April 2026

I thank the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley for speaking to amendments 18 and 19. I acknowledge their sentiment, which is to ensure that the information provided to victims is appropriate and timely. The Government’s intention is to ensure that when a victim of an offence committed in the UK by a serviceperson is asked to indicate a preference on jurisdiction, they can do so in an informed way. The information provided must be accurate, helpful and, of course, objective, so I share the

Does the hon. Member accept that, as she says, men are generally the ones who attack women and that, if we do not have single-sex spaces, predatory men will use circumstances that are to their benefit to attack women? That is exactly why we need single-sex spaces.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

The hon. Lady is outlining cases where the application of that guidance might be difficult. Does she think that it would be difficult for someone to determine whether I, given the way I look, should be in a women’s single-sex space?

I just want to put on the record how welcome it is to see the comments of the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar. It is fair to say that Scottish Labour has been on a bit of a journey on this issue, but he has got to the right place, and I welcome that. I join the hon. Lady in stating that the Supreme Court judgment clarifies existing law. It did not change the law. It is about enforcing the existing law. Women have had their lives ruined by this issue over many years, and they are still having

Alice Sullivan has spoken a lot about identifying sex and gender. Does the hon. Member agree that sex and gender are not the same thing, and that if we are registering for a parkrun, another sporting event or anything else, we all know what is on our birth certificate?

As a lesbian woman, I have often been misgendered. As a young person—a tomboy—that sort of thing did not bother me; I wore it as a badge of honour. I am very worried that we are talking about fitting women into stereotypes. Surely, in this day and age, we are trying to move away from gender stereotypes as women, lesbians and gay people. Does the hon. Member agree that a trans woman can be a trans woman and a trans man can be a trans man—they are not a woman and they are not a man; they are a tra

Does the hon. Member recognise that women are a vulnerable group and that we make up half the population, yet we are still subject to more violence than any other group of people in society?

Parliamentary appearance by Catherine Fookes

Over the past 21 months, the Minister has worked tirelessly to try to build on the consensus across the House on the legislation that I put through on 21 May 2024 in order to make the scheme work, and I pay tribute to the work he has done. He has listened carefully to a whole range of inputs on an extremely complicated problem from a heterogeneous group of individuals, and he has done his level best to respond to the advice and best judgment of professionals, to attend to the range of needs and

The hon. Lady is making an interesting speech, and I thank her for it. I think we are probably on different sides of the debate, but it is still interesting. She says that none of trans people’s rights has been taken away. I wonder whether she can explain the legal limbo that trans people feel they are in when trying to obtain a gender recognition certificate. They are required to live in their acquired gender for several months in order to obtain a certificate, but if they cannot access the spa

On the point about it being fairly obvious which gender someone is, I wonder whether the hon. Lady has heard about the case of the woman who had a double mastectomy and frequently gets misgendered as a man? What would she say to that woman?

The hon. Gentleman always makes such interesting speeches. I just wanted to ask about intersex. We have talked a lot about biological fact. Would he explain a little bit more about intersex and the potential decisions that need to be made in relation to intersex babies when they are born?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Everyone is being generous with their time today, and I am grateful. He said that people have transitioned “biologically”. I thought biology was either one thing or the other and was immutable. Could he explain that point?

A lot has been said about common sense in this debate. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman will join me in reflecting that common sense used to hold that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that everything else revolved around it, and that common sense does not hold true forever?

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing this important debate, even though I know we are on slightly different sides of it. For far too long, trans, non-binary and intersex people have understandably been left anxious and fearful about the practical implications of the Supreme Court ruling. In its judgment, the Supreme Court stated: “It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the p

I am going to answer the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a slightly different way. There is something called the 80:20 rule, which states that, in pretty much anything in life, we should put 80% of our effort into 20% of situations. The vast majority of the time, it is really easy to deal with situations, including the one the hon. Gentleman just outlined. The hard work—the 80%—comes in 20% of the cases. It might not be that exact ratio, but a lot of the time we have to work a lot harder to dea

That is exactly why we need the Government to come forward with proper guidance—so that organisations can work through this properly and understand when they are working within the rules, and so that they do not have to reinvent everything for themselves. We do not have that guidance, and it is desperately needed.

I struggle with the idea that a trans person would go into the opposite sex’s changing rooms, which they are supposedly not allowed into, for the purpose of causing harm. That is surely what we are worrying about: harm being caused, particularly to women. I struggle with the idea that, at the moment, it is the sign on the door that is preventing someone from causing harm to women. Do they go, “Oh, I wanted to harm a woman, but I’m not going to do it because the sign on the door says I shouldn’t”

One of the most important things is how we behave towards each other as a society. I do not want women, men or anybody to have fit into stereotypes. The hon. Lady is absolutely right—we want to live in a society where we accept people for who they are.