Legislative Definition of Sex

Debate between Jess Phillips and Maria Caulfield

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Maria Caulfield]

Absolutely. For most people, their sex in law is the same as their biological sex. It is different where a transgender person has legally changed their sex to their acquired gender on their birth certificate by obtaining a gender recognition certificate. If “sex” meant someone’s sex in law, references to a woman in the Equality Act would include a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate but not a trans woman without a gender recognition certificate. That said, the Equality Act protection applies on the basis of perceived characteristic as well as actual characteristics, so a trans woman who passes as a woman can claim protection from discrimination on that basis. The debate today is about whether that basis of sex, based on law rather than on biology, needs changing to ensure that the rights of biological women are also protected. That is the crux of the matter that we have been debating today.

It is in that spirit that the Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), sought advice from the EHRC as the independent equality regulator for Great Britain. When seeking that advice, she set out that she is concerned that the Equality Act may not be sufficiently clear in the balance that it strikes between the interests of people with different protected characteristics. It is everyone’s best interests that we establish whether the law in its existing format is sufficiently clear, because not doing so, as we have heard today, could have very practical consequences. The continued debate on this matter inevitably creates additional considerations for organisations and service providers to navigate, potentially preventing them from carrying out their functions or indeed from complying with the responsibility for equality.

The Prime Minister has also publicly given his views on this issue. In April he said:

“We should always have compassion and understanding…for those who are thinking about…their gender. But when comes to these issues of protecting women's rights, women's spaces, I think the issue of biological sex is fundamentally important when we think about those questions”.

That is why, when it comes to women’s health, sports or spaces, we need to make sure that we are protecting those rights.

[Jess Phillips]

It is interesting to hear the words from the very top of Government. I wonder if the Minister will be joining us in the Lobbies during the Victims and Prisoners Bill to ensure that specialist women’s services are defined in law and are protected in commissioning at a local level, where currently they are being let go.

[Maria Caulfield]

I know that the hon. Lady campaigns passionately on those issues from her experience of working in the sector. As a Government, we have done a huge amount for women in the space of domestic violence and abuse.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published its considered response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden, stating that on balance it believes that redefining sex in the Equality Act to mean biological sex would

“create rationalisations, simplifications, clarity and/or reduction in risk for maternity services, providers and users of other services, gay and lesbian associations, sports organisers and employers. It therefore merits further consideration.”

It has, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) said, said that it could cause some ambiguity as well. That is why it is important that we consider, both in policy terms and in legal terms, the potential implications of this change before we take any further decisions.

The Government have taken that advice and are considering the next steps at the moment.

Baby Loss Awareness Week

Debate between Jess Phillips and Maria Caulfield

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I take the hon. Lady’s point. There was a lot of misinformation earlier in the year that made pregnant women reluctant to come forward, and there is a lot of work we can do to improve that communication.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I wish to raise a specific point about covid that I learned of from an obstetric consultant: the number of preemie births dramatically dropped during covid because women were at home. It was a doctor from Reading who told me this. He had to be dispatched somewhere else in the NHS because his services in dealing with premature babies were no longer needed as the number had dropped so greatly because women were at home. Will that form part of the strategy, to make sure that in terms of baby loss we are looking after women throughout their pregnancies?

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. We need to be guided by clinical evidence and practice, and we will look back and reflect on some of the lessons that can be learned from the period of covid.

Many hon. Members mentioned the staff who look after women and families who have lost a baby. It is incredibly important that we support those staff, because the impact is huge. May I put on the record my thanks to every one of those maternity staff who look after women and families, because the toll on them is sometimes greatly underestimated? It is assumed that because they go into that speciality they can cope with this, but it is extremely difficult for them. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), may I too welcome Jane Scott and her colleague, one of the midwives from St Mary’s Hospital, who have set up the UK National Bereavement Midwife Forum? I would be delighted to visit them and learn from their experience, because we are committed to supporting staff and making sure that they are able to undertake the special work that they do.

In conclusion, there are multiple and complex issues associated with baby loss and we need to do more not only to support families through such a difficult experience, but to reduce the numbers of people experiencing baby loss in the first place. Crucially, as I said in my opening remarks, we have made some good progress on our national maternity safety plans. We have seen a 25% reduction in the stillbirth rate since 2010 and a 29% reduction in the neonatal mortality rate for babies over 24 weeks’ gestation. That means hundreds more mothers and families are going home with a live and healthy baby each year, but, as this debate has ably demonstrated, there is still much more to be done. I hope to return to the Chamber next year during Baby Loss Awareness Week to be able to show the further progress we have made on this important issue.