Phillipson rejects claim she's delaying trans guidance to not risk deputy PM votes

[GallantKumquat]

Phillipson rebuffed the suggestion, saying the watchdog has only submitted missing documents – including an equality impact assessment, which supplements its code of practice – within the last week. The late additions are on top of the original documents sent to ministers in September stretching to over 300 pages.
“It is disappointing to see the EHRC commenting on this in the way that they are publicly, because we are going to get this right. We will make sure that the Code of Practice gets us into the right place, but the EHRC also need to give us the material in a timely way,” Phillipson told The i Paper.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/phillipson-rejects-claim-delaying-trans-guidance-risk-deputy-pm-3988459

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My understanding - and happy to be corrected by a lawyer - is that the EHRC is not statutory guidance. It’s a code which helps service providers comply with the law and if they follow this that will help them in any claim, but it does not and cannot change the law and it can be over ruled in a court/tribunal. It’s not like employers having to comply with sick pay rules or something like that.

All the fuss about having to be very careful to get it right and “make it bullet proof statutory” is a smoke screen. Parliament is not going to vote on it. (A lot of MPs seem to be confused about this too - I wonder who confused them?!)

Then she should be explaining why it takes time.

Quite

I can easily see a future in which single sex provision for women descends to the same level as accessibility. As in "you 'aving a ;arf ?"

We already treat the disabled as second class citizens, so it's not really a great stretch to add women to the mix. After all, it's not as if it wasn't the case in the past.

Quite depressing that MPs don't even seem to understand how parliament works or the relationship between the legislature and the executive. We do seem to be cursed with an exceptionally dim group of people ruling over us.

What it comes down to, as you say, is that everyone now has to follow the law. The EHRC guidance just helps employers and service providers understand what the law is and how it affects them. Phillopson is chatting shit, as the young people say.

So what will be the statutory guidance?

sounds like the EHRC is meaningless

I did have a look at Hansard for anything:

10 December:

Transgender People: Safe Spaces

Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
What steps she is taking to ensure the provision of safe spaces for transgender people in the context of the draft code of practice issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)
It is important that everyone, including trans people, can access services that meet their needs, and I take that seriously. We are absolutely committed to upholding the protections in the Equality Act 2010 that allow trans people to live free from discrimination and harassment. We are carefully considering the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s draft updated code of practice and ensuring that the proper processes are followed.

Jayne Kirkham
I thank the Minister for that answer. I have very vulnerable constituents who have raised concerns about the draft EHRC guidance on transgender people. Many are scared and fear rising transphobia and discrimination. What steps is she taking to ensure that we protect the rights and dignity of everyone in society, and support the groups that work with those vulnerable trans people?

Bridget Phillipson
I am deeply sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituents. On the wider issue she raises, it is of course vital that everyone, including trans people, can live free from harassment and discrimination, and can access appropriate services. That is why we are carefully considering the EHRC’s draft updated code and making sure the proper processes are followed. Of course, the Equality Act upholds safeguards for trans people, and we are committed to it.

Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I appreciate the Minister’s clarification, but with organisations such as Girlguiding UK and the Women’s Institute saying that they have been forced to exclude the trans community against their will, how soon can we expect the guidance that the Secretary of State says is being considered?

Bridget Phillipson
I have said many times in this House, I welcome the clarity of the Supreme Court ruling, and providers should follow it. The EHRC has given me a draft code of practice. We are working through it—it is a lengthy document—and we will take this further as soon as we can.

That’s the point. There isn’t any statutory guidance. There’s just the law and that’s the 2010 equality act.

BP’s delay should be a red herring and the courts shld follow the law, but as has been seen in Sandie Peggie, some courts/judges don’t want to follow the law.

EHRC guidance can help service providers understand the implications of the law.

I don’t think the EHRC guidance being discussed is for employers, it’s for service providers.

It is statutory guidance, but that's because it's required or authorised by statute to exist. I.e. having the power of statute is not what makes guidance 'statutory'.

JFC

Trans trans trans trans
It's like the Monty Python spam sketch.
Bloody Vikings.

Women? What? Sorry, can't hear you.

They aren't forced to exclude "the trans community". They can include everyone female, including "trans men" and "AFAB non-binary", who I believe are part of the trans community. What they can't do is include trans-identifying men whilst excluding other men.

Well let's be frank about this, if a Supreme Court Judgment is worthless and ignorable then all law is and all judgments have become so. GRA, EqA, the lot, so whether or not guidance is statutory has become irrelevant.

