Keir Starmer no longer believes trans women are women, says No 10 at briefing – UK politics live
No 10 says Starmer no longer argues trans women are women amid barrage of harsh questions at briefing
The Downing Street lobby briefing this morning provided a good illustration of why trans rights has become such a corrosive topic for Labour. Here are some of the questions from reporters that the PM’s spokesperson had respond to about last week’s supreme court ruling.
Q: Does the PM still believe a trans woman is a woman? No, the PM’s spokesperson replied. He said the supreme court had set out the position.
Q: Does the PM regret going further than that in past statements? The spokesperson said he could not comment on the PM’s views when he was in opposition.
Q: If the PM meets trans women, will he refer to them using their preferred pronouns? The spokesperson said he would not discuss hypotheticals, referred again to the ruling, but said trans people should be treated “with dignity and respect”.
Q: When did the PM change his mind on what constitutes a woman, or did he leave this up to the supreme court? The spokeperson said Starmer has previously said a woman is an adult female. When it was put to him that Starmer used to say a trans women are women, the spokesperson said he could only comment on what Starmer has said since he has been PM.
Q: Did the PM change his mind on what a woman is before he came into government? The spokesperson said that Starmer has repeatedly said a woman is an adult female.
Q: Does JK Rowling deserve an apology? The spokesperson said he would not comment on individuals.
Q: Why did it take the PM so long to comment on the supreme court ruling? The spokesperson said the government issued a response after the ruling came out. Today was the first time when Starmer was asked about it, he said.
There used to be something of a consensus on trans rights in UK politics. When Theresa May was PM in 2017, she proposed allowing people to change gender without the need for medical checks – something that even Labour has now moved away from. There is a thesis to be written on why opinion on this has shifted so swiftly.
Key events
Keir Starmer has said it is “incredibly humbling” to see the work being done by allied nations to train Ukrainian troops, PA Media reports. PA says:
The prime minister also praised the “resilience” of Ukrainians as he visited a military base alongside his New Zealand counterpart, Christopher Luxon, to see the work under Operation Interflex.
More than 54,000 Ukrainians have already received training under the programme.
Starmer said: “This is the second time I’ve come to see this training for the front line in Ukraine, and, just as with the first time, I find it incredibly humbling to see the training that is being done here.”
Addressing the other nations taking part in the training, including Australia and New Zealand, he added: “It’s really humbling, it’s incredibly professional. It could not be more important three years into this conflict, and it’s so important in terms of the training that’s being done.”
The prime minister also thanked the Ukrainians taking part in the programme and said it is “incredible to see the resilience and inspiration that you have”.
He added: “I think it’s incredible that all of the predictions at the beginning of this conflict were that the aggressor Russia would succeed very quickly, and they didn’t. Because of the resilience of the Ukrainians, because you fought back and forth for your country and fought for all of us in fighting for your country.”
As part of today’s visit, Starmer and Luxon are expected to instruct their respective defence ministers to begin work on a new defence partnership between the two nations, replacing the one signed in 2015. [See 12.19pm.]
In her Today programme interview this morning Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary and minister for women and equalities, said the supreme court ruling meant that trans women should use male toilets. (See 9.55am.) In a later interview she gave a more nuanced answer, saying it was up to pubs to decide their own toilet policy. (See 10.28am.)
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson sided with the first version of Phillipson’s answer. Asked what bathroom a trans person should use, the spokesperson replied:
They would use a bathroom consistent with their biological sex, as per the rule … That’s what the education secretary said this morning, and that’s what the court judgement makes clear – that all people should follow their biological sex when deciding what services they use.
No 10 refuses to commit to reversing Badenoch’s law curbing supply of unisex toilets – despite minister hinting more needed
In her Today programme interview Kemi Badenoch defended not having firm policies on some issues by saying that the Conservatives are in opposition and that an election is not imminent. But, on the isssue of single-sex toilets, Badenoch is still exerting considerable influence over government policy.
That’s because in May last year, shortly before the general election, Badenoch said that the government was bringing in secondary legislation to mandate “single sex toilet facilities in new non-domestic buildings to alleviate safety, privacy and dignity concerns”. She announced it in a news release saying the new law would “halt the march of gender-neutral toilets in buildings”.
The regulations are here. Government officials have recently confirmed to the Guardian that they remain in force.
In her Today programme interview this morning, in her response to the question about which toilet a trans person should use, Bridget Phillipson suggested she wanted to see more gender-neutral provision in place. (See 9.55am.)
But the rules mandate the opposite. As the government explained in May last year:
Changes to building regulations will mean that new non-domestic buildings, including restaurants, shopping centres, offices and public toilets will be required to provide separate single-sex toilets for women and men. Self-contained, universal toilets may be provided in addition, where space allows, or instead of single-sex toilets where there isn’t enough space.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson was asked if the government planned to change the Badenoch regulations to make it easier for organisations to provide unisex toilets. The spokesperson said he was not aware of the regulations, although he said the regulations could be “updated as needed” following the court judgment.
