Braverman to answer urgent question on David Carrick case
There are now going to be two statements in the Commons after business questions. At 12.30pm Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is giving one about the David Carrick case. That means Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, will not be giving the section 35 order one until around 1.30pm.
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Suella Braverman to make statement to MPs about rapist police officer David Carrick
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is about to make a statement to MPs about “police conduct in the light of the case of David Carrick”.
Last night she said:
This appalling incident represents a breach of trust and will affect people’s confidence in the police.
Rishi Sunak and Braverman both raised the case at cabinet this morning, No 10 said. In its cabinet readout, Downing Street said:
The prime minister opened cabinet by saying that everyone would have been appalled by the crimes of David Carrick.
He said the case undermines public confidence in the police which is essential for them to do their jobs.
The prime minister said people like Carrick should never have been a police officer and that we need to see real change quickly.
He added that the police must address the failings that happened in this case, restore public confidence, and do everything possible to ensure women and girls are safe in their communities and homes.
The home secretary said the case was a tragedy with significant failings in vetting and recruitment. She said £3bn has been invested to improve these processes and that the new Met commissioner was committed to tackling the problem.
No 10 slaps down Gillian Keegan, saying 16 too young for people to be allowed to change gender
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson in effect slapped down Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, for suggesting this morning that people were old enough to decide if they wanted to change gender at 16. (See 9.37am.)
Asked if 16 was old enough to change gender, the spokesperson said:
As you know, we consulted on that issue and set out the position that 18 is the correct age for transgender people to change their sex.
To be fair, Keegan also slapped down herself this morning, saying in a subsequent interview that when she described 16 as old, she was only referring to some teenagers, and thinking about herself at that age.
Asked again about Keegan’s comment, the spokesperson said: “She made clear herself that she was talking about her own personal standpoint.”
Braverman to answer urgent question on David Carrick case
There are now going to be two statements in the Commons after business questions. At 12.30pm Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is giving one about the David Carrick case. That means Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, will not be giving the section 35 order one until around 1.30pm.
I am sorry the comments are closed at the moment. There has been an update this morning that has created a glitch with the system, but the developers are trying to fix it as quickly as possible.
Labour has been anxious to avoid taking sides on the Scottish gender recognition reform bill. Although Keir Starmer has criticised aspects of the bill, and argued it might have an impact on UK equality laws, he has accused both the UK and Scottish governments of politicising the issues and implied that Labour would adopt a more consensual approach.
Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, adopted this line in interviews this morning, saying the issue should not be part of a “constitutional standoff between the SNP Scottish government and the Conservative UK government”.
But, in an interview with Times Radio, Powell refused to say whether she personally was in favour of allowing people to get a gender recognition certificate through self-certification (as the Scottish bill proposes), instead of providing medical evidence of gender dysphoria (as UK law mandates), and whether she was in favour of people being able to change gender at 16 (as Scotland proposes), instead of 18.
Powell just said there were “a range of different opinions across the Labour party” on this and that she had her own views, “which I’m going to keep to myself”.
Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, will make a statement to MPs about the gender recognition reform bill, the Commons authorities have confirmed. It should start around 12.30pm.
Also confirmed:
• Statement from Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack: “Exercise of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 with regard to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.”
— UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) January 17, 2023
A reader has pointed out that this passage, from a briefing on the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s website, dated 4 April 2022, seems to back up the Scottish government’s case, not the UK government’s, in the row about the gender recognition reform bill. It says:
Because the operation of the Equality Act gender reassignment exceptions does not rely on possession, or not, of a gender recognition certificate, any reform of the Gender Recognition Act will not erode the special status of services provided separately for men and women, or for men or women only, as defined by the Equality Act 2010, such as domestic abuse refuges, health services and clubs. We have issued clear, practical guidance for providers of separate and single-sex services to help them fully understand how to meet the needs of all women and men.
Labour claims online safety bill concession from ‘weak’ Sunak does not go far enough
Last night the government backed down, in the face of a potential revolt by Tory MPs that could have led to a defeat on the online safety bill, and agreed to amend the legislation so that social media executives who persistently fail to protect children could be jailed. My colleague Dan Milmo has the story here.
This morning Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, said the climbdown was a sign of weakness. She also claimed the concession did not go far enough. She said:
Labour has been calling for stronger criminal sanctions for months, however the enforcement is now over a narrower set of measures after the government gutted much of the bill before Christmas.