If law is now nothing to notice then all of this bull goes down in flames, the whole lot. They can't say some of it matters and some of it doesn't. The GRA can't matter if this judgment doesn't. If it's a case of wild west everyone for themselves then yipee kiyay.

Well exactly, the law is the law.

I note that the submission from BP the GLP published said that a significant amount of their claim was based on how man and woman are defined in HSE regulations, which was the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Work & Pension. but the GLP hasnt released that submission for some reason.

The Equality Act 2006, which established the EHRC,empowered it to provide statutory guidance which has legal effect in applying the law as it has to be taken into account by courts and tribunals if relevant.

Draft statutory guidance must be submitted to the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament. If either House of Parliament doesn't oppose it, it will come into effect on a date specified in an order by the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State also can order the EHRC to prepare statutory guidance on matters not specified in the Act. .

The EHRC also issues non-statutory guidance which is more general and intended to help people who don't have detailed legal knowledge, to understand the equality law.

This comes up a lot and for some reason, it's very difficult to explain. I was confused by it for a long time. And the above is still an unsatisfactory answer. So, I'll try again, but I promise this will be the last time. 😳

Statute is a very specific thing: a law written and enacted by Parliament.

Statutory guidance is not a statute, and it is not 'statute‑like.' The word statutory here does not mean 'binding like a statute.' It means 'created under the authority of a statute.'

In other words, the statute tells a minister or agency to issue guidance, and whatever legal effect that guidance has comes entirely from the statute that authorised it - not from the guidance itself.

If it is laid before parliament, the it's entirely possible for statutory guidance to contradict (i.e. repeal) a law previously enacted by parliament.

(This discussion has been raised in other areas where the relevant ministers have tried to pretend "it's not that easy", when it is. It really is. It's easier than anything ....)

So BP could effectively repeal the Equality Act single-sex provisions by insisting that the guidance says what she wants it to say?

That's why she's sitting on it: she's trying to get it changed to what the Labour TRAs want.

With the caveat that it is "laid before parliament". This is where the nuances of primary and secondary legislation come into focus. Now being any sort of lawyer, I'll have to leave it there.

Jeez. What a shyster.

But then it’s a shyster government.

This "laying before Parliament" looks like a mechanism for lazy consensus decision-making. So if what is laid before Parliament sucks, we need to get a motion passed against it. Last time there was a successful motion against something laid before Parliament was 1979.

You can submit a type of Early Day Motion (known as a ‘prayer’) to annul a negative statutory instrument. A prayer submitted by the official Opposition is likely to be debated, but there’s no guarantee of this. A prayer submitted by a backbencher is unlikely to be debated unless a large number of other MPs have also signed it. Prayers can be considered on Opposition days.

So we's be relying on Kemi to do the right thing and on getting MPs to support her.

If MPs reject it - because they don't like the law - the EHRC cannot re write it to say something other than the law. You would think the option then would be to set out to re write the law which removes women and homosexual people's inconvenient rights and protections and basically creates an EqA that establishes 'equality' and 'inclusion' as something exclusively for men with trans identities (it's only men having the problem in any real terms with women having protections), and establishing that what other people get is the crumbs unwanted by those men after they've had all they want. In fact an Equality Act that buggers up Equality very very thoroughly indeed.

You would think this would be ridiculous, couldn't happen, no British government would act in this underhand banana republic way and have policy and ethics to prevent it, that the government would require a mandate, and could not possibly try to sell this to the populace by disguising it and lying their heads off to the faces of the public at every opportunity while slipping it through in the manner of a bent used car salesman. But if you thought that, you haven't met our current government.

If you want really egregious examples of governments abusing parliamentary procedures, then this government is pure as the driven snow compared to Theresa May and Boris Johnsons governments. Who tried to ram loads of measures through without parliament until those pesky courts put them back on the straight and narrow.

By all means, be down on this administration. But don't think they are in anyway not representative of how all governments work. They really are all the same.

I've got a half baked sort of theoy that post WW2 there may have been more politicians behaving better as everybody was engaged in pulling a country in dire straits back together, but that that was really just a blip and what we have now is business as usual.

I think this is the first one to decide the Supreme Court and law is kind of optional depending on their knowing so much better.

I do despise this kind of arrogance, dishonesty and jerrymandering, particularly when in a position of responsibility. Blair began it but this lot are doing it on crack. I'm not claiming any other party is any better, I'm politically homeless, but this is appalling.