BRIDGET Phillipson ducked giving a ministerial statement on the long-awaited publication of the UK’s equalities watchdog guidance on single-sex spaces and its impact on transgender people.
On May 21, just before the House of Commons went into recess, Phillipson laid the guidance in Parliament, but it took until June 1 for MPs to be able to discuss the sweeping changes.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance follows the Supreme Court ruling in April last year that said a woman is defined by biological sex under the Equality Act 2010.
The guidance – which was repeatedly delayed and had several revisions – was submitted to Women’s and Equalities minister Phillipson in September last year.
The Tories accused Phillipson of campaigning in Makerfield for Andy Burnham, but the Education Secretary was pictured hosting a reception in 10 Downing Street for parents, families and care givers to mark International Parents Day.
The updated guidance published by the Government on single-sex spaces has confirmed that a service must be used on the basis of biological sex in order for it to be classed as single-sex under the Equality Act 2010.
This means that transgender women can no longer use female bathrooms or other single-sex spaces, or compete in female sports teams, and says that someone can be asked to confirm their sex if there is “clear evidence of an issue”.
The Scottish Greens branded the guidance "authoritarian and cruel" and said it goes "far beyond" the Supreme Court ruling.
Transgender advocacy groups were also highly critical of the guidance, suggesting that it left trans people in the UK with “less rights” and that it had impacted the LGBT+ community as a whole.
On Monday, MPs were finally able to discuss the changes, which must be laid in the UK Parliament for 40 days.
But it wasn’t Phillipson who took to the despatch box, but Seema Malhotra, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Equalities.
The junior minister insisted that the guidance is “robust and accessible” and has clear explanations. Malhotra told MPs that if neither the Commons or the Lords disapproves of the changes, the UK Government will revoke the EHRC 2011 Code of Practice via regulations and bring the new Code into force.
The minister said the UK Government refuses to “use any group as a political football”, and went on to say that they will protect single sex spaces “based on biological sex where they are needed such as refuges”.
“Service providers will be able to find the right balance for everyone,” she said, adding that the guidance does not give members of the public the right to challenge the use of single-sex spaces.
Malhotra told MPs: “It is the quiet guardian in millions of people’s daily lives. This government will uphold it and protect it, not weaken it.”
Mims Davies, the Conservatives shadow minister for Women, criticised Phillipson for not showing up and suggested she had been campaigning for Andy Burnham in the Makerfield by-election.
“First the Secretary of State claimed she needed impact assessments, then she said consultation with devolved governments was required despite this being a reserved matter,” Davies told MPs.
“After that it was purdah and now having exhausted every excuse she chose to lay the code of practice on the very last day before the Whitsun parliamentary recess seemingly to actively minimise scrutiny, that is not acceptable.
“It is also greatly telling that the Secretary of State has not come to the House herself to account for these decisions – seemingly the lure of Makerfield is too great.”
Davies urged the UK Government to commit to publishing what changes had been made to the Code of Practice, and why.
Marie Goldman, the LibDems spokesperson for Women and Equalities, urged the UK Government to reconsider the Code and launch a joint cross-party committee with MPs and peers to scrutinise the impact of the Supreme Court ruling.
Goldman told MPs that the Government’s job was to give businesses and service providers “clear workable guidance” but had instead published a Code that is “unworkable, exclusionary and expensive to business”.
“As the minister knows the Government must ensure they meet the legal obligations placed on them by the public sector equality duty,” she said.
“This requires the minister to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct.
“To advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not.”
Davies noted that the UK Government’s own equality impact assessment “identifies disproportionate harm to those with protected characteristics and a failure to set out how that harm will be addressed”.
She also noted that the guidance will likely impact women who “don’t meet cultural and social expectations around what a woman should look like” and that she had heard of women with mastectomies being challenged accessing single-sex spaces.
For transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, the code operates from a position of “exclusion”, Davies said, urging the UK Government to withdraw it.
In response, Malhotra said: “I do want to highlight again how the draft code does provide further clarity on how service providers can follow the Supreme Court ruling in practice, and that we can do both in that we protect single-sex spaces as well as ensure that we have services and support for trans people.”
