Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Liz Truss’s bid to reform transgender law thwarted
LIZ Truss’s attempt to ban transgender women from female-only spaces will not be debated after MPs “talked out” her proposal.
The Commons was due to debate the former prime minister’s proposed legislation yesterday, which would also have barred transgender women from participating in women’s sports and stopped children attempting to change their sex.
But MPs spent five hours debating two other proposals from backbench MPs, meaning they ran out of time to debate Ms Truss’s Bill. Both Ms Truss and her allies blamed Labour for filibustering the
Bill, saying the party has “no interest in safeguarding children against extreme trans ideology”. But it is understood that some Conservative MPs had been asked to prolong the earlier debates in an effort to run down the clock.
In the Commons, Conservative backbencher Richard Fuller insisted that this was not the case, using a point of order to say it was only the Labour Party that was trying to talk out the Bill.
Afterwards Ms Truss said the Labour party cared “more about ideology than the protection of children”. She added: “It is vital that we legislate to safeguard single-sex spaces and prevent children from making irreversible decisions about their bodies. These policies have popular support – and 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. I encourage the public to write to their MPs to back the Bill so that we can build up pressure to get these much-needed proposals onto the statute book.”