UK ministers have no plans for “toilet police” following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman, Pat McFadden has said.
The Cabinet Office minister acknowledged that the UK Government will have to change its practices following the judgment.
The Supreme Court ruled that under the Equality Act 2010, “woman” referred to biological sex, and not a transgender woman with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
McFadden was probed on by the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg what steps the Government would take following the ruling and new interim guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on the matter.
The EHRC guidance has been described as “authoritarian and cruel” by the Scottish Greens.
The guidance states it is “compulsory” for workplaces to offer single-sex toilets and changing facilities.
McFadden told the BBC: “Well, we will all have to react to the court judgment and the guidance from the EHRC that you said, but, yes, that’s the logical consequence of the judgment and the guidance that’s come out – that people use the facilities of their biological sex.
“That’s what the court said and that’s what the guidance has said.”
Asked if it meant transgender people would be banned from using the toilets of the gender they identify as, McFadden said: “Look, in reality, when you say ban, am I going to be standing outside toilets? I’m probably not.
It comes as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said she “took a lot of abuse from Labour MPs calling me a homophobe, a transphobe, for saying what the Supreme Court has just ruled” and that she has “no sympathy” for Labour.
Asked if she dislikes the Prime Minister on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, she said: “No, I don’t dislike him. I dislike his politics and I dislike the fact that there’s no conviction in anything that he does.
“How can we have a Prime Minister who doesn’t know what a woman is until the Supreme Court tells him, what does he know about the economy then, what’s he going to do about foreign affairs – we’ve just been talking about Trump and Zelenskyy.
“If someone is too afraid to say what they think because they’re afraid of what the media will say or what others will say, then how can they lead the country?
“The reason why I’m so vocal on this issue is because I took a lot of abuse from Labour MPs calling me a homophobe, a transphobe, for saying what the Supreme Court has just ruled.
“So, I don’t have any sympathy for them feeling that they’re getting opprobrium. They just have to deal with it. Politics is about making difficult decisions. They need to grow up and be honest about what it is they believe in.”
It comes as former first minister Nicola Sturgeon was confronted by the media for her views following the Supreme Court ruling.
