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The National (Scotland)

National

Abbi Garton-Crosbie

See the MPs trying to get UK equality watchdog's trans guidance scrapped

United Kingdom EHRC Brian Leishman Chris Law Christine Jardine Hannah Spencer Kate Osborne Kirsty Blackman Nadia Whittome Seema Malhotra

Dozens of MPs are seeking to stop the EHRC draft guidance from being approved (Image: Stefan Rousseau)

DOZENS of MPs have backed a bid to have the UK equalities watchdog’s code of practice excluding transgender people from single-sex spaces scrapped.

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, lodged an Early Day Motion (EDM) seeking to have the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance “disapproved”.

We told how the EHRC guidance said that a service – such as bathrooms and changing facilities – must be provided on the basis of biological sex, following the Supreme Court ruling last year.

It explicitly states that a trans man should be "excluded from the men-only service because his sex is female” and a trans woman “will be excluded from the women-only service because her sex is male”.

MPs and peers have 40 days to review the draft code, which was laid before Parliament on May 21 by Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson, shortly before Westminster broke off for Whitsun recess.

Philipson did not attend the House of Commons on Monday, and instead parliamentary under-secretary of state for equalities Seema Malhotra gave a statement in her stead.

Malhotra was criticised by a trans advocacy group for making an “extraordinarily inflammatory and dangerous” statement on the guidance.

“Most people have the common sense to step in when necessary, when a person of the opposite biological sex enters a single-sex facility in error, for example, or to know when to alert a member of staff,” the equalities minister told the Commons on Monday.

Trans rights campaigners protesting against the Supreme Court's ruling on biological sex (Image: PA)

And now, 51 MPs have so far signed in support of Whittome’s EDM, which reads: “That the draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations, a copy of which was laid before this House on 21 May, be disapproved.”

It is understood that the EDM does not qualify as a “fatal prayer motion”, but has a similar purpose. The EHRC code of practice isn’t a statutory instrument, which is what fatal prayer motions usually apply to, as it is guidance.

But Whittome’s EDM motion is worded in a way that would allow MPs to stop “disapprove it”, basically “kill it” in Commons terms, but that is only if the UK Government finds time to allow the motion to be debated, and if a majority of MPs vote in support.

If ministers do not find time to allow for a debate, then the EDM will have no legal effect, and is simply a way for MPs to voice opposition to the Code.

The last time a fatal prayer motion was approved in the Commons was 1979.

Following the statement on Monday, Whitthome told MPs that the EHRC practice “fails everyone” and “effectively pushes trans people out of public life, it subjects all women to gender policing based on stereotypes, and it does not provide clarity to organisations that want to be trans-inclusive”.

It comes after backbench Labour MPs branded the guidance “trans exclusionary at its core”, with many signing the EDM in support.

Whittome, the main sponsor of the bid to stop the code from being waved through, was supported by fellow Labour MPs Stella Creasy, Kate Osborne, Marie Goldman, Lorraine Beavers, and Green MP Sian Berry.

Other MPs who have supported the motion include SNP MPs Kirsty Blackman and Chris Law, Scottish LibDem MPs Christine Jardine and Wendy Chamberlain, Green MP Hannah Spencer, Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman, and Your Party MP Zarah Sultana.

You can see the full list of MPs who have backed the call to have the Code “disapproved” below.