Legislative Definition of Sex

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate with you in the Chair, Sir George. I am grateful to everyone who signed both petitions and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for the respectful way in which she began the debate.

The two petitions that form the subject of the debate and the large numbers of people who signed them make it clear that views on the issue are strongly held. It is vital that the Members of this House set an example on such matters, engaging in constructive, respectful and polite discussion of them. This discussion is important, because as well as the engagement on the petitions, many people relatedly seek clarity on the Conservative Government’s plans for the Equality Act. That includes my party, the Labour party, the party of the Equality Act. As many have remarked, it is now 13 years since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) piloted that landmark legislation through this place, introducing a legal framework against discrimination by employers, businesses, schools, public bodies and many other institutions that many countries lack and still seek to learn from.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about the Equality Act. I agree that it has been protecting people for 13 years in a whole range of areas, including in relation to not just gender identity, but race, age, breastfeeding and disability. Does she share my concern that the Conservative Government have a wider agenda here? The Prime Minister said that the Equality Act was

“a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that the wider agenda is to remove all the protections that we all enjoy?

[Anneliese Dodds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is huge confusion about the Government’s position. We heard those comments from the Prime Minister last summer. In 2020, we heard the then Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), criticising what she claimed to be a “focus on protected characteristics” and saying that that had led to

“a narrowing of the equality debate”.

A similar position has been maintained by her successor, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), and yet, confusingly, we have also had the Prime Minister claiming to back the protections that the Equality Act contains for women. To listen to him, one would not think that those protections had already been enshrined in law for 13 years—a law that, of course, his party opposed repeatedly as it was being passed.

That is important context, because we cannot understand the Government’s intentions when we have a Prime Minister who will attack the Equality Act one day, only to cast himself as its defender the next. Today, I can be very clear that Labour remains committed to protecting and upholding the Equality Act, including the public sector equality duty, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex exemptions.

I ask the Minister to be clear in her remarks. Does she support the Equality Act? Does she agree that statements attacking it from her colleagues risk eroding public confidence in its protections? And will she commit to explaining to her colleagues, including the Prime Minister, that the overwhelming consensus view of the British public is in favour of those protections and of greater equality and fairness?

On the specificities of future changes that many have talked about during the debate, as the party of equality Labour wants trans people to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect. Labour also supports the protection of certain spaces that are for biological women, such as refuges for vulnerable women, which are provided for by the single-sex exemptions contained in the Equality Act. Indeed, it is thanks to Labour’s Equality Act that it is possible today for service providers to create and maintain single-sex services where that is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. That system has been in place for well over a decade, and many of the service providers I speak to tell me that it provides an effective and robust framework for dealing with what are often difficult decisions around service operation. We can see that in codified form in, for example, the guidance of Women’s Aid Federation of England on these matters.

The Equality Act protects everyone, which is why any changes to it need to be carefully thought through and why clarity on these issues is important. Labour believes that we need to have a common-sense approach that provides clarity for service providers for different circumstances—both those in which trans people should be included and those in which excluding trans people is a proportionate means to a legitimate end. The problem is that the Government have provided no indication of how they would provide that clarity, aside from leaning into the idea of amending the Equality Act—something that contradicts their written response to today’s petitions. I hope that the Minister can set the record straight on that. It is especially important given that we have heard contradictory statements on the subject from different parts of her Government.

Some colleagues have already referred, I think helpfully, to the recent exchange of letters between the Government Equalities Office and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The chair of the EHRC made it clear that any potential future changes to the Equality Act could bring clarity to some areas but potential ambiguity to others. That is why the Government need to urgently explain what future changes, if any, they are in the process of identifying and set out whether they agree with the EHRC that such changes could bring greater ambiguity to other areas, and if so what the impact of that would be on anyone with a protected characteristic.

Detailed policy and legal analysis is clearly required before the UK Government can effectively respond to the EHRC’s letter, so can the Minister confirm whether that detailed policy and legal analysis is being carried out? If so, will she commit to publishing it so that the House can scrutinise the Government’s position, and will she confirm whether the Government plan to reply to the EHRC? When the Government come forward with any proposals out of all the rumours that we have heard in the press, Labour will respond accordingly. The last Labour Government did more to advance the cause of equality than any other in history. The next will put equality at the heart of their policies, and break new ground for women and for LGBT+ people.

I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) in relation to recent votes on legislation, and I have to broaden her point. We have seen extensive engagement from those on the Government Benches on the issues that we are discussing today. We need to discuss them—politely and in detail—but I wish that we had seen over the last 13 years the same level of engagement from those on the Government Benches while so many women got poorer and poorer, while so many women saw their health deteriorate, with maternal mortality now increasing, while so many women and girls have become increasingly unsafe, and while impunity for violent men has in many cases increased.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

I wonder if the Minister has had a chance to consider the interim advice given by the United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, who has been very critical of suggestions of opening up the Equality Act and reviewing these positions, seeing them as taking rights away from people who should be protected and are protected at present.

[Maria Caulfield]

As we have heard, there are many views on this issue. That is why it is important that we take the time to properly consider the policy around it and take in the legal considerations, too. There are clearly cases where people are struggling to make practical decisions on a day-by-day basis with the Act as it stands. However, we do not want to create additional unforeseen problems by changing or clarifying the Equality Act.