At its meeting on 7 November, the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee considered figures on witnesses to the Parliament’s committees during the 2018-19 year. The figures were provided to the Parliament by Hugh Bochel and Colleen Wall. They show that during 2018-19 there were 1,942 appearances as witnesses by 1,339 individuals, and that of those appearances 41.5 per cent were by women and 58.5 per cent by men (in 2015-16 35.9 per cent of witnesses appearances were by women, and in 2016-17 the figure was 38.2 per cent).
There remain big variations across committees, with some, such as the Equalities and Human Rights, Public Audit, Health and Sport and Social Security committees, having around half or more female witnesses, while for others, such as the Economy, Energy and Fair Work, Finance and Constitution and Rural Economy and Connectivity committees, the level was much lower. The full figures are available here.
When the Sessional Returns for 2017-19 are published for the House of Commons, it will be possible to make some comparison between the two legislatures.