“For Women Scotland” Supreme Court Ruling

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

We will work with the EHRC on that guidance. It will present a revised code of practice, which I will review and present in due course. It is important that it does that as quickly as possible but, as I have said, this is a complex area and it must be undertaken thoroughly, with engagement with a range of stakeholders, including businesses, for the reasons the hon. Lady identifies.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Far from clarity, the verdict raises as many questions as it answers. Indeed, it has been referred to by the civil servant Melanie Field, who oversaw the Equality Act’s drafting and passage, as having significantly reinterpreted Parliament’s intentions. These questions are primarily about the purpose now of the gender recognition certificate and whether exclusion from single-sex spaces is merely lawful or required. But in protecting women’s spaces such as toilets from predatory men pretending to be trans women, what exactly stops those same men from now accessing them by pretending to be trans men?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I understand the concern my hon. Friend expresses and why she raises those questions, but I have to say to her that the position of the Government is that the Supreme Court has provided clarity and confidence in this area, particularly where it comes to single-sex spaces being on the basis of biological sex. The basis for that was the Equality Act, introduced by the previous Labour Government.