Equality and Human Rights Commission

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. The really important thing here is our focus on getting this code right. There are implications for a whole range of businesses and people up and down the country. We have set out our expectations that service providers follow the law, as clarified by the For Women Scotland ruling, and seek specialist advice where necessary. But it is for that reason, and that potential legal challenge, that we need to take time to get this properly right, so that the code can be adopted by everyone with confidence that they are following the law.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

We have had the shabby spectacle of the Government disingenuously arguing against their own regulator’s interpretation of the law in the High Court this past November. On 13 February, those arguments were comprehensively defeated and the EHRC unambiguously won the case on its interpretation in the interim update. Will they now come clean and say that they have no interest in defending women’s rights, and write to the EHRC, as the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, has said, to say they will not lay the code—or at least lay it forthwith, so that everyone can see the arguments contained in it?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I do not accept the premise of the noble Baroness’s question at all. We have a statutory duty, as does the EHRC. The EHRC is independent of the Government, but the Secretary of State has an obligation. As one noble Lord said, we will consider the code and either reject it or accept it. We are working with the EHRC to publish the code as speedily as possible. We want to avoid the very cases—whether it is the Good Law Project, Sex Matters or anybody else; there are lots of cases going on—as it is the people on the ground who suffer. We want to get it right and we will do so.