Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch has called on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to apologise to Rosie Duffield during a heated exchange during Prime Minister's Questions.Following the Supreme Court ruling on biological women, Badenoch questioned Starmer on whether he would offer an apology to Duffield - who resigned from the Labour Party after she was heavily criticised for her gender critical views.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Welcome to the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Bernadotte.
00:05Mr Speaker, can I also wish everyone a happy St George's Day?
00:10And can I also associate myself with remarks about the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis on Easter Monday?
00:16Being married to a Catholic, I know the profound loss for millions in Britain and across the world.
00:21Mr Speaker, does the Prime Minister now accept that when he said that it was the law that trans women were women,
00:29he was wrong.
00:31Well, Mr Speaker, let me be clear. I welcome the Supreme Court ruling on this issue.
00:37It brings clarity and it will give confidence to women and, of course, to service providers.
00:44The Equality and Human Rights Commission will now issue updated guidance,
00:48and it's important that that happens and that all service providers then act accordingly.
00:54This government's approach and my approach has been as follows.
00:57To support and implement the Supreme Court ruling, and we will.
01:01To continue to protect single-sex spaces based on biological sex, and we will.
01:06But also to ensure that trans people are treated with respect, and we will.
01:12And to ensure that everybody is given dignity in their everyday lives.
01:16I do think this is the time now to lower the temperature, to move forward, and to conduct this debate with the care and compassion that it deserves.
01:28And I think that should unite the whole House.
01:31Mr Speaker, he can't bring himself to admit that he was wrong.
01:37That was the question.
01:39But he spoke about respect, and dignity, and compassion, and lowering the temperature.
01:44So will he now apologise to the Member for Canterbury?
01:47The very brave Member for Canterbury.
01:50For hounding her out of the Labour Party simply for telling the truth.
01:54Mr Speaker, I've always approached this on the basis that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect, whatever their different views.
02:04And I'll continue to do so.
02:06And I'll tell you, Mr Speaker, for why.
02:09Because when we lose sight of that approach and make this a political football,
02:12as happened in the past, then we end up with the spectacle of a decent man, and he was a decent man, the previous Prime Minister,
02:23diminishing himself at this dispatch box by making trans jokes whilst the mother-of-murdered trans teenager watched from the public gallery just up there.
02:34That will never be my approach.
02:36My approach will be to support the ruling, to protect single-sex spaces, and treat everybody with dignity and respect.
02:43And I believe there's a consensus in this House and the country for that approach.
02:50Mr Speaker, there is no apology for the Member for Canterbury.
02:54There is no taking of responsibility.
02:56He talks about political football.
02:58He practically kicked her out of his party.
03:01Constructive dismissal.
03:03Constructive dismissal.
03:04He talks about my predecessor.
03:07What about the abuse I faced from his MPs calling me a transphobe for supporting what the Supreme Court has now clarified in his words?
03:16And where was he?
03:17He hid for six days without commenting on the Supreme Court judgment.
03:21Why did it take him so long to respond?
03:24Isn't it because he was scared?
03:27Mr Speaker, the only fiction here is the idea she delivered anything in office.
03:31She held the post of Minister for Women and Equalities for two years.
03:38And she did precisely nothing.
03:41She provided no clarity on the law.
03:44Did nothing to improve women's lives.
03:46Which got maturely worse under her watch.
03:48They talk, for example, about hospitals and mixed-sex wards.
03:52Uphill and down, Dale.
03:53What happened in the last decade, the use of mixed-sex wards in our NHS rose by 2,000%.
04:00And there's a pattern of behaviour here.
04:03Women and Equalities Minister failed to do anything for women.
04:06The Trade Minister, who failed to get a trade deal with the US.
04:09The Business Minister, who failed to get a deal with British Steel.
04:13She's a spectator, not a leader.
04:15Mr Speaker, I will tell him what I did.
04:20I stopped the gender...
04:22I will, I will.
04:24Yes, yes.
04:26I can't be honest.
04:27This is voting Jeremy Corbyn.
04:28When his Labour leader in Scotland was whipping his MSPs to get male rapists into women's prisons,
04:34I stopped that gender recognition ban.
