Regan faces two-day Holyrood suspension in complaint row

A Holyrood committee has recommended MSP Ash Regan is suspended from Parliament for two sitting days.

Ms Regan was found to have breached the MSP code of conduct by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee over a potential complaint about Green MSP Maggie Chapman earlier this year.

Ms Chapman described the UK Supreme Court ruling that the sex characteristic in the 2010 Equality Act refers to biological sex as a “political attack”, prompting Ms Regan to write to Holyrood’s Presiding Officer in protest.

But it was the former Alba MSP’s publication of the letter on X which saw her fall foul of the rules, breaching the part of the code of conduct which says members must not “disclose, communicate or discuss any complaint or intention to make a complaint to or with members of the press or other media” before the end of the process.

According to a statement from committee convener Martin Whitfield, read out during a session on Thursday, Ms Regan had defended herself, telling the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland she had not made a complaint and did not plan on doing so.

“The correspondence cited is directed to the Presiding Officer and the Parliament’s Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, expressly reporting a concern, not a complaint,” she said.

“In the closing paragraph, I request advice rather than action… When advised that I could escalate the matter as a formal complaint to the Ethical Standards Commission, I concluded such an escalation was better left to members of the public and I would continue to pursue the matter of parliamentary process through the committee effectiveness routes available to ensure that robust and transparent processes would be in place should such an issue arise again with any committee convener or deputy convener.”

The committee, however, did not accept her explanation, unanimously finding the post had breached the code.

“The committee is not persuaded by the proposition set forth by Ash Regan that she did not intend to make a complaint,” Mr Whitfield said.

“The letter includes statements such as ‘formally raising concerns’ and ‘respectfully request that this matter be considered by the relevant parliamentary authorities’.

“The letter also sets out Ash Regan’s view that she considered Maggie Chapman’s ‘remarks to be incompatible with the standards of conduct expected of all MSPs and particularly of those in committee leadership positions’.”

He added: “I propose that the appropriate sanction in this case would be exclusion from meetings of the Parliament and its committees on two sitting days, with those days being a Wednesday and a Thursday.”

The committee’s recommendation will be put to MSPs at a later date before being confirmed.

A source close to Ms Regan described the recommendation as “absurd”.

They added: “Maggie Chapman, a member of the Scottish Parliament, attempted to undermine and traduce the highest court in the land.

“Any rational member of the public would think that Ms Chapman would be the one being censured – not Ash Regan for raising concerns regarding the impact Maggie Chapman’s conduct had on a landmark decision which protects the right of women and girls to single-sex spaces.

“The committee have came to the view that MSPs do not have an unqualified right to the same freedom of expression that members of the public hold, a decision that is at odds with the legal advice of the former Dean of the Faculty and years of precedent.

“Yet again we are seeing someone that stands up for the rights of women and girls punished for the actions of those that would roll back on their hard-won rights.”