That concludes topical questions. The next item of business is First Minister's

questions. At question number one I call Douglas Ross.

Thank you, the public have rightly been outraged that a double rapist changed their gender

after being charged by the police. This week, the Justice Secretary, Keith Brown, was asked if that rapist should now be considered

a woman.

This is what Keith Brown said.

I think that is the case.

We have to accept people identify as in this case as women. Does the First Minister agree with her Justice

Secretary?

First Minister. I think that rapist should be considered a rapist. That is what I think.

That individual has been convicted of rapes and that therefore is the terminology.

I am not going to get into the individual circumstances of that particular individual's claims to be a woman, because I don't have enough information about that.

But the individual has been convicted of serious sex offences, and

that is the relevant consideration in terms of which prison they should be accommodated in.

In addition to this, these issues have obviously had great public and media attention in recent days, but these

issues are not new, nor have the arrangements within the prison service for dealing with

transgender prisoners changed in any way.

As the Chair of the Scottish Prison Officers Association said this week,

the Scottish Prison Service has been making risk-based decisions about the accommodation of trans prisoners for many years,

and indeed they have been doing that effectively and safely.

The risk assessment processes and the cases that have been reported in recent days were underway.

It is not the case that any decision had been taken to allow either of those to serve their sentences in women's prisons.

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