WEC to question the EHRC Chair and Chief Executive 11 June 2025 2:20pm

[IwantToRetire]

The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) will question the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Falkner of Margravine in Parliament on Wednesday, 11 June during its annual scrutiny session of the EHRC.

Venue: The Thatcher Room, Portcullis House
Watch live: Visit parliamentlive.tv Women and Equalities Committee

The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) will question the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Falkner of Margravine in Parliament on Wednesday, 11 June during its annual scrutiny session of the EHRC.

MPs on the cross-party committee, chaired by Labour MP Sarah Owen, will discuss the EHRC’s work and resources and wider equalities policy, including the implications of the For Women Scotland Supreme Court judgment and the EHRC’s subsequent consultation on the Code of Practice.

The Committee will hear from the EHRC’s Chief Executive, John Kirkpatrick, alongside Baroness Falkner.

Witnesses
Starting at 2.20pm
Baroness Kishwer Falkner of Margravine, Chair, Equality and Human Rights Commission
John Kirkpatrick, Chief Executive, Equality and Human Rights Commission

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/328/women-and-equalities-committee/news/207403/wec-to-question-the-ehrc-chair-and-chief-executive/

(I came across this by chance whilst looking for a date for the WEC interview with Mary-Ann Stephenson but could find nothing - anybody know when it will be.)

I think it was more that the Supreme Court felt it was entitled to say that what had been written and intended by the EA was in relation to the protected characteristic of sex, discriminatory.

ie the apllication of the GRA with in EA meant that the integrity of the actual meaning of the word sex, and for the purposes of the act how people are discriminated against because of their sex was devalued.

Lower courts had stuck to the approach of this is what is written, so this is the law. ie that we should all think like Labour that are able to think women can mean both biological and certified (legal women).

As I have always said (and please that Kemi Badenoch also said it) this was about social engineering.

This was about a political party using is priviledge of being the majority to impose groupthink on everyone.

It would be good is some person with a legal and government back ground wrote an article about how laws shouldn't be used to promote a social "value" that can only every be a personal choice.

Yes, absolutely! This is what I meant by all the evidence. I think they were also influenced (but wise enough not to say so) by social, legal, and medical developments that had led to trans people no longer being rare, 'passing' and genitally modified. That meant the impingement on sex-based rights had ballooned.

I don't think it was entirely a fuck-up. The drafters also needed the bill to pass parliament, so they deliberately used ambiguous or less explicit language.

Whether consciously or not, they ended up writing a bill that had to be interpreted in a sex-realist way, because they needed to get it through a largely (at that time) sex-realist parliament.

IANAL - so is this exception highlighting situations where the presence of a transexual person may cause e.g. a biological woman to choose not to use sex segregated services intended for them?

Yes, exactly that.

Is there any guidance as to how many biological women users need to object for the exception to be valid?

Many biological women might object to transsexual people competing in women's sports / using single sex toilets etc.

How much objection is enough objection?

Yes, it's superceded now, but it's a suggested exception to the general rule against gender reassignment discrimination, by allowing a TW to be excluded from a women-only group, which group, in itself, is an exception to the general rule against sex segregation. It's all a bit getting the fox, the corn and the chicken across the river...

Yes, that's right.

The explanatory note gives the example of a MtF transexual being excluded from a women-only sexual assault group session.

But as we now understand the law, such a person would be excluded because they are male, not because they are trans.

This clause would instead operate to allow the exclusion of a FtM transexual person, who by being apparently male might upset other members of the group. Such a person could lawfully be excluded despite being female. Tbh, that makes a lot more sense.

We don't need to object any more! They have to stay out because they're male and that's that.🥳🥳🥳

To turn the original EA explanatory note on its head - if every single member of the Women's Institute agreed that it was OK to accept transwomen then that would be acceptable - but if anyone decided to stop being a member then it would not be OK?

I think the proportionality test would come in there, having support for female sexual assault victims would be seen as proportionally more important in a way that alienating women from the WI would be less likely to be.

No! Schedule 16, which governs Associations, doesn't have any of that proportionate means to legitimate ends malarkey, and it never did. To justify its single-sex status, the WI must keep all biological males out.

So how would the proportionality test work?

Is this proportion based on the number of people affected or an an assessment of the response itself?

Would 10% of WI members leaving balance admitting a small number of trans members or is the proportionality test be one of assessing that leaving the WI in response to admitting trans members is an excessive response?

Crossed post with explanation of societies

This is about service provision. ie it is for the service provider (or was) to show that it was "proportionate" to say the only way they could provide proper support to women who have been sexually assaulted by a man was for it to be single sex as in biological women only. So the case for it is made by the service providers who can justify based on their professional experience. (Although again this was distorted to somehow make out that in each case each woman would have to be assessed as to whether they really needed women only!! For TWaddle)

The issue of say a commercial operation say a sauna or whatever arguing they wanted to provide genuinely women (biological sex) only might be framed differently. ie that that is what their customers wanted. Whether they could use the same arguement about single sex for women who have suffered male violence would be accepted because of the perceived potential of male violence or the one used for toilets eg dignity and respect.

Would 10% of WI members leaving balance admitting a small number of trans members or is the proportionality test be one of assessing that leaving the WI in response to admitting trans members is an excessive response?

This would come down to the aims and objectives of this or any other organisation.

So groups that have been set up at a time when saying it was only for women and everyone knew that meant biological females have been challenged to accept the "legal women" ie men with a GRC (although more likely self id).

Depending on the constitution it would be up to members to challenge the whoever was taking decisions had breached the intention of the organisation. Assuming that in the meantime the constitution hadn't been changed to say women and trans women.

Proportionate in relation to something like the WI is not relevant.

Propostionate is in relation to provision of services.

So within the overall structure of the WI which has become trans inclusive, if it was to offer a service that was thought should be only open to biological women they would need to statee why that was proportional.

Not based on numbers, that’s what I was saying. Based on a perception that it’s more important to give women support after sexual assault where they would otherwise self exclude, than having a female only social group.

The reason it’s confusing is because it was never particularly clear or well defined @SlackJawedDisbeliefXY

I think it's worth repeating that the proportionate means to a legitimate end test no longer applies to exclusion of opposite sex trans people from those single-sex scenarios explicitly dealt with in the EA. Single-sex must be strictly single-sex and that's that.

Yes, and I hope the EHRC guidance will be crystal clear on this point.

I’m cautiously hopeful following the way the CEO described it.

Based on perception always leads on to 'based on whose perception' but guess that is what the courts decide

Well, quite.

I guess that it all works provided that our judiciary are chosen based on merit rather than to be representative of a particular point of view.

I have often wondered how the US system works where many of the Judges seem to be selected on the basis of political alignment

Just occurred to me - perhaps people align with Stonewall law so readily because it is easier to understand than the actual law

Or because loud angry men are taken as being more authoratative than women quietly and intelligently explaining that they too have rights!