He went on:
I think the court judgement provides clarity on something that’s already government policy, which is that single-sex spaces should be protected, will always be protected.
The ruling brings clarity and confidence to service providers, such as hospitals, refuges and sports clubs.
This answer suggests that government is happy with the current regulations.
Phillipson to make statement to MPs about supreme court ruling affecting law on single-sex spaces
There will be three ministerial statements in the Commons this afternoon, as well as an urgent questions. Here they are with rough timings.
3.30pm: A housing minister answers an urgent question from the Conservatives on the Birmingham bin strike.
Around 4.15pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, makes a statement on Ukraine.
Around 5.15pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretay and minister for women and equalities, makes a statement about last week’s supreme court ruling.
Around 6.15pm: Sarah Jones, a business minister, gives a statement on British Steel.
Faculty of Advocates criticises Scottish Green MSP over ‘appalling’ attack on supreme court
Maggie Chapman, a Scottish Green MSP and deputy convenor of the Scottish parliament’s equalities, human rights and civil justice committee, has been strongly condemned for remarks she made criticising the supreme court for its ruling on the definition of ‘a woman’ in equality law.
The Faculty of Advocates, the Scottish equivalent of the Bar Council, has released an open letter describing the comments as “appalling” and an attack on the independence of the judiciary.
In the letter, Roddy Dunlop KC, dean of the faculty, says:
It was with considerable concern and dismay that we read reports of Ms Chapman MSP addressing a public gathering in the wake of the recent ruling in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers. In video footage which is circulating widely online, she is seen to condemn what she claims is the “bigotry, prejudice and hatred that we see coming from the Supreme Court”.
These are appalling comments to come from any elected politician. They are all the worse when they come from someone who holds the post of Deputy Convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee.
It really should not require to be said, but the Supreme Court – indeed, all judges – are in post to apply the law. They do not take sides. They decide without fear or favour, consistently with the judicial oath. For Ms Chapman to claim that they were swayed by “bigotry, prejudice and hatred” is outrageous. We are talking about the apex court of these islands, in this instance made up of a bench which included two of Scotland’s finest legal minds, as well as two women. No sensible person could read their dispassionate analysis and conclude that they were swayed by such matters.
Starmer to attend Pope’s funeral, No 10 says
Keir Starmer will be attending the Pope’s funeral in Rome on Saturday, Downing Street has confirmed.
Jakub Krupa has full coverage of events following the Pope’s death, and preparations for the funeral, on his Europe live blog.
Trump should be allowed to address parliament when he visits UK, minister says
Some MPs and peers are calling for President Trump not to be invited to address parliament when he visits the UK. In 2017, during Trump’s first presidency, the then Speaker, John Bercow, vetoed a proposal for Trump to address parliamentarians in Westminster Hall.
In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Stephen Morgan, an education minister, said Trump should be allowed to give a speech in parliament. Asked if Trump should be allowed to address MPs and peers, Morgan said:
I look forward to the US president addressing parliament in due course.
Britain and New Zealand to extend defence cooperation, No 10 says
Keir Starmer has been visiting a military base with his New Zealand counterpart, Christopher Luxon, this morning to promote a joint training initiative for Ukrainian troops.
In an overnight news release about the visit, Downing Street says:
New Zealand trainers have worked alongside British counterparts to help train more than 54,000 soldiers on Operation Interflex, and New Zealand are expected to today confirm that they will extend their support for the initiative in the UK until the end of the year.
In addition to their support for training Ukrainian troops, military planners from the New Zealand Defence Force are contributing to the latest thinking and plans for post-conflict support for Ukraine through the Coalition of the Willing.
Prime Minister Starmer will also announce UK contracts worth £30m for drones produced by SYOS Aerospace, a New Zealand uncrewed vehicle manufacturer based in Hampshire to support Ukraine.
During the visit to see the training first hand, the leaders are expected to discuss plans to further step up defence and security cooperation, with defence ministers being instructed to work on a new joint defence partnership between both countries to ensure the relationship is fit for the twenty-first century.
Phillipson dismisses claims government not adequately funding school breakfast clubs
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has rejected claims that the government is not giving schools enough money to fund its breakfast clubs initiative. (See 10.37am.)
Commenting on the announcement, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, the union for school leaders, said:
While we welcome the intentions behind the programme, the initial feedback we are hearing from many school leaders participating in the pilot is that the funding just isn’t sufficient. At a time when school budgets are already stretched, most can ill-afford to subsidise this shortfall.
The basic funding for the initiative is worth 60p per pupil.
