Badenoch calls for broader review of equality and gender recognition laws – UK politics live (2025)

The country’s largest education union will campaign in Labour MPs’ constituencies and make them “pay a high political price” if the pay offer is not improved, a union chief has warned.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said they “stand ready” to take strike action if the government’s final pay and funding offer is not increased, PA Media reported.

In his speech to the union’s annual conference, Kebede said it was “indefensible” for a Labour government to cut school funding and he added “we expect better”.

Delegates at the NEU conference voted to launch a formal strike ballot if the final outcome of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) process “remains unacceptable” – or if the government does not announce real-terms funding increases in the spending review in June.

Addressing delegates, the union chief said: “If the STRB recommendation is not above inflation, if it is not a pay award that takes a step towards a correction in pay, if it does not address the crisis in recruitment and retention, and unless it is fully funded, then we stand ready to act industrially.

“We will make Labour MPs pay a high political price through our campaigning in their constituencies, with our parents, across the country.”

Ed Davey and his team certainly have an eye for a photo opportunity. Today the Liberal Democrat leader has been campaigning in Devon, where he has cuddled a goat and been on a rollercoaster. The trip comes ahead of local elections in some areas of England. You can find our guide to the 2025 England local council elections here.

First minister John Swinney has said the SNP will “have to work incredibly hard” to retain the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency in the June byelection there.

MSP Christina McKelvie held the seat from 2011 until her death last month, and Swinney said the poll was taking place in “really sad circumstances.”

He told the Daily Record’s Planet Holyrood podcast:

I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination is the byelection outcome clear. We’ll have to work incredibly hard in the SNP to retain the constituency. I’ve got to rebuild the Scottish National Party, I’m doing that step-by-step. But it’s important that we all recognise the scale of the challenge that we face in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.

Reform UK are holding an event in Runcorn today with their candidate for the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, Sarah Pochin. David Bull with Nigel Farage are also on the bill. That can be viewed here if you’d like.

Kemi Badenoch, the opposition leader, has criticised authorities in Hong Kong and China for not allowing Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse into Hong Kong.

Hobhouse was attempting to visit family there when she was refused entry. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has called for the Foreign Office to summon the Chinese ambassador over the issue.

Speaking to PA Media today while campaigning for May’s local elections in some regions of England, Badenoch said “I’ve been very vocal in my criticism of China. It is a dictatorship. It uses slave labour. Wera Hobhouse was going on a personal trip. I don’t understand the reasons why she was refused entry.”

Put to Badenoch that less than a fortnight ago she defended Israel’s decision to bar two Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, from entering the country, the Conservative leader said “The two situations are different.”

On 6 April Badenoch told the BBC Israel had a right to “control its borders”, and that it was “shocking that we have MPs in Labour who other countries will not allow through, I think that’s very significant.”

At the time foreign affairs committee chair Emily Thornberry said she was “gobsmacked” by the comments, saying “You have to stand up for what’s right, Kemi Badenoch, and you should stand in solidarity with other parliamentarians.”

With regard to entry to China, Badenoch said today “so many Conservative colleagues have been sanctioned by China. They can’t go anywhere near the country. My view is that we need to really reassess our relationship with China.”

She earlier said she thought the Labour government was “too close” in its relations with China.

Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has said she is concerned that the Labour government might be “too close” to China.

In comments made to the PA news agency in Cambridgeshire, Badenoch said “I worry that this current government is too close to it. I think (trade minister) Douglas Alexander has been out there trying to get, you know, investment on green tech at a time when we’re trying to get China out of steel, for example, and out of critical national infrastructure. So they need a proper plan and a proper strategy. Right now, they don’t have one.”

She described a “proper” strategy as “one which ensures that where China breaks the rules, as it does on trade, that we have a proper reaction to that rather than looking away.”

She continued by saying “we need to really crack down on” on what she described as “citizens being picked up in this country, being kept in all sorts of random prisons that the Chinese embassy has set up.”

Badenoch said “We need to look again at the investments that Chinese companies are making, how many of them are actually really at the behest of the Chinese government, how much are they getting involved in national infrastructure across the board.”

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has said she would support a broader review into equality and gender recognition laws in the wake of yesterday’s supreme court ruling.

Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to Cambridgeshire, PA Media report Badenoch said:

Biological sex is real. A gender recognition certificate is there to show that someone is now transgender, but that doesn’t change their biology.

So we need to make sure that the law is clear and the public bodies follow the law, not guidance from organisations that don’t understand it.

Asked if she thought gender recognition law should be rewritten, Badenoch, who was minister with women and equalities as her portfolio from October 2022 to July 2024, said:

I think that a review of equality acts, and the Gender Recognition Act is a good idea. These laws were written 20 years ago plus when the world was different. A lot of people are trying to change what the law means.

The supreme court has given a judgment, but I think that we need to update those laws to ensure that they are there to prevent discrimination, not for social engineering.

