For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers: Interim Update

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that the EHRC is the Government’s independent regulator of the Equality Act in this case. I welcome her commitment to both producing the statutory code of practice and the consultation to which she alluded.

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

My Lords, the advance of equality for lesbian and gay people over the course of the last half century has largely become settled because it was achieved without diminishing the rights of others. But, in seeking protections for transgender people, there is often a perceived or actual clash with the rights of others—namely, women—and therein lie the difficulties we are discussing. In helping us to navigate these issues, would there be merit in an overall independent review of these matters, as I proposed three years ago? At the moment, we have piecemeal approach, with a Supreme Court decision, EHRC rulings, the Cass review, other governmental decisions and, in all this, a culture war being fought that is immensely damaging to the individuals concerned. Is it not time to look at these issues dispassionately and carefully, to detoxify the debate and put the interests of all those concerned on the right footing?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The Supreme Court did look at the issues dispassionately, but the point is that there is now the requirement to consider the implications of the judgment and to do so in a way that provides assurance to service providers and others. That is the role of the code of practice and the EHRC, in the way that I have just outlined. I agree with the noble Lord—let us be clear that the Supreme Court was clear about this as well—that this not about winners and losers; it is about ensuring that there is both clarity in the law and broad respect for the rights of all people in this country. As the Supreme Court made clear, there is nothing in the ruling that undermines the protections for trans people put into Labour’s Equality Act in 2010.