Supreme Court ruling: MP spreads ‘dangerous’ distortions

In a letter to a constituent, the Conservative MP for Epping Forest, Neil Hudson, has dangerously misrepresented the consequences of last month’s Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act.

British Transport Police was one of the first organisations to react after the court ripped up the act, declaring a change in policy that means trans women will be subjected to strip searches by male officers.

This policy puts all women at risk. If a male officer says a woman is trans, then under the new policy he can carry out an intimate search.

But when a constituent contacted Hudson to point out the “grave danger” this represents, the MP suggested that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act code says that “when an intimate search is performed under the existing rules by a police officer, that officer must  be of the same sex as the detainee”. He went on to assert that the Supreme Court decision meant that “British Transport Police should ensure that officers who carry out intimate and strip searches are of the same biological sex as the detainee”.

“The ruling was a powerful victory for the determined women behind the case,” Hudson wrote, “and for people across the UK who know how important it is to preserve the privacy and dignity of the women and girls who need it.

But the Supreme Court didn’t rule on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. It’s a completely different piece of legislation from the Equality Act, and is unaffected by the judgment.

Hudson is either reckless or lying. Either way, he’s just plain wrong. 

According to the code that spells out how the Act is used in practice, “the gender (and accordingly the sex) of an individual is their gender as registered at birth unless they have been issued with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), in which case the person’s gender is their acquired gender”. This means that if “there is doubt as to whether the person should be treated, or continue to be treated, as being male or female… the person should be asked what gender they consider themselves to be” and then be “treated according to their preference”. And despite the Supreme Court’s decision this code still remains in force.

“The implications of the Supreme Court’s judgment for the Equalities Act are difficult enough” said Good Law Project’s head of legal, James Douglas, “but it is irresponsible and frankly dangerous for those in positions of power to compound those difficulties by making incorrect claims that the judgment applies to other legislation as well.”

MPs and politicians cannot make up the law as they go along. And we will not stand by while people are misled on matters of critical importance.