We’ve got no idea where the government truly stand on these issues. They’ve flip-flopped, one minute massively weakening the bill, the next minute forced into a minor strengthening.
Rishi Sunak is too weak to stand up against vested interest. Labour is on the side of the public.
Real-terms UK pay fell at fastest rates for 20 years at end of 2022
Average real-terms pay in Britain fell at among the fastest rates for more than two decades at the end of 2022, as public sector pay deals continue to fall behind the private sector during the cost of living crisis, latest figures from the ONS show. My colleague Richard Partington has the story here.
Scottish government rejects claim its gender recognition bill undermines equality law
Scotland’s gender recognition reform bill has triggered a constitutional row because health (and gender recognition) are devolved matters, but equality law is a matter for the UK parliament.
In her Today interview Shona Robison, the Scottish government’s social justice secretary, insisted that the gender recognition reform bill would not undermine or change UK equality law. This is an argument the Scottish government has been making for some time, and Robison said this morning.
[The bill] simplifies the process for obtaining a gender recognition certificate. It does not change the effect of having one. All of the protections under the equality legislation remain exactly the same.
And she stressed that a clause has been included in the bill making exactly this point.
The UK government has not given detailed reasons yet as to why it has decided that the Scottish government is wrong on this point. In his statement last night Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, just said he was concerned the bill would have “an adverse impact on the operation of Great Britain-wide equalities legislation”.
But last week Policy Exchange, a Tory thinktank with considerable influence over government thinking, published a report saying the UK government should block the Scottish bill. It explained by referring to a recent court decision. The report, written by Michael Foran, a law lecturer at Glasgow University, says:
The law regulating legal sex change is found in the Gender Recognition Act 2004, an Act of Parliament that applies across the UK and which addresses both reserved and devolved matters. It provides that to change one’s legal sex, one must first be diagnosed with gender dysphoria and undergo a two-year period of medically supervised social transition. The Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill could change all this for those born or resident in Scotland. If enacted, the Bill would remove the requirement to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, reduce the statutory waiting time from two years to three months, and lower the minimum age for a legal sex change to sixteen.
Whether or not this has any effect on the operation of the Equality Act – adverse or otherwise – depends on whether a change in “legal sex” changes one’s “sex” for the purposes of the Equality Act. For a time, the answer to this legal question was not clear and arguments could be – and were – advanced on both sides. But on 13 December 2022, Lady Haldane decided the For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (FWS2) case in the Outer House of the Court of Session. Her Ladyship’s decision was that a Gender Recognition Certificate, issued under the 2004 Act, does alter one’s sex for the purposes of the Equality Act, including for provisions relating to the advancement of diversity via positive measures.
The Policy Exchange paper argues that this ruling will have “profound implications”, including “making it potentially more difficult for women-only spaces to exclude biological males”.
Asked about this argument in her Today interview, Robison insisted that, although the bill would change the rules about obtaining a gender recognition certificate, it would not change the effect of having such a certificate.
Asked if it would be harder to restrict female-only spaces to people born as biologically female, she replied:
The protections under the equality legislation have exemptions. So [in] a female-only space, trans women, whether or not they have a gender recognition certificate, can be excluded from that female-only space. That is the current position. It remans the position. This bill changes none of that.
Aslef says train drivers to stage fresh strikes on 1 and 3 February
Train drivers are to stage fresh strikes after the rejection of a pay offer, PA Media reports. PA says:
Members of Aslef will walk out on February 1 and 3, causing more travel disruption across the country.
The first strike will coincide with a walkout by 100,000 civil servants in their dispute over pay and jobs, a strike by teachers over pay and nationwide protests against the government’s controversial new strike law.
Mick Whelan, Aslef general secretary, said: “The offer is not acceptable but we are willing to engage in further discussions with the train operating companies.”
The companies affected include Avanti West Coast; Chiltern Railways; CrossCountry; East Midlands Railway; Great Western Railway; Greater Anglia; GTR Great Northern Thameslink; London North Eastern Railway; Northern Trains; Southeastern; Southern/Gatwick Express; South Western Railway (depot drivers only); SWR Island Line; TransPennine Express; and West Midlands Trains.