Asked about this criticism on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Phillipson said:
The funding that we’re putting in place is more generous than schemes that came before.
I’m afraid this 60p number that gets bandied about just isn’t right. That is the daily funding rate for children, but, alongside that, schools get an initial start-up grant, and they get a termly payment of £1,000. So it is more generous than that.
Badenoch has already ‘thrown in towel’ ahead of local elections, Lib Dems claim
The Liberal Democrats have claimed that Kemi Badenoch’s comments in her Today interview this morning (see 11.23am) show she is already admitting defeat in the local elections. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:
Kemi Badenoch has already thrown in the towel before a single vote has been counted in next week’s local elections.
The Conservative party doesn’t have any answers on the big issues facing the country, because their fingerprints of failure are all over them.
Badenoch says she’s ‘not a career politician’ as she plays down Tory prospects in local elections
Kemi Badenoch has described herself as an engineer, “not a career politician”, in an interview where she played down the Conservatives’ chances in next week’s local elections.
Speaking to the Today programme, she said that the elections would be “very difficult” for her party because most of the seats were last contested in 2021, when Boris Johnson was particularly popular as the Covid vaccine was being rolled out.
Badenoch said:
These elections are going to be very difficult for the Conservatives. Two-thirds of the seats four years ago we won – there’s no way we are going to be able to do that again.
When Amol Rajan, the presenter, put it to Badenoch that her party was being overtaken by Reform UK because people did not know what the Tories stood for, she said she completely disagreed.
Badenoch went on:
Four years ago people were asking Keir Starmer to resign. He had the worst results ever. He’d been leader for about a year and a half.
I’ve been doing this for five and a half months, and if you look at the time that lots of the previous oppositions have been in – 14 years, 13 years, 18 years – it’s going to take time to fix this.
Asked how the Conservatives would get more people off welfare and into work, Badenoch said she would take her time to make plans and that she would not be “making policy announcements on radio stations”.
She claimed that normal politicians were too willing to rush into decisions.
We’ve had lots of people winning with no plan. We have a Labour government, they won an election, they have no plan.
Asked about a ConservativeHome survey saying 55% of party members think the Tories should be developing new policy more quickly, Badenoch said she would stick to her approach.
I’m not going to be blown off course every time someone has a criticism. That is why things don’t get done properly.
I tell people that I’m not a career politician, I’m an engineer. You build a plan, you explain how it’s going to be done, and then you make sure that you deliver it. That is what I’m doing.
After leaving university in 2003, Badenoch worked as a computer engineer. She became an elected politician in 2015, when she joined the London assembly, and she was elected to parliament in 2017.
Home Office to publish nationalities of foreign criminals in UK
The nationalities of foreign criminals in the UK are due to be published for the first time, under plans to be disclosed by the Home Office. Rajeev Syal has the story.
Starmer says roll-out of breakfast clubs in primary schools in England will be ‘game-changing moment’ for families
Keir Starmer and Bridget Phillipson wanted to be talking mostly this morning about school breakfast clubs. As pupils return to school after the Easter holidays, the government is starting to roll out its policy of having breakfast clubs in primary schools in England.
Here is an extract from the Department for Education’s news release.
School mornings just got easier for families across the country as 750 schools open breakfast clubs today, offering 30 minutes of free childcare, a healthy start for kids and a little more breathing room before the school bell rings.
Parents will be supported with additional time at the start of the day to attend appointments, get to work on time and run errands. In total, this means parents will be able to save up to 95 additional hours and £450 per year if their child attends free breakfast clubs every day.
This amount rises to a saving of up to £8,000 every year when combining the free breakfast clubs with further support through the expansion of government-funded childcare and new school uniform cap on branded items.
In a statement, Starmer said this would be a “game-changing moment” for families.
The rollout of free breakfast clubs is a truly game-changing moment for families in this country. They mean parents will no longer be hamstrung by rigid school hours and have the breathing space they need to beat the morning rush, attend work meetings and doctors’ appointments, or run errands. And crucially, it means better life chances for children.
By making these clubs free and universal, we’re doing something that previous governments have never done. We’re going further and faster to deliver the change working families deserve. That’s the change this government was elected to deliver.
Phillipson urges firms to ensure ‘safe and appropriate’ toilets available for all, including trans people
In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary and minister for women and equalities, criticised the behaviour of some of the activists who demonstrated against the supreme court’s trans ruling at the weekend.
Some statues were damaged during the protest in London, and some of the placards waved used extreme or inflammatory language.
Phillipson said:
What we have seen in recent days, where it comes to defacing of statues, some pretty terrible placards that have been displayed in protests around the country, it really is just completely unacceptable.
We need to move to a situation where we can just treat one another with dignity and respect, that, yes, we maintain single-sex spaces for women, absolutely, the ruling is clear, but trans people too have a right to live their lives free of harassment, free of discrimination.