04:36I helped commission the Cass Review.
04:40I replaced the guidance on single-sex toilets.
04:43I made sure that the puberty blockers issue was resolved
04:48while he was sitting there cheering on the ideology that was taking away safe spaces.
04:54And when the Prime Minister stayed silent last week,
04:56presumably waiting for what Morgan McSweeney thinks,
04:58on his WhatsApp groups, some of his closest ministers
05:02were plotting to overturn the Supreme Court decision.
05:06Labour MP after Labour MP stood up yesterday and challenged the ruling.
05:12How can we take his government seriously on this?
05:15Well, I think the WhatsApp group, which we've been worried about,
05:18is the one of his shadow justice secretary.
05:21And, Mr Speaker, the mask has slipped just one week before the elections
05:25because the shadow justice secretary is not here.
05:27A man who's doing everything he can to replace her.
05:31The man that most of them want as leader of their party
05:34has admitted that reform and the Tories are working together.
05:39He said, he said, I want this fight to be united.
05:46He said, he said, he's determined to bring this,
05:51and he calls it, together one way or another.
05:54Well, I think we know what that means.
05:56Every Tory voter is appalled at the thought of paying for the NHS.
06:01Every reform voter who hates what the Tories did the last 14 years.
06:06They're not Conservatives.
06:07They're a con.
06:10Who's playing political football now?
06:12He's got no answers, Mr Speaker.
06:17He's got no answers.
06:19Yesterday, Labour MP after Labour MP challenged the ruling.
06:23He should be more worried about his backbenchers than my frontbenchers.
06:27His Labour ministers called the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission appalling.
06:33Baroness Faulkner's role is critical to enforcing the court's judgment.
06:38She has had to put up with relentless abuse, not just from his frontbench, but from activists and ideologues.
06:45Reappointing her will be a clear sign that he is taking this issue seriously.
06:49So will he commit to reappointing Baroness Faulkner when her term expires this year?
06:55Mr Speaker, I've always said the debate should be conducted properly on the principles of debate.
07:01I've said it many, many times.
07:03But I would remind the Leader of the Opposition that when they were in government,
07:06violence against women and girls reached record highs.
07:09Rape prosecute prosecutions fell to record lows.
07:13And millions of women were left stuck on NHS waiting lists, unable to get the health care that they needed.
07:18Under this Labour government, NHS waiting lists down by more than 200,000.
07:23Domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
07:26We strengthen access to maternity pay, something she calls excesses.
07:30She talks about political footballs.
07:32But a coalition between reform and the Tories being formed behind her back.
07:38We know what that means when the shadow Justice Secretary and the Member for Clacton cook up their joint manifesto.
07:47NHS charging a pro-Russia foreign policy, enter workers' rights.
07:52Just as the Labour government lost control of the economy, the borders and health, in six short months, she's lost control of her party.
08:03Mr Speaker, he's clearly so uncomfortable talking about this subject.
08:07This is a choice between a Conservative Party that stood up for common sense and a Labour Party that bent the knee to every passing fad.
08:16This is a question about moral courage, Mr Speaker, about doing the right thing, even when it is difficult.
08:23And the truth is, he doesn't have the balls.
08:27The Prime Minister only tells people what they want to hear.
08:33He only tells people what they want to hear.
08:35He is a weathervane who twists in the wind.
08:38He cheered an ideology that denied safe spaces to women and girls because he thought it was cool to do so.
08:44He hounded a brave female MP out of his party for telling the truth he accepts now.
08:49And now he is hiding behind the Supreme Court judgment.
08:54And isn't that because he doesn't know what he actually believes?
08:58I can only assume that sounded better when she did it in the mirror earlier on.
09:03But the truth is, it doesn't really matter what the Leader of the Opposition says,
09:08because nobody believes, none of them, that she's going to lead them into the next election anyway.
09:13It's going to be the shadowed justice.
09:15He's away plotting, that's why he's not here today, Mr Speaker.
09:18And the member for Clacton fighting over the bones of the Tory party.
09:23And they think reform are going to give them their votes without changing their policy.
09:27Absolutely no way.
09:29The member for Clacton is going to do what he always does, eat the Tory party for breakfast.