Christine Jardine

I would also like to refer the Minister to her own words. She described the Equality Act as “one of the most significant achievements in modern British history”. I think we would all agree with that, but she then went on to describe it as the “quiet guardian in millions of people’s daily lives” and said that “This Government will uphold and protect it, not weaken it”. She will look very hard before she finds a member of the LGBTQ community in this country who believes that. Regardless of what the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) might think, I fully respect the Supreme Court’s judgment, but I believe the Supreme Court judged on the letter of the law, not on the spirit of that historic achievement that the Minister described. In order to reflect the spirit of that, do we not now need to look carefully at the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and ensure that all people in this country—including women and the LGBT community, because their rights are not mutually exclusive—get the protection that was envisaged in that law, in both its letter and spirit?