Passports cannot be used to check biological sex says peer as Lords stands off with Government
The House of Lords continues to stand off with the Government in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman, with one peer arguing that passports can no longer be relied upon to verify someone's sex.
On Monday, peers voted on measures to demand public authorities record sex data based on biological sex. An amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill was backed by 200 to 183, majority 17, a Tory change which aims to ensure collection of relevant information is based on 'sex at birth', 'natal sex' or 'biological sex'.
The Labour defeat came after a similar amendment was rejected by MPs and means a continuation of the tussle at Westminster, known as parliamentary ping-pong, where legislation is batted between the two Houses until agreement is reached.
Last month, top judges unanimously ruled the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
Speaking in Parliament, science minister Lord Vallance of Balham said: 'Let me be clear that this Government accept the recent Supreme Court judgment on the definition of sex for the purposes of equality legislation.
'We need to work through the effects of this ruling holistically and with care, sensitivity and – dare I say it – kindness. In line with the law, we need to take care not to inappropriately extend its reach.'
He pointed out the Supreme Court's ruling related specifically to the meaning of sex in equalities legislation.
Lord Vallance added: 'This Government are clear that data must be accurate for the purpose for which it is being used and must not be misleading.
'It should be clear to digital verification services what the information public authorities are sharing with them means.
'I will give an important example. If an organisation needs to know a person's biological sex, this Government are clear that a check cannot be made against passport data, as it does not capture biological sex.
'DVS could only verify biological sex using data that records that attribute specifically, not data that records sex or gender more widely.'
But his Conservative frontbench counterpart Viscount Camrose said: 'It is now very clear that we need accurate sex data recorded for a whole host of reasons, including for medical research and the protection of same-sex spaces.
'There is no reason why gender may not also be recorded in a separate field, and it is important that gender data is accurate too.'
Tory peer and former MP Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom also stressed the need for accurate data.
He said: 'In the absence of any reliable document, how is a care home to ensure that a person who is to provide intimate care for an elderly woman, who has understandably demanded that such care be provided by a woman, will actually be provided by a woman?
'In the absence of anything else, I suspect a care home will have to fall back on the passport, which, as we have all agreed, is unreliable.'
Retired top judge Baroness Butler-Sloss said: 'If we are to have data, the data must be accurate.'
Non-affiliated peer Baroness Fox of Buckley said: 'The minister called on us to have kindness. Of course, we should all have kindness all the time, in every instance. However, nobody here is trying to be unkind. The intent is to clarify.'
The Government went on to suffer a further setback as the Lords supported by 289 to 168 votes, majority 121, extra safeguards against people's data being harvested by AI companies without consent.
Independent crossbencher Viscount Colville of Culross said: 'This amendment is a push-back against the way the AI companies have been abusing the use of people's data in training their AI models.'
He argued the Bill as drafted gave 'a powerful exemption' which allowed AI companies to reuse data without consent if they could show their work aligned with the definition of 'scientific research' set out in the legislation.
Lord Colville added: 'I fear that this definition is so widely drawn that it will allow AI models to reuse data without consent, claiming that they are carrying out scientific research when in fact they are using it for product development and their own profit.'
But Lord Vallance earlier told peers: 'The Bill contains strong safeguards.