I think that’s a pretty commonsense view that is held by the majority of the British people.
In the GMB interview, Phillipson was also asked what toilet a trans woman should use in a pub. Her reply was not as direct as it was in her earlier interview on the Today programme. (See 9.55am.) She said:
We don’t routinely police toilets and it’s for businesses, including pubs, to decide how they run their premises.
But I would hope that that business would make sure that there is a safe and appropriate place for all people to use, including trans people, who do deserve dignity and respect, let’s be clear.
Starmer says he is ‘really pleased’ supreme court has given ‘much-needed clarity’ on definition of ‘woman’ in equalities law
Keir Starmer has been under pressure for days to comment on the supreme court ruling, particularly from the rightwing papers. Yesterday the Daily Mail even splashed on a story saying he “must break his silence”. His opponents want to embarrass him over the issue because of his past comments supporting more rights for trans people, including one interview when he said it was “not right” to say only women have a cervix.
This morning, in interviews during a school visit in Bath, Starmer said he was “really pleased” the supreme court had clarified the law on the definition of a woman. He told the BBC:
I welcome the decision of the supreme court, which has given us clarity, much-needed clarity, and I think for those that are now drawing up guidance, it’s a much clearer position.
So I’m really pleased that the court has now clarified the position.
We can move on from there and I think that’s been very helpful, and I would welcome that.
Asked if a trans woman was a woman, Starmer replied:
I think the supreme court has answered that question.
Asked if that meant he did not believe a transwoman is a woman, Starmer said:
A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.
I actually welcome the judgment because I think it gives real clarity. It allows those that have got to draw up guidance to be really clear about what that guidance should say.
So I think it’s important that we see the judgment for what it is. It’s a welcome step forward.
It’s real clarity in an area where we did need clarity, I’m pleased it’s come about.
We need to move and make sure that we now ensure that all guidance is in the right place according to that judgment.
Supreme court ruling means trans women should use male toilets, says equalities minister Bridget Phillipson
Good morning. The Easter recess is over, parliament is back today, and one consequence is that ministers can no longer avoid awkward questions about the implications of last week’s supreme court ruling saying that, when the Equality Act refers to women, it just means biological women and does not include trans women, even with a gender recognition certificate.
Delivering the ruling, Lord Hodge said the decison should not be seen as a “triumph” for one side in the debate about trans rights at the expense of another. That turned out to be wishful thinking, because gender critical ferminists, and their supporters in the media, have been treating this as a decisive victory. For most Labour ministers, the case was an uncomfortable reminder of an issue they would rather not talk about because they have pulled back considerably from the ‘trans women are women’ very pro-trans positions they (and some Conservatives too) were adopting only a few years ago.
The “gotcha” question for Labour ministers on trans issues from a hostile media used to be ‘can a woman have a penis?’. After last week’s judgment, it became, ‘what toilet should a trans person use?’ In interviews last week Karin Smyth, a health minister, ducked the question. The Daily Mail, a paper that in normal circumstances would be the first to denounce nanny state ministers passing laws telling people what toilets to use, said Smyth was squirming as she dodged the question.
But today Bridget Phillipson, who is minister for women and equalities as well as being education secretary, told the Today programme that a trans woman should use the men’s toilets. Asked which toilet trans people should use, she replied:
That should be on the basis of biological sex. That would apply right across the board to all single sex provision.
But she also said the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) would be setting out guidance on this issue. And she said firms should consider having unisex provision in place.
I know that many businesses, large and small, will ensure that they have appropriate provision in place. For example, many businesses have moved towards unisex provision or separate cubicles that can be used by anyone.
Currently many, or most, trans people do use toilets corresponding to their gender, not their biological sex, and they point out that normally this happens without anyone objecting, or even noticing. Last week, after Kishwer Falkner, chair of the EHRC, gave an interview also saying the supreme court ruling meant trans women should have to use male toilets, trans activists accused her of overreach.
Telling trans women to use male toilets would make a big change for some people. This is what a policy document from the Metropolitan police was saying on this topic only three years ago.
If someone (whether binary or non-binary) presents as, say, female then they use the female toilet and vice versa. There is no law or policy prohibiting anyone from using whichever toilet matches their gender identity, and a trans* individual cannot be ordered to use a toilet that they feel uncomfortable using. A trans* person does not need to “prove” their right to use the toilet in anyway, including producing a Gender Recognition Certificate.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer visits a military training base with Christopher Luxon, the New Zealand PM, as tney discuss a joint initiative to train Ukrainian solidiers. Starmer is due to give media interviews.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2pm: The IMF publishes its latest world economic outlook, including revised growth forecasts for the UK.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: A minister is expected to make a Commons statement about last week’s supreme court judgment about the definition of woman in the Equality Act, and about policy relating to trans people.
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