Gender Recognition Bill

A statement on the final Bill
Colin Hart, Director of
The Christian Institute

The final debate on the Gender Recognition Bill took place in the House of Commons on Tuesday 25 May.

It has taken many months for the Government to address our concerns in detail. Now at last this has happened. They have issued several extensive responses to Christian concerns. Some important concessions have been made.

The Government has promised 'on the record' to use secondary legislation to provide certain exemptions for Church leaders from the disclosure offence which carries a £5,000 fine. These exemptions will cover procedures dealing with ordination, church membership and marriage.

These exemptions would not have been secured without the prayers and actions of many Christians throughout the progress of this Bill. There are other exemptions which we will be strongly pressing for.
The Government has also promised that the new Act will not come into force until the protections in secondary legislation are in place.

I have received a personal letter from the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer. He states that "Neither the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 nor this Bill extends protection to transsexual people in terms of membership of a religious organisation or the provision of benefits, facilities or services. We are therefore of the firm view that any actions brought against churches would not succeed."

We agree that in theory the position of churches is safe. But there is a concern that the new Gender Recognition Act gives a pretext for litigation against a church. In practice we have no doubt at all that intimidating legal threats will be made. It is vitally important that Churches do not 'cave in' when this happens. They must use the law to defend themselves and protect Christian freedoms.

There is also the possibility of freak court judgments in the lower courts. Why should churches have to pay expensive legal costs to have these judgments overturned in the higher courts? The Bill could have been amended to reduce this risk. But the Government refused. Yet they gave in to demands for sporting bodies to be exempted from the Bill.

As well as being grateful to God for the concessions that have been made, we are also thankful that the case for religious freedom was very well argued by several MPs from across the political spectrum. There was a clear witness to the truth.

Edward Leigh MP spoke particularly well. He moved an amendment to protect churches from the effects of the Bill. The cross party amendment was signed by some senior Labour backbenchers (Donald Anderson and Jim Dobbin). MPs who spoke in support included Colin Breed (a Lib Dem spokesman), Tim Boswell (a Conservative spokesman), Chris Grayling (Con), Revd. Martin Smyth (UUP) Dr. John Pugh (Lib Dem) and Andrew Selous (Con). David Drew (Lab) also shared some of his concerns.

Edward Leigh's amendment was defeated by 104 votes to 296. The Government whipped its MPs to vote against it, but two Labour MPs (Lewis Moonie and Denzil Davies) defied the whip. The Conservatives and Lib Dems allowed their members a free vote. Click here to read the full text of the debate.

Later the same day, some MPs forced a vote on the principle of whether the Bill should become law at all. Reference was again made to the religious liberties implications of the Bill. Click here to read this debate.

This issue will not go way. A new European Directive on discrimination will open up a lot of the same debates. So the fight for religious liberties must continue.

Colin Hart
Director

Legal Advice:

Legal opinion from James Dingemans QC

Briefings:

Useful material from The Christian Institute

Parliamentary debates:

Links to various debates in Parliament on the Gender Recogniton Bill