Scottish government rejects Sunak’s offer to cooperate on revised gender bill, implying it will go to court instead
In his statement last night Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, said the UK government was blocking the Scottish gender recognition reform bill because it might have an adverse impact on UK equality legislation. But he said the UK goverment would be willing to work with the Scottish government to ensure a revised Scottish bill did not present this problem. He said:
If the Scottish government chooses to bring an amended bill back for reconsideration in the Scottish parliament, I hope we can work together to find a constructive way forward that both respects devolution and the operation of UK Parliament legislation.
In an interview with the Today programme this morning Shona Robison, who as social justice secretary in the Scottish government took the bill through the Scottish parliament rejected this offer.
The Scottish government does not accept that the bill does impact on UK equality legislation – it even includes a clause specifically saying it has no impact on the Equality Act – and Robison said she did not think Jack’s offer was sincere.
She said that, if the UK government genuinely believed that it had legal grounds to challenge the bill because of its impact on UK equality law, it would have used a section 33 order instead of a section 35 one. Section 33 of the Scotland Act allows the UK or Scottish government to refer a bill to the supreme court for a ruling on whether or not it is legal under the devolution settlement that reserves some matters to Westminster. This has happened in the past (unlike the use of a section 35 order).
Robison went on:
Using the section 35 nuclear option, I think, reveals that they don’t have a legal basis to challenge it, and this is more about the politics than it is about the legislation.
And I don’t think the UK government are going to come forward with a suggestions of a tweak here or a tweak there. They are fundamentally against this bill. They don’t like this bill.
And they are using their power to stop the democratically elected Scottish parliament taking forward legislation that had the overwhelming support fo that parliament.
The Scottish government is instead expected to go to court itself to challenge the legality of the UK government’s 35 order. That dispute would end up in the supreme court.
Gillian Keegan rows back after saying 16 not too young to change gender – as Scotland’s bill would allow
Good morning. Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, is one of the least known and most powerless members of the cabinet. The Scottish government largely decides how public services are delivered in Scotland, and where the UK government is in overall charge, it is generally another cabinet minister, not Jack. But today he finds himself at the centre of an unprecedented row between Westminster and Holyrood, because he is the minister who has to issue the section 35 order that the UK government is using to block the Scottish government’s gender recognition reform bill. It is the first time a section 35 order has been issued since devolution started almost a quarter of a century ago.
Jack issued a statement about this last night, but he is expected to face questions from MPs when he delivers a statement to the Commons later. Here is our overnight story.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, was doing the morning interview round today. One of the objections to the Scottish bill is that it will allow people to start the process of changing gender from the age of 16 and, when asked if she thought this was too young on Sky News, she did not agree. She replied:
No, I don’t actually [think 16 is too young]. I was working at 16, I was paying tax at 16, I was making decisions for myself at 16.
This made her sound more liberal on this than Keir Starmer, who yesterday said he thought 16 was too young.
But, by the time she appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, perhaps realising that her initial answer put her at odds with her Tory colleagues, she said that for some people, 16 might be too young. Asked about her answer earlier on Sky, she said:
I said ‘Look, you know, at 16, I was working, I was paying tax’, but all 16-year-olds are different.
Obviously, everybody has a different view. It’s really, really important that we take into account parents’ views, teachers’ views, children’s views, and other stakeholders’ views as well because it is quite tricky.
But what I said was, you know, for me, myself, I felt able to take decisions for myself at 16. But… I’d grown up quite quickly and I was actually working full-time at 16.
Keegan also said that the government was right to intervene, and that the section 35 process was included in the Scotland Act precisely for circumstances like this. She said:
The secretary of state for Scotland has used this power because we can’t have two competing gender and equality legislations.
So we need to look at that and need to work out what to do, and he’ll be setting out and making a statement later on today in parliament.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.
11.30am: Grant Shapps, the business secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds its lobby briefing.
12pm: Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, speaks at an Institute for Government conference. Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, and Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, are also speaking.
After 12.30pm: Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, is expected to make a statement to MPs about the government’s decision to block Scotland’s gender recognition reform bill.
Afternoon: MPs debate the remaining stages of the online safety bill. Ministers will confirm that, in response to a potential revolt by Tory MPs, they will accept an amendment that could see social media executives facing jail if they persistently fail to protect children.
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