Urgent - write to your MP today about back door self ID data bill tomorrow

I could write my MP's reply for him - (Labour, batshit end) - even though it hasn't appeared yet.

1. the most important thing about women (and gay) rights is always to respect (straight) men (by essentially not wanting rights in the first place that said men might find inconvenient.)

2. Labour is always perfect and right, we are proud and in total denial at all times, yay us

3. anything wrong isn't our fault anyway, a bigger boy did it and ran away.

I'm positive I am also on the Witch Burning list, but whatever. He cannot say that no one in his consitutency said anything or minded, or that when the obvious issues happen, that no one told him. And I will this time be pointing out that if he is against women's legal rights because men are cross at women and gay people being allowed boundaries, he has a significant issue with equality for women and homosexuality: should I take this as the party position.

They don't like it up 'em...

I have just received a reply from my MP after sending them an email before the vote.

Two things stand out. They use ‘sex’ when describing what I asked for, as if sex is a disputed concept or word they don’t like to use. They also note that the Lib Dems voted against because, ie they just voted along party lines.

They then point out how toxic it has all become since the Supreme Court ruling and appear to indicate that’s the fault of one side only,and it’s putting the trans community at greater risk.

I may reply but I think they are so blinkered at the moment I would just go down as the local crazy woman and lose any credibility if I needed to contact them again.

some sort of RSS feed from them when sex is mentioned

I have never done this but understand in Outlook you can add filters to RSS feeds by words under Rules and Alerts.

Which presumably you could apply to the feeds they already provide https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/rss-feeds/

I hadn't thought as far as publishing it.

Thats a great idea - are you planning to publish it online?

I’m not proficient in coding but there’s lots of stuff I think women should have an online database to search.

I’ve been looking at the Hansard data permissions (ironically!) to see if we’re allowed to do some sort of RSS feed from them when sex is mentioned (as there are tools to share individual spoken contributions already), but I’m not sure it could be done publicly without falling foul of their permissions (and also I don’t have the tech skills to set it up on my own..).

I do feel quite strongly that it’s important that as many people as possible know the details of what’s going on at the moment in terms of legislative decisions (not just the data bill) so we don’t end up with another GRA debacle where not enough people were paying attention to the bigger picture.

And I think it would be so much easier for busy women to stay informed and get involved in politics if the key information they need (how their MP voted on sex issues, what they said in the commons on the topic, etc) could be condensed for them so they don’t have to individually scour several websites every time they want an update on this stuff.

People get involved when it’s easy to do so (e.g. when Sex Matters or another campaign group do the legwork and make it super-easy to drop an email to their MP), but as you’ve just described, there is so much info to trawl through that it would be great if a few people doing that legwork can benefit thousands of busy women who wouldn’t otherwise see those important nuggets of information.

In terms of timing of the bill going forward, looking back at some of the other amendments that did pass yesterday, it does seem that some of the sticky copyright issues did get kicked into the long grass (details to be decided after the act has passed), so perhaps I was a tad optimistic in how quickly this bill will pass if the plan is to iron out all the tech details later.

I’m not sufficiently familiar with the tech aspects of this bill to know how much is outstanding on that side (perhaps someone else can tell us?) or whether all of it is good to go now. It didn’t sound like it from the snippets of the debate I heard yesterday, but I appreciate there’s also a lot of pressure to enact this on the AI/tech side for obvious reasons.

There is absolutely zero point in bothering to collect data that is fictional. And that's just the basic starting point.

I despair of this government, I really do.

LonginesPrime

You have put that so well. What practical steps can we take?

For my part I have decided that I need to keep a dossier on who said what at key moments. So I need to find the quote by Tebbit from Hansard. I need to find where the statement by a LibDem peer telling a long standing member that they were no longer welcome in the Party was made.

So many threads to trawl through! But once my dossier is up and running I can keep it up to date.

The two drafts to my MP are already on file.

I’m disappointed but not surprised.

On the plus side, I think Sex Matters’ letter campaign probably did make a marked difference to the number of MPs who stood up and said that they supported the accurate recording of biological sex in principle, but just not this specific (Conservative) amendment.

