Gender Recognition

Debate between Jackie Doyle-Price and Kemi Badenoch

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely disagree with the hon. Lady. She talks about our using this issue as a culture wars football, yet the Labour Opposition spokesperson says that this is the first time that she has heard us say anything about this in the House. Surely both cannot be true. I think it is extraordinary that she is telling us that we are not compassionate. It is her Government in Scotland who were allowing rapists to be housed in women’s prisons while using self-identity as a cover, so I will not accept that. We are the ones who are thinking about women’s rights. We are the ones who are thinking about safeguarding. We are the ones who are thinking about vulnerability.

The hon. Lady asks me about reciprocal arrangements. The fact is that our system is a lot more rigorous, so there is no reason for others to stop accepting our certificates because they have not changed. It is because other countries have changed their process that we are updating this policy. We cannot have a situation where there are rules for people in this country and where we allow people from other countries with different rules to be able to access things that people in the UK cannot access. This is about equality before the law. This is about parity. Reciprocal arrangements will be fine. She also asked about people already living here. This is not retrospective legislation, so it will not impact people who are already here. We are just making it clear: self-ID is not something that this Government support. We do not believe that this is something that people should just declare, because that creates the very same problems that she saw in Scotland in the Isla Bryson case, with rapists going into women’s prisons. We will not allow that to happen on this Government’s watch.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Of course we cannot change biological sex. The GRC establishes legal sex for the purpose of exercising certain rights. Given that we have had a massive shift in rights since the Gender Recognition Act was passed in 2004, particularly with same sex marriage, can my right hon. Friend advise me exactly what additional rights are granted through the giving of a GRC?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. This is one area where we are trying to provide clarity. As a result of the Haldane judgment, there is now confusion between biological sex and legal sex and certainly in terms of the interpretation that people put on it. A gender recognition certificate had different standards in terms of what could be obtained until this judgment. We want to make it clear, for instance, that single-sex spaces will still be protected. We will do a lot more to clarify that. As I said, the Haldane judgment changes that, which is one reason why we need to look at this very carefully. There were 30 pages in the Appeal Court report, which shows how complex this issue is. The law is no longer clear. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the law is now a mess because of changing times. We need to provide clarity. We cannot assume that the wording as was intended in 2004 and 2010 still works in 2023, and we are carrying out work to fix that.