Scottish ministers accused of ‘dragging their feet’ on single sex spaces

The Scottish Government has been accused of “dragging its feet” when it comes to implementing a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court on single sex spaces – with a leading SNP backbencher amongst those challenging ministers.

Tory MSP Tess White accused SNP ministers at Holyrood of “kicking the can down the road” by waiting until new guidance is issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in June on single sex spaces.

She challenged the Scottish Government after First Minister John Swinney said on Monday that public bodies – such as hospitals, prisons and schools – should wait until the full guidance is published before making changes to policy.

But SNP MSP Michelle Thomson said that “to wait until summer” for changes to be made “seems highly risky given the absolute clarity of the Supreme Court’s 88 page judgment”.

Her comments came after Britain’s most senior judges ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.

In light of that, an update from the EHRC, published on Friday evening, said that in workplaces and services that are open to the public, “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities”.

The EHRC said that allowing trans people to use toilet facilities for the gender they identify as would mean facilities are “no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex”.

Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said the Scottish Government has already started working towards implementing the Supreme Court ruling – saying a short-life, working group was being established to look at “consistency across Government on this work”.

And she said she would discuss the matter with the EHRC “at their earliest convenience”, after a meeting with Scottish ministers was dropped last week.

But Ms Somerville stressed to MSPs at Holyrood that “consideration is being given across government and by our public services” of both the outcome of the Supreme Court judgment and the EHRC update.

She insisted: “The Scottish Government expects all public bodies and agencies to act within the law and obey the rule of law, that particularly includes the Supreme Court judgment.”

However, Ms White said without guidance from the Scottish Government there is a “vacuum right now” on the issue.

The Conservative demanded: “The Scottish Government is dragging its feet. Will the Scottish Government now finally stop kicking the can down the road and remove biological men from women’s spaces across the public sector.”

Her call was echoed by Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton, who said: “The law is clear and the SNP have no more excuses.”

They raised the issue in Holyrood after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also made clear there should be “no delay” in action from the Government on single sex spaces.

Mr Sarwar insisted: “I don’t think there should be any delay – I think the Supreme Court judgment was unequivocal.

“I think it provides important clarity for women, for public services, for public sector bodies, and the Government should move at pace to implement that ruling.”

He added: “I think it’s pretty clear what the Supreme Court said.

“I think it’s pretty clear what the EHRC is saying – there should be no delay.”

However, Scottish Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie spoke out about the “extraordinary degree of fear and anxiety being caused to the trans community around the country”.

He said that Friday’s update from EHRC had left some transgender people unsure if they should go to work “because they didn’t even know if they would be able to do something as simple as go to the toilet”.

Mr Harvie claimed that the UK was “now at risk of breaching trans peoples’ human rights” adding it was “unacceptable to see decades of progress on equality and human rights rolled back in this way”.