Scottish court rules UK government veto of Holyrood gender reform bill was lawful
Constitutional ruling disappoints LGBTQ+ campaigners but offers a boost to Rishi Sunak

A judge in Scotland has declared that the UK government acted lawfully in blocking Holyrood's gender recognition reform bill.
Legislation introducing a self-identification system to allow people to change their legally recognised sex was passed by the Scottish Parliament late last year.
But in January Scottish Secretary Alister Jack used section 35 powers from the Scotland Act 1998 – the legislation that established the Scottish Parliament – for the first time to stop the bill receiving royal assent, over fears it would impact on UK-wide equalities laws.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Now in a ruling that The Guardian said will "disappoint LGBTQ+ campaigners and offers a boost to Rishi Sunak at the end of a difficult week", Lady Haldane at the Court of Session in Edinburgh rejected the Scottish government’s petition to rule the UK government’s section 35 veto as unlawful.
While the challenge to the veto failed, Haldane said that "in so concluding it is important to recognise the novelty and complexity of the arguments and the sophisticated manner in which those arguments were presented before me and from which I derived considerable assistance".
Jack welcomed the decision. "I was clear that this legislation would have had adverse effects on the operation of the law as it applies to reserved matters, including on important Great Britain-wide equality protections," he said.
But Colin Macfarlane, director of nations at LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, said the organisation was "disappointed" with the ruling. "This unfortunately means more uncertainty for trans people in Scotland, who will now be waiting once again, to see whether they will be able to have their gender legally recognised through a process that is in line with leading nations like Ireland, Canada and New Zealand."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Scottish government "has the right to appeal the case further through the Scottish courts, and ultimately to the Supreme Court in London", said Sky News.
Jamie Timson is the UK news editor, curating The Week UK's daily morning newsletter and setting the agenda for the day's news output. He was first a member of the team from 2015 to 2019, progressing from intern to senior staff writer, and then rejoined in September 2022. As a founding panellist on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast, he has discussed politics, foreign affairs and conspiracy theories, sometimes separately, sometimes all at once. In between working at The Week, Jamie was a senior press officer at the Department for Transport, with a penchant for crisis communications, working on Brexit, the response to Covid-19 and HS2, among others.
-
Black women are being pushed out of the workforce en masse
IN THE SPOTLIGHT Employment data shows hundreds of thousands of Black women have left the labor market over the past few months. What's behind this mass exodus?
-
Nicola Sturgeon's memoir: making the personal political
Talking Point Former Scottish first minister attempts to set record straight in 'Frankly' but does she leave more questions than answers?
-
Anti-trans scandal roils major LGBTQ+ literary prize as authors withdraw en masse
in the spotlight Multiple nominees for the UK's premier queer writing award have removed themselves from contention to protest the inclusion of a self-proclaimed 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist' in their ranks
-
'We should all ask ourselves: When we laugh, who's hurting?'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
'We know these services are needed'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
U.S. v. Skrmetti: Did the trans rights movement overreach?
Feature The Supreme Court upholds a Tennessee law that bans transgender care for minors, dealing a blow to trans rights
-
Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban
speed read The US Supreme Court will let the Trump administration begin executing its ban on transgender military service members
-
Will divisions over trans issue derail Keir Starmer's government?
Today's Big Question Rebellion is