The Conservative leader claimed the supreme court ruling was “a vindication of so much that I fought for”.

Earlier Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), described yesterday’s supreme court ruling as “a victory for common sense, but only if you recognise that trans people exist. They have rights, and their rights must be respected – then it becomes a victory for common sense. It’s not a victory for an increase in unpleasant actions against trans people. We will not tolerate that.”

In delivering the judgement yesterday, Lord Hodge of the supreme court said “the unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex. But we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.”

PA media have some figures on the amount of gender recognition certificates (GRC) that have been issued in the UK since the legal document was introduced by the Gender Recognition Act, which came into effect on 4 April 2005. That gave adults the right to legally change the sex that was recorded on their birth certificate.

During the twenty year period, a total of 8,464 full certificates had been granted, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice.

The application fee for a certificate was cut in May 2021 from £140 to £5, and in July 2022 applications moved online. Both these changes occurred under the Conservative government led by Boris Johnson.

In 2023/24 – the latest year for which figures are available – 52% of certificates were granted to people whose sex at birth was recorded as male, and 48% for those who were recorded as female.

Earlier, Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said that yesterday’s supreme court ruling did not make GRCs “worthless”, but she anticipated potential court action to test their “efficacy”.

With parliament in recess, many MPs are back at their constituencies. Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay Steve Darling, alongside his guide dog Jennie, have attended the unveiling of a statue dedicated to Agatha Christie and her favourite dog, Peter. Christie was born in Torbay in 1890, and the statue is by artist Elisabeth Hadley.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has renewed his calls for the Labour government to put any potential trade deal with the US Donald Trump administration before parliament.

In a statement, Davey said:

The government’s approach to this Trump trade deal has left the public completely in the dark.

The online safety of our children, our farming standards and our ability to make the likes of Elon Musk pay their fair share of tax all risk being bartered away to appease Trump. But ministers won’t even come clean on what the price of this deal with Trump could be.

It’s time for the government to publish their negotiating mandate so we can properly scrutinise this deal. The stakes are too high for parliament to be sidelined and democracy undermined.

Caroline Davies has this report

Updated guidance for public bodies after the UK supreme court’s ruling that a woman is defined in law by biological sex is expected to be issued by the summer, the head of the equalities regulator said on Thursday.

Lady Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, described the ruling as “enormously consequential”, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are going to have a new statutory code of practice, statutory meaning it will be the law of the land, it will be interpreted by courts as the law of the land. We’re hoping we’re going to have that by the summer.”

She said it would give “clarity” that trans women could not participate in women’s sports or use women-only toilets or changing rooms, and the NHS must update its guidance on single-sex wards based on biological sex.

Asked if the supreme court ruling was “a victory for common sense”, she said: “Only if you recognise that trans people exist, they have rights and their rights must be respected. Then it becomes a victory for common sense.

“It’s not a victory for an increase in unpleasant actions against trans people. We will not tolerate that. We stand here to defend trans people as much as we do anyone else. So I want to make that very clear.”

Read more of Caroline Davies’ report here: New rules for public bodies expected ‘by summer’ after UK gender ruling

Yesterday’s case was brought to the supreme court by the campaign group For Women Scotland, and was against the Scottish government.

BBC Radio Scotland this morning has interviewed MSPs for their view on the decision, with Green MSP Maggie Chapman saying transgender people now fear what could happen. She told listeners:

What the judge said yesterday morning about this ruling not being taken as a victory, the response by For Women Scotland and associated groups yesterday was very, very clear.

They are taking this as a victory and I think that’s something quite potentially dangerous about where they go next.

We’ve already heard people say they want to repeal the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and trans people are worried that people are coming after their right to exist.

Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton took a differing view. Speaking later on the programme, PA Media reports she said:

For Women Scotland of course believe this is a victory, because they had to go to the supreme court to fight this. I listened to what Maggie Chapman said, I don’t believe this is a culture war and I don’t believe that this will stoke hatred. This just brings clarity to single-sex spaces.

As my colleague Archie Bland noted in the First Edition newsletter this morning, the actual voices of trans people have been few and far between in a lot of the commentary on yesterday’s supreme court decision, and indeed in the evidence-gathering that went into it.

ITV’s Good Morning Britain did speak to Ella Morgan, who explained her fears about healthcare settings. She told the programme:

In the middle of filming I was admitted into hospital for a problem, and I was so scared that they would know who I am – not being big-headed – and that they would put me in a male ward.

I was put on a female ward, and but I had my own room, purely because there wasn’t enough space for me with, you know, within the group.

You know, I will still continue to use a female toilet. I still see myself as a woman and always will, whether this legislation comes in and people agree with it or not.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it will pursue the NHS if it does not change existing guidance on the treatment of trans women patients.

Current guidelines say trans people should be accommodated in single-sex accommodation according to their gender identity, rather than their assigned sex at birth. Kishwer Falkner told listeners “They have to change it. They now have clarity. We will be having conversations with them to update that guidance.”