We don’t yet know what, if anything, will make it into the final statute, but if anything is added that causes ambiguity around application of the SC ruling, it won’t hurt to have debates on file that make it clear that so many on the committee acknowledge how important it is to accurately record biological sex when a court looks to secondary sources for a steer on interpretation.

If we look at how far we’ve come since before the SC ruling, it’s massively positive to see that number of MPs openly admitting that biological sex exists and is important. I know we still have a way to go, but that is huge progress compared to a few months ago, when they would have been scared to even admit such a thing for fear of ostracism and being cast out of their party. Hearing “biological sex is vitally important but…” is still not where we want to be, but it’s still a massive step forward from where we were.

I do think we need to keep a close eye on how they think the act (and the new digital system) will be applied vs the reality (particularly in light of @Peregrina’s point about the parallels with the GRA debate), and if necessary make a lot of noise around that, so that if nothing else, more and more debate around sex creeps into Hansard.

This is a controversial and incredibly sprawling bill for lots of other completely unrelated reasons (e.g. all the AI copyright stuff that no-one really knows how best to handle, combatting deepfakes and balancing consumer protection vs not stifling tech development, etc), and it feels both super-urgent but also impossible to implement in lots of disparate areas that fall under ‘data’, so I suspect this bill will be bounced around for a while for other reasons anyway.

The advantage of this for us is that each time it gets bounced back to the commons to talk about AI, as long as someone proposes a relevant amendment, we can do this all over again and make more noise around the sex bit, so that it keeps coming back to bite them and keeps getting plenty of Hansard coverage (which isn’t everything but still helps).

The bill is still going back and forth and the debates are ongoing, so we need to keep watching and take any opportunity we get to highlight the issues and explain why the accurate recording of sex isn’t a tiny fringe issue and shouldn’t be an afterthought.

Plus we need to keep an eye on all the other initiatives intended to implement the Sullivan report (as mentioned in the reasons for NC21 rejection) and make noise there too.

Or Labour will push it through, women will deal with another four years of hell, and we wait for Reform who will throw this out and the GRA too. It'll be an open goal.

This is truly, truly stupid. Absolutely fucking mindblowingly dim.

The bill goes back to the Lords on 12th May. We can only hope some sanity breaks out, although I am not sure if they can add new amendments or only amend the current amendments already agreed in the Commons (I've been reading the 2025 'Guide to Making legislation' and it is clear as mud!)

This needs a new thread!?

But if you’ve signed up for the ‘digital verification services’ you will have to accept Government sources as authoritative.”
On Wednesday, the Conservatives attempted to amend the bill so that sex data would be taken solely from birth certificates. The amendment was defeated by 363 votes to 97, meaning the bill will now move onto its final stage – the third reading – before becoming law.

This vote by MPs is unbelievable.
unless there’s some sort of visible mass protest or legal action, then self ID is about to be state sanctioned across the board

‘The Supreme Court gender ruling had given us clarity. Now this Labour law will torpedo that’

Women’s rights campaigners warn that a Government bill could endanger vulnerable women by blurring the lines between sex and gender identity

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/07/labour-law-will-torpedo-gender-clarity

Published at 8pm on 7th so not sure what impact it might have.

Can also be read at https://archive.is/wMnTz

Thirdly, the new clause is unnecessary, because it is very unlikely that digital verification services would be used in many, if not all, of the cases specifically raised by or with hon. Members, such as within the NHS to gain access to single-sex wards or for screening or to enter other female-only spaces.

Statements like this were made when the GRC Act was passed in 2004. Norman Tebbit spoke out against it saying it would be abused by those minded to do so, and what he said has come to pass.

As for the Green Party spokesperson saying that it would lead to a mass "outing" of trans people, i.e. men - I have yet to see one who didn't look like a man in a frock.

"Finally, the proposals have the potential to interfere with the right to respect for private and family life under the Human Rights Act by requiring public authorities to record sex as biological sex in all cases regardless of whether it is justified or proportionate in that given circumstance."
I think this will be a difficult square to circle for those with a GRC.
Although it's duffucult to imagine a circumstance where an arm of the stare needs to record sex, but the target data doesn't need to be actual sex.

