Oh dear. Things haven’t quite gone to plan for Liz Truss. (Where have we heard that before?) The former prime minister was hoping to debate her private member’s bill in the Commons this afternoon — but MPs ran out of time.
In the same week that puberty blockers were banned for children, Truss’s Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill would alter the current Equality Act to enshrine the legal definition of sex as ‘biological’. It was understood that the government were poised to back Truss’s bill, before amending it at a later stage.
Despite rumours of Tory support, at third on the order paper it was never guaranteed that the former PM’s bill would be heard. And when time ran out, Truss knew who she wanted to blame…
I’m furious that Labour MPs have filibustered in Parliament today to prevent debate of my Private Member’s Bill. Concerned parents will want to know why Labour don’t even want to discuss how to protect children and single sex spaces, let alone put those protections into law. Labour care more about ideology than the protection of children.
Crikey. Truss’s tirade continued:
Legislation is required in this area because non-statutory guidance gives too much latitude to extremist ideologues determined to use any loopholes available to promote their dangerous agenda.
Strong words in a week that has seen the definition of extremism debated into the ground. But it’s clear Truss won’t be dropping the issue in a hurry, urging voters to ‘write to their MPs to back the bill’. And she has the backing of women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, who tweeted this afternoon that ‘Keir Starmer is terrified of [the] debate on safeguarding and his MPs actively work to ignore the concerns of constituents’ after blasting Labour for using ‘parliamentary time to discuss ferret name choices’. Ouch.
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