abstained on the vote that saw him excluded from parliament for 27 sitting days.

Chapman has been under fire since she made the comments at a protest in Aberdeen at the weekend. She said “bigotry, prejudice and hatred” is “coming from the Supreme Court and from so many other institutions in our society”.

When asked about her comments in parliament on Tuesday, the MSP doubled down on them, adding: “I’m not going to apologise.”

It led to the Faculty of Advocates saying her words were “not compatible” with her role as deputy convener of the committee.

According to the parliament’s standing orders, a member can be removed from any committee via parliamentary motion.

White described the comments as “utterly disgraceful”. She said: “It is appalling that any elected MSP would smear the UK’s highest court in this way and she should apologise urgently for her disrespectful comments.”