I fear they would create legal confusion, uncertainty and inconsistency

And fictional data won't? And hasn't already? I don't think the rest of us live in that reality. It was 'identified' sex and GRCs that created all this mess in the first place.

I appreciated the woman MP saying that the SC judgment was being taken seriously and policy would be created in line with it, but how they're going to square that circle I have no idea.

data should be considered holistically

Which leads to

the police recording a crime of rape as having been committed by a ‘woman’; or girl guides being being lead by a ‘woman’; or someone entering an Olympic boxing match as a ‘woman’ - when in all these random example cases cases the said woman is male

Holistically considering data. Now I've heard it all.

https://www.rutland-times.co.uk/national/mps-reject-bid-to-force-authorities-to-record-sex-data-on-biological-basis-145838/ Rejected

I wonder who it is in government that is scratching their heads, reading the sullivan review and the SC ruling and staring at various government databases in horror. I really hope they grab this issue with two hands.

From hansard, Chris Bryant responded to this ammendment for the government. They won't pass it, but they at least seem tk take the issue of accurate data seriously and are still working out how to implement the sullivan review across departments.

"We are opposing the amendment and are not intending to introduce similar legislation.

As I said, data accuracy is important. That is equally true for any data used in a digital verification service. That is why the Government are already engaged in an appropriate and balanced range of work on data standards and data accuracy. We are already developing data standards on the monitoring of diversity information, including sex, via the Data Standards Authority. Following a review, the Office for Statistics Regulation published updated guidance on collecting and reporting data and statistics about sex and gender identity last year, and all Government Departments are now considering how best to address the recommendations of the Sullivan review, which we published. That is the first reason why we will not be supporting this new clause or the amendment today. Simply, we believe the concerns regarding the way in which public authorities process sex and gender data should be considered holistically, taking into account the effects of the Supreme Court ruling and the specific and particular requirements of public authorities. By contrast, the new clause and the amendment would undermine the work the Government are already doing. Giving the Secretary of State a new regulatory rule would undermine the existing processes that ensure compliance with the UK’s data protection.

Secondly, the new clause is misplaced because the Bill does not alter the evidence which can be relied upon to prove sex or gender. Indeed, it does not seek to alter any of the content of data used by digital verification services. Instead, the Bill enables people to do digitally what they can presently do physically, and it is for organisations to consider what specific information they need to verify in their particular circumstances. Any inconsistency between what they can do digitally and what they can do physically would obviously sow further division.

Thirdly, the new clause is unnecessary, because it is very unlikely that digital verification services would be used in many, if not all, of the cases specifically raised by or with hon. Members, such as within the NHS to gain access to single-sex wards or for screening or to enter other female-only spaces. We expect digital verification services to be used primarily to prove things such as one’s right to work, or one’s age, address or professional or educational qualifications, which are not matters where sex or gender is relevant at all.

Fourthly, the new clause goes significantly further than the findings of the Supreme Court. Finally, the proposals have the potential to interfere with the right to respect for private and family life under the Human Rights Act by requiring public authorities to record sex as biological sex in all cases regardless of whether it is justified or proportionate in that given circumstance. In addition, the amendment does not take account of the fact that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 gives those with gender recognition certificates a level of privacy and control over who has access to information about their gender history. As for amendment 39, it will create further uncertainty as it appears to prevent use of clause 45 in all cases involving sex.

As I have set out, while I understand the reason for tabling these amendments, I fear they would create legal confusion, uncertainty and inconsistency. I also note that they were not part of the previous Government’s version of this Bill, in which in nearly all respects this part of the Bill was identical to ours. Given the narrow scope of digital verification service measures, the need to consider this area holistically to ensure alignment with existing legislation, and upcoming EHRC guidance and the breadth of work already being carried out, I hope the new clause and amendments will be withdrawn."

I'm not sure if it was withdrawn but presumably it can't pass.

Not sure whether it’s all done yet, but in any case, because the data bill is so incredibly sprawling now (writers’ rights around AI training, age of online consent, etc etc), the subjects were all interwoven as different members covered a few issues at a time, so my recommendation would be to wait until the Hansard transcript comes out at the end and then ctrl F it for “sex” to find the relevant bits. Then you can always go back and watch the bits you want at leisure.

Thats what I’m planning to do, anyway.