Now, the Scottish police force will record biological sex and separately note whether the individual is transgender. This new policy will apply to all victims and complainers, suspected and accused people, and people at risk across all crimes and offences.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Selina Hales has a thing about pineapples. She is talking in a quiet office, set aside from the bustle of Refuweegee, the charity she founded 10 years ago, and the walls are festooned with tissue paper cutouts of the fruit, which is an international symbol of hospitality. Refuweegee its name a combination of the words refugee and Weegee, local slang for Glaswegian has expanded exponentially over the decade into an operation that supports hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees in the city every day.
Pip is designed to support disabled people with the additional costs of daily living and mobility, yet for many claimants it has instead become a source of prolonged uncertainty, financial hardship and distress. Waiting months and in some cases more than a year for a decision can push people into debt, rent arrears and poverty, especially as Pip unlocks other support such as carer's allowance.
Up to 65 Labour MPs are believed to be ready to rebel against the justice secretary's plans ahead of the first vote on the controversial bill on Tuesday. MP Karl Turner, a former Starmer loyalist, is leading the calls for a rethink.
The Home Office says the changes, due to take effect in June, will restrict accommodation and support payments to "those who genuinely need it". Ministers say the new rules will also remove assistance from asylum seekers who work illegally or break the law.
There has been a factional antagonism towards anyone who might wave a Palestinian flag in solidarity with Gaza or yearns to rejoin the European Union, as well as to those who worry a lot about climate change or display too much sympathy for asylum seekers. For much of the past six years under Keir Starmer, his advisers have been dismissive of such viewpoints, which they thought would alienate the older, whiter and more traditionally working-class voters widely regarded as vital to electoral success.
This was a big, bold intervention from Anas Sarwar - to be the first leading Labour figure to call for the prime minister to go. He has done so out of frustration and anger. Anger at the prime minister's handling of the Mandelson mess. He said on Thursday that the Labour peer should never have been considered for the job of UK ambassador to Washington.
This is from her shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood. While we welcome the scrapping of any mandatory identification, this is yet another humiliating U-turn from the government. Keir Starmer's spinelessness is becoming a pattern, not an exception. What was sold as a tough measure to tackle illegal working is now set to become yet another costly, ill-thought-out experiment abandoned at the first sign of pressure from Labour's backbenches.