LAURA TROTT: Labour MUST issue guidance to keep our children safe
Prior to that, the now-Prime Minister gave us some advice, that '99.9 per cent of women don't have a penis'.
Yet this week, we have seen a jaw-dropping act of political gymnastics. The Education Secretary claimed that 'we have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex'.
Always? Really?
The Education Secretary seems to think that if you repeat something enough, it makes it true. It doesn't.
We have seen this time and time again. For example, the Education Secretary says she supports academies, but her legislation abolishes them in all but name.
Their rhetoric is devoid of reality, but the British public will not be taken for fools.
It's the same with biological reality. Women across the country know exactly what's been going on: Labour has spent years pandering to ideological extremists, bullying those who dared to speak up for women's rights. Bridget Phillipson may believe the revisionist fairy tales she's spinning but there's action she could take right now if she's serious about protecting women and girls.
Following the Supreme Court's landmark ruling that biological sex does matter, the Government must stop dithering and publish the long-overdue guidance for schools to follow to help them make decisions regarding gender-questioning children.
That guidance provides much-needed clarity and includes sensible steps such as parents not being excluded from decisions taken by a school in relation to requests by their child to 'socially transition' and single-sex spaces must be protected for the safeguarding of all children.
We also began work on banning gender identity ideology from classrooms because, let's be honest: teaching children that 'sex is a spectrum' is not education, it's indoctrination.
But the new Education Secretary slammed the brakes on progress. She claimed the guidance 'drifted into partisan language' and called it a 'political football'.
It is not partisan to protect young minds from being polluted with adult concepts of gender identity. Children deserve facts, not ideology.
Labour blames the delay in implementing this guidance on the Cass Review, a devastating, forensic report that laid bare the medical scandal that had unfolded in front of our eyes. That report was published more than a year ago.
One year and a Supreme Court judgment later, the Government still isn't ready to act. Why are they dithering while they could be protecting children?
This goes beyond schools. One of Bridget Phillipson's first moves in office was to try to scrap our Free Speech Act, an action that would have protected gender-critical voices.
Labour would rather listen to student union activists than to women who've been hounded out of their jobs simply for stating simple biological reality.
While Labour paused that legislation, brave women such as Professor Jo Phoenix were forced to spend eye-watering sums on legal fees, fighting for their rights, some even remortgaging their homes to do so.
Professor Phoenix herself said that if the Act had been in force, she would have been spared the nightmare. Delay has an impact.
What thanks did these women get? No apology. No remorse. Not even a word for the former Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who was vilified by her own party, and forced out, for speaking the truth.
So yes, it's welcome to hear Labour finally acknowledge basic reality. But that's not enough. Words are cheap. We need action.
Implement the policies that were already in motion to safeguard children. Deliver the guidance to protect them. Because if the Education Secretary thinks she can just rewrite history and get away with it, she's sorely mistaken.
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The Herald Scotland
28 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
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In a readout of the call, Number 10 said the leaders had agreed 'it would be vital to ensure robust plans are in place to turn an urgently-needed ceasefire into lasting peace'. 'The Prime Minister set out how the UK will also be taking forward plans to work with partners such as Jordan to air drop aid and evacuate children requiring medical assistance,' a Downing Street spokesperson said. However, the head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency warned airdrops were 'a distraction and screensmoke' that would fail to reverse deepening starvation in Gaza, and could in some cases harm civilians. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Saturday: 'A man-made hunger can only be addressed by political will. Lift the siege, open the gates and guarantee safe movements and dignified access to people in need.' Israel said on Friday it will allow airdrops of aid by foreign countries into Gaza to alleviate suffering in the Palestinian territory, where there is widespread devastation. The readout made no mention of the issue of Palestinian statehood, which the Prime Minister has faced calls to immediately recognise after French President Mr Macron confirmed his country would do so in September. However, Downing Street said the leaders had committed to 'work closely together on a plan' to 'pave the way to a long-term solution and security in the region'. Once the proposals have been 'worked up', they will seek to advance them with other key partners, including in the region, the readout said. Some 221 MPs from Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents have signed a letter pressuring the Government to follow suit at a UN meeting next week. Donald Trump suggested Mr Macron's announcement, which saw him commit to formally recognising Palestinian sovereignty at the UN General Assembly in September, 'doesn't matter' as he left the US for a visit to Scotland. US President Donald Trump said a French announcement on Palestinian statehood 'doesn't matter' (Robert Perry/PA) Sarah Champion, the senior Labour MP who organised the letter by parliamentarians, said recognition 'would send a powerful symbolic message that we support the rights of the Palestinian people'. Other senior Commons figures who signed the letter include Labour select committee chairs Liam Byrne, Dame Emily Thornberry and Ruth Cadbury. Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, as well as Tory former minister Kit Malthouse, and Sir Edward Leigh – Parliament's longest-serving MP – also signed it. The majority of those who have signed, 131, are Labour MPs. The Government has so far said its immediate focus is on getting aid into the territory and insisted that recognising sovereignty must be done as part of a peace process. Charities operating in Gaza have said Israel's blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing people there towards starvation, warning that they are seeing their own workers and Palestinians 'waste away'. But Mr Lazzarini said airdrops can be dangerous as they can fall on civilians, and that being able to drive aid through is more effective and safer. 'Airdrops will not reverse the deepening starvation. They are expensive, inefficient and can even kill starving civilians,' he said. 'It is a distraction and screensmoke.' The Prime Minister will meet the US president during his trip to Scotland, where he arrived on Friday evening. US-led peace talks in Qatar were cut short on Thursday, with Washington's special envoy Steve Witkoff accusing Hamas of a 'lack of desire to reach a ceasefire'. The deal under discussion is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce. Foreign Secretary David Lammy's opposite number Dame Priti Patel said she had 'repeatedly pressed' him on 'what specific and deliverable solutions he is trying to advance on aid'. 'The British Government needs to be leveraging its influence and the UK's considerable aid expertise to bring about practical solutions that alleviate the dire and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza,' she said. 'The priority must be to get as much aid in as possible, delivered safely and exclusively to innocent civilians. 'Diplomacy is about finding solutions, not just issuing condemnations.' Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador to the UK said recognising Palestinian statehood would 'reward' hostage-taking and killing by Hamas. 'Recognising a Palestinian state in a post-October 7 reality would be nothing less than a reward for terrorism,' she wrote in the Telegraph.
