The problem is that XML::Simple's default settings are too clever for their own good. It will sometimes represent your <query> elements as a hashref (i.e. when the element has any attributes or child elements) and sometimes treat it as a string.

Changing the XML::Simple ForceContent setting (switching it on) should solve this, but it will probably cause other issues to pop up instead.

My personal recommendation is to switch from XML::Simple to a better XML library. There is a "sweet spot" where things like XML::Simple are awesome, but in my experience it's quite a small sweet spot, and once you're outside that sweet spot it actually becomes much easier to use a more powerful XML library.

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::LibXML 1.70;
use Text::Trim 'trim';

my $xml = XML::LibXML->load_xml(location => 'C:\Users\Desktop\derived_
+tif_cd.XML');

foreach my $query ($xml->findnodes('//queries/query'))
{
    # Join together the content within the <query> element
    # but filter out child elements. Just want text.
    my $sql = join q(),
        grep { $_->isa('XML::LibXML::Text') }
        $query->childNodes;
        
    say trim($sql);
}
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