EHRC on Woman’s Hour 21/5/25

[SabrinaThwaite]

Kishwer Falkner from the EHRC will be interviewed about the SC judgment today.

First item, starting now.

Discussing the new Code of Practice and the consultation, which is open now.

Hopefully Nuala will put to her the question no one needs to ask about mothers taking their small boys into the women's toilets with them.

"The SC judgment IS the law of the land and WAS the law of the land"

"Service providers should be getting their own legal advice and implementing this IMMEDIATELY"

I do wish Baroness Falkner had gone into the studio.

The consultation is here: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/code-practice-services-public-functions-and-associations

Confirms that the SC judgment clarifies existing law, and service providers should seek their own legal advice.

Important question now, Nuala clarifying with Falkner whether service providers should follow the law now or wait for the code to be provided to Parliament.

Falkner slightly garbled but she said the law is the law, and she'd already said that service providers need to get their own legal advice on the impact of the judgment.

"Don't wait to receive every little piece of guidance. People should be incorporating this and acting on this now"

Nuala: What settings does the EA2010 apply to?

Kishwer: Service providers, businesses, duty bearers. Other Codes of Practice will need to be updated. Duty bearers should not wait until the Codes are reissued.

She needs to be more explicit

Absolutely! This is proving stilted and muddled.

You can see how a weak point in all of this could end up being the EHRC and how their lack of grip might be exploited.

The Houses of Parliament gets a mention for not implementing!

Nuala asking about Parliament not applying the judgment by choosing to "wait for the guidance". Falkner suggesting this isn't right but is being very indirect in saying this.

This is so hard to hear/understand. She would have benefited from having a colleague accompany her to cut through the waffle.

Going to talk about examples now.

Houses of Parliament - the guidance is now there (the interim guidance). We think this guidance is accurate. We want the consultation to provide us with practical examples and individual circumstances.

She's saying the HoP is not above the law

I can imagine genderist politicians listening to this with growing optimism and thinking that if they replace Falkner with one of their one they'll be able to steer this into the long grass and get an outcome where the Supreme Court judgment exists but is largely ignored.

Useful to hear her state that balancing rights across protected characteristics is inherently complicated.

Her lack of clarity is caused to quite an extent by the fact her line keeps going quieter. I wonder if she's moving away from her laptop or putting her hand in front of her mouth or something? It's very distracting.

The Houses of Parliament is a place of work, so the majority of their washroom and changing room provision should be governed by Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

She is getting more confident

On the question can this be challenged at ECtHR - We don’t believe that Human Rights are impacted at the moment.

Re Toilets - The keyword is trust, trust is profoundly important. No distress should be caused to trans people.

"The keyword is trust"

"People need to be respectful of other people"

Hmmm... I think she's being a bit optimistic here...