'Adding precise definitions in the Bill would not strengthen these protections but impose a significant, new legal obligation on our research community at a time when, in line with the good work of the previous government, we are trying to reduce bureaucracy for researchers, not increase it with new processes.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
32 minutes ago
- BBC News
Family visa income threshold should be lower, review says
The minimum income threshold for family visas should be relaxed, a government-commissioned review has recommended.A report by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has suggested a reduction from the current level of £29, warned against previous proposals to raise the threshold to the same level as for skilled workers - £38,700 a year - saying it could breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).The Conservatives said that the UK should leave the ECHR if it "stops us from setting our own visa rules". Article 8 of the ECHR enshrines the right to family threshold is the minimum income a British citizen or settled resident must earn to bring their partner to join them in the UK. If the partner is already in the UK on a valid visa, their income also counts towards the minimum applications are made by people not already living in the UK. The MAC suggested a range of possible new thresholds. It said a level between £23,000 to £25,000 would enable families to support themselves.A threshold of between £24,000 to £28,000 meanwhile would put more emphasis on economic wellbeing - both of the families themselves and for said it did "not understand the rationale" for setting the family visa threshold at the £38,700 level for skilled workers, as the two visas have "completely different objective[s]".A £38,700 level would be the "most likely to conflict with international law and obligations".It is the government's decision whether to accept any of the MAC's recommendations. Prof Brian Bell, chairman of the MAC, said that balancing family life and economic wellbeing was a "real trade-off"."There is a cost to the UK economy and UK taxpayers of having this route, and we should just be honest about that and say there is a trade-off," he said."But similarly, on the other side, people who say 'we should set it at very high numbers to make sure that we don't lose any money' ignore the massive impact that has on families and the destruction of some relationships and the harm it causes to children." A higher threshold would also have a "negative impact on the family life of a larger number of people", the MAC said. It noted many families with lower incomes still earn enough to support themselves even if they do not make a net positive fiscal impact on the said an adult would need to earn £27,800 to have a neutral impact on the public finances - and £40,400 for a couple to have no impact in the first year a spouse arrived in the MAC did not recommend a higher threshold for families with children, saying the impacts on family life for them would be "particularly significant". In 2023 the previous Conservative government announced plans to raise the salary threshold to £38,700, as part of plans to cut the level of they backed down following criticism that this would keep families apart, settling on a £29,000 threshold with plans to gradually increase it did not implement those further rises when the party came into government and asked the MAC to review the committee said the threshold of £29,000 was already high compared to other high-income countries it had looked at. The MAC said it "was not possible to predict with any confidence" the impact different thresholds would have on the level of net migration - the difference between those entering and leaving the did suggest lowering the threshold from £29,000 to roughly £24,000 may increase net migration by up to 8,000 migration in 2024 was an estimated 431,000 people, down almost 50% on the previous followed record high levels in recent years, with the government under political pressure to get numbers down further. The MAC also criticised the Home Office for its data collection, saying insufficient data "greatly hindered" their review.A Home Office spokesperson said the government was considering the review's findings and would respond in due course. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said migration figures remain too high and that the government "must urgently re-instate the Conservative plan to further increase the salary threshold"."If the ECHR stops us from setting our own visa rules, from deporting foreign criminals or from putting Britain's interests first, then we should leave the ECHR," he ECHR, which was established in 1950, sets out the rights and freedoms people are entitled to in the 46 signatory countries and is a central part of UK human rights month, the government said it would bring forward legislation to clarify how aspects of the ECHR should apply in immigration cases.
The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
What's behind Keir Starmer's decision to back nuclear power?
Keir Starmer has committed the UK to its first significant stake in a new nuclear power plant since the 1980s. The decision to invest almost £18bn of taxpayer money into the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk was welcomed by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, as the beginning of a 'golden age' of nuclear investment that would be critical to the government's net zero goals. The government said on Tuesday it would commit £14.2bn to the project, including the £2.7bn it earmarked for Sizewell C in the autumn budget. It has already committed £3.6bn to Sizewell over the past two years. Britain's nuclear renaissance will also include spending about £2.5bn of taxpayer money building some of Europe's first small modular reactors (SMR), after the government gave the green light to plans for Rolls-Royce to build three in the UK by the early 2030s. For critics, the technology's high costs and lengthy construction time have always eclipsed the benefits of abundant low-carbon electricity, given Hinkley Point C's current price tag of up to £35bn and repeated delays. There are also persistent concerns over the safety of nuclear reactors, and the disposal of nuclear waste. But questions over whether countries can meet the growing demand for electricity without fossil fuels, and avoid blackouts, mean many governments now believe nuclear represents a price worth paying. Megawatt for megawatt, nuclear power is far more expensive than most renewable energy technologies. But, unlike wind and solar farms, nuclear reactors do not need investment in battery backup technologies to provide a steady, reliable source of low-carbon power. The guaranteed electricity price offered to Hinkley Point C was initially £92 per megawatt-hour but this will fall to £89.50/MWh with the go-ahead for Sizwell C, under the terms of the government's contract with French state-owned EDF. By contrast, the guaranteed price for offshore windfarms which were successful in last year's subsidy auction was just under £59 per megawatt-hour. 'The upfront cost [of nuclear] is undoubtedly high,' said Dr Iain Staffell, an associate professor at Imperial College London. '£14bn could fund around 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind versus just 3.2 GW of nuclear. But, these reactors will run day and night, especially valuable when the wind is not blowing.' Prof Mark Wenman, also at Imperial College London, added that the costs needed to be balanced against the fact that these reactors 'will produce low carbon electricity for 80 or possibly 100 years, 24/7, providing around a 10th of the current UK electricity needs'. 'Once paid for, nuclear reactors produce the cheapest electricity of any kind, so this investment should be seen as future-proofing the UK electricity system,' Wenman said. Experts believe that powering a country on 100% renewable energy is technically possible. But there is clear evidence that grid systems running predominantly on wind and solar power can be more expensive in the long run, and could be at higher risk of blackouts. This is because renewable energy cannot help to keep the electrical frequency of the grid stable at around 50Hz in the same way that the spinning turbines of a power plants have done in the past by creating inertia. The answer, according to the government's National Energy System Operator (Neso), is to encourage renewables to become the backbone of the energy system while keeping alternatives such as nuclear, biomass and gas to provide backup for when renewable resources are low and grid stability is needed. The government's independent climate advisers agree. The Climate Change Committee recommends that the UK's nuclear capacity doubles by 2050 because while it is 'relatively expensive on a levelised cost basis' it can provide 'valuable zero-carbon generation at scale'. Britain risks losing the benefits offered by nuclear plants by shutting its ageing nuclear reactors faster than it can build new ones – leaving a gap in the UK's supplies of low-carbon electricity at a time when demand for clean energy is growing. The UK's five existing nuclear power reactors generated 14% of the country's electricity last year – down from the industry's late-1990s peak when 18 nuclear reactors provided more than a quarter of Britain's power. Four of these plants are due to close before the end of the decade, even with plans to extend their lifetimes, while only one nuclear power plant is under construction. The Hinkley Point C project in Somerset was originally due to begin generating electricity by 2017 but it has been delayed until the early 2030s. Driving Britain's nuclear renaissance is the tech industry's appetite for nuclear power. Starmer unveiled plans for a once-in-a-generation nuclear expansion earlier this year alongside an open invitation to tech companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon to invest in AI datacentres in Britain, which could be powered by small modular reactors. This is because world's biggest tech companies are investing in extending the life of nuclear plants and building small modular reactors to help meet the enormous power demands of their datacentres. This growing demand is expected to accelerate with the adoption of artificial intelligence. Earlier this month Meta struck a deal to keep one nuclear reactor of a US utility company in Illinois operating for an extra 20 years to help supply the company's datacentres with low-carbon power. It follows a similar deal from Google to supply its datacentres with nuclear power from half-dozen small reactors built by a California utility company. In addition, Microsoft has paid for the restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the most serious nuclear accident and radiation leak in US history. 'They are very keen to get the datacentres in and they're very alive to the fact that the power is a big issue,' Starmer said.
BBC News
43 minutes ago
- BBC News
Packmoor residents oppose plans to build 1,200 homes in village
Hundreds of residents have signed a petition urging the council to reconsider "catastrophic" plans to build up to 1,200 homes in a City Council wants to build the residential development on 80-hectares of council-owned farmland in some residents said the proposals would result in the loss of valuable green space and would put pressure on local council said its Packmoor masterplan would allow a "clearer view" of proposed improvements to highways and local amenities. A petition opposing the plans gained more than 300 signatures in five petitioner, Darren Bamford, said the council was "not listening" to the feedback of residents following the recent consultation."The sheer size of these proposed plans would be absolutely catastrophic for Packmoor," he said."We urge the city council and cabinet to reconsider the proposed masterplan, the impact it could potentially have on Packmoor, its residents, our unique identity as a village and loss of our greenspace."A technical assessment of land to the south-east of Packmoor suggested that it could deliver between 800 and 1,200 homes but most of the land would remain open space.A spokesperson for the local authority said it had "engaged extensively" with hundreds of residents in Packmoor and other areas in the last two years."The council's cabinet has now determined that it is appropriate to develop a masterplan as the next stage in engaging residents," they explained."It is recognised that some residents are opposed to this decision but it will enable a clearer view of the residential, extra care facilities and highways improvements that could be delivered alongside new homes and affordable homes." This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
