Tony Vaughan KC Backs Bid To Block EHRC Single-Sex Spaces Code

Folkestone & Hythe’s MP has backed a Commons motion to reject the EHRC’s updated equality-law guidance. The issue is sensitive, practical and local — so constituents deserve a clear explanation of why.

Folkestone & Hythe’s Labour MP, Tony Vaughan KC (pictured), has signed a Commons motion seeking to block the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s updated Code of Practice on services, public functions and associations. 

That sounds dry. It isn’t.

The argument is about how the Equality Act now applies to single-sex spaces after the Supreme Court’s ruling in For Women Scotland. That judgment held that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, “sex”, “woman” and “man” mean biological sex.

The EHRC Code takes that ruling into the real world: toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, refuges, gyms, clubs, community centres, advice services and public buildings. These are not abstract places. They are places people use when they are vulnerable, hurried, embarrassed, frightened, in pain, at work, at school, or just trying to get through the day.

The most contested part of the Code says that if a service provider admits trans people to a service intended for the opposite biological sex, it can no longer rely on the Equality Act’s single-sex exceptions. In plain English, a women-only service that admits trans women would not, under the draft Code, be treated as a single-sex service under the Equality Act.

That is the hard legal edge of the row.

Supporters of the Code say it gives organisations the clarity they need after the Supreme Court judgment. They argue that where Parliament has allowed single-sex services — for privacy, dignity, safety or fairness — those services must be organised by biological sex.

Opponents say the Code risks making ordinary life harder and more humiliating for trans people, especially in older buildings where there may be no realistic third option. They argue that a legal answer written neatly in Whitehall may land messily in a small leisure centre, a village hall, a cramped NHS building or a charity office with one corridor and limited space.

The Code does recognise that problem. It says providers should consider alternatives such as mixed-sex services, individual facilities or other arrangements. For toilets, it says it is “very unlikely” to be proportionate to leave a trans person with no service they are allowed to use.

So this is not a simple story of one side being reasonable and the other being wicked. Women have rights. Trans people have rights. Public bodies have duties. Staff and volunteers need workable rules. And local residents deserve something better than slogans thrown across a legal minefield.

That is why Mr Vaughan’s signature matters.

The Early Day Motion he signed says only that the draft Code laid before the House on 21 May 2026 “be disapproved”. Parliament records him as signing on 2 June 2026.

If successful, the motion would not rewrite the Equality Act. It would not overturn the Supreme Court. It would not make the legal problem disappear. It would seek to stop this particular statutory Code becoming the guidance that courts, tribunals, councils, charities and service providers would have to take into account where relevant.

For most MPs, that would already require explanation. For Tony Vaughan KC, it requires an especially clear one.

Mr Vaughan is not only Folkestone & Hythe’s MP. His chambers profile describes him as a King’s Counsel, called to the Bar in 2006, with expertise in public law, human rights and equality law. It also says he is on the EHRC panel of specialist counsel.

None of that means he must support the EHRC Code. It does not mean he has done anything improper by signing the motion. Lawyers are allowed to disagree. MPs are elected to take positions.

But it does mean constituents are entitled to ask sharper questions.

Does Mr Vaughan say the EHRC has misread the Supreme Court judgment? Does he say the draft Code goes further than the law requires? Does he say it is unworkable for local public bodies and service providers? Does he say it fails to protect trans people adequately? Or does he believe Parliament should now revisit the Equality Act itself?

Those are not hostile questions. They are the ordinary questions that follow when a legally expert MP signs a motion on a sensitive legal issue affecting women’s spaces, trans people’s access to services, and the duties of public bodies.

This matters locally because Folkestone & Hythe is full of the places the Code is about: leisure facilities, schools, community venues, council buildings, NHS settings, charities, clubs, toilets and changing areas. The people affected will not be arguing theory. They will be using services, running services, or trying to keep them lawful.

An Early Day Motion is public, but only in the Westminster sense: visible if you already know where to look. Most people in Folkestone, Hythe, Cheriton, Sandgate, Hawkinge, Lydd, New Romney and the Marsh are not spending their evenings browsing parliamentary motion registers. Fair enough. Life is short.

So if our MP signs a motion to block statutory equality guidance on a subject this sensitive, the local explanation should not have to be excavated. It should be given plainly.

The issue is not whether Mr Vaughan is allowed to take a view. Of course he is. The issue is whether constituents have been told clearly what that view means.

Because “reject the Code” is not, on its own, an answer.

It is the start of the question.

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