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Ambition Before Duty. The Minister Who Put Her Career Ahead of the Law. Next Wednesday marks one year since the Supreme Court ruled, unanimously and without ambiguity, that sex under the Equality Act means biological sex. One year since the law was settled. One year since the Equality and Human Rights Commission drafted its code of practice setting out what that ruling requires of hospitals, schools, gyms and public bodies. One year since Bridget Phillipson received that code and chose to sit on it. What has changed in twelve months is not the law. The judgment stands. The code is ready. What has changed is the credibility of the minister charged with implementing it. Baroness Falkner, who led the EHRC until November and oversaw the drafting of that code, has now said plainly what many had suspected: Phillipson is withholding guidance not because it requires further work, but because publishing it would cost her politically. The activist MPs whose votes she needs for promotion would not forgive her. So women wait, and the minister keeps her powder dry (Martin, 2026). That is a specific accusation, made by a specific person with direct knowledge of the process. It is not a political opponent guessing at motive. Falkner submitted the code. She watched it stall. She knows what ready looks like, and she knows the guidance is ready. Her conclusion, that personal ambition is the operative factor, carries weight that no government spokesman can easily dismiss. The Labour response, that Falkner had demeaned the office she once held, did not address the substance. It attacked the witness. Which leaves the charge unanswered. Consider what the title Secretary of State for Women and Equalities actually represents. Not a departmental portfolio in the ordinary sense, but a stated commitment, a promise woven into the office itself. To hold that title while deliberately withholding the legal protections owed to the women you nominally represent is a contradiction so stark it requires no elaboration. The office makes the accusation. Falkner supplies the motive. The anniversary provides the measure. Falkner went further still, and her wider observation deserves to be heard. She drew a parallel with the grooming gangs scandal, noting that this government has a pattern of institutional inaction driven by fear of upsetting particular constituencies. The comparison is uncomfortable precisely because it is not new. The structure is familiar: a known problem, a clear remedy, a minister unwilling to act because the political cost of action outweighs, in their private calculation, the human cost of delay. Those doing the waiting are never the ministers. Starmer's position is untenable on its own terms. He told Parliament the ruling must be implemented in full. His minister is arguing for a case-by-case approach that restores the incoherence the court rejected. He is a lawyer. He knows what a unanimous Supreme Court judgment means. He also knows what his backbenchers want. The gap between those two things is where women's rights currently reside. The government's rebuttal speaks of sober leadership and treating everyone with dignity. Fine words. But dignity is not delivered by a code of practice that lives in a ministerial drawer. Protection is not real if it exists only in statute while the guidance that would make it operational is suppressed for career reasons. The court has done its work. The EHRC has done its work. One minister has not done hers. "Phillipson is withholding guidance not because it requires further work, but because publishing it would cost her politically."

We support the victims & survivors & agree with them that transparency & accountability are essential here. They have been failed by those charged with their protection many times over and they deserve justice now. The Grooming Gang failures are part of the widespread complete breakdown of safeguarding. #Safeguarding must now be restored & given primacy in line with the Children’s Act. Welfare of children must always be the priority & people’s personal, political & ideological agendas must not be allowed to get in the way of justice, accountability & strengthening safeguarding & child protection in the future. #TheyKnew #RestoreSafeguarding