Closing summary
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.”
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.”
Badenoch also 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.
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.
PA Media reports that Rupert Lowe MP has instructed lawyers to issue letters of claim for defamation against Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage, chair Zia Yusuf and Lee Anderson, who is the chief whip of the four-strong parliamentary group. Lowe was recently suspended from the party, shortly after he appeared to gain public support from Elon Musk to replace Farage as leader.
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.”
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has highlighted the recent report by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) which suggested business confidence in the UK has dipped severely. In a post to social media, the recently knighted MP said: “I take no pleasure in the ICAEW’s latest survey, which reveals UK business confidence has slipped into negative territory for the first three months of 2025, thanks to Labour’s anti-business budget.”
British Transport Police (BTP) said trans women in custody will be searched from now on by male officers, in a change to their policy in light of yesterday’s supreme court ruling. The new policy appears to apply regardless of whether the person has undertaken gender reassignment surgery.
Health minister Karin Smyth has said she hopes the outcome of the supreme court’s ruling on the legal definition of the term woman will draw a line under arguments over gender recognition
Shadow cabinet member Richard Holden called for the government to pass legislation to codify the judgement in
Ministers are having an “active conversation” with UK pharmaceutical firms about the potential impact of US tariffs
People are being warned of Easter disruption to the rail network, with over 300 engineering works being undertaken. National Highways said it has removed roadworks from 1,127 miles of motorways and major A roads in England
You can read our report about the latest implications from yesterday’s supreme court ruling here
Updated
I remember being 16 in the 1960s. The prime minister seemed geriatric and I was sure he should be in care, while a group of us went to meet our young MP, a certain Margaret Thatcher. She was young, but she didn’t seem as if she was with the times. We could not dream of voting for someone like her. Matter closed.
Sixteen-year-olds are great fun but they are not grown up. They cannot marry in England and Wales, drive, smoke, get a tattoo or buy alcohol on their own. They are legally classed as children and are supposed to be in formal education or training to 18. Sixteen-year-olds have not taken to the streets demanding the right to the franchise, like the Chartists or suffragettes did.
So why has Keir Starmer suddenly reiterated that he intends to enfranchise them to vote in UK-wide elections? The only plausible answer is that he hopes they will vote for him. In a desperate attempt to justify this manoeuvre, he says that, if 16-year-old soldiers “are old enough to take a bullet for our country”, they should get the vote. (Likewise if they are “old enough to work” and “pay taxes”.)
In fact, 16-year-olds are not old enough to “take a bullet”, since frontline army service is banned for under-18s. Meanwhile, precious few 16-year-olds work, since Starmer’s own party, when last in power, made it supposedly compulsory for them to remain in education or training to 18. As for taxes, younger children already pay VAT when they spend their pocket money. The whole argument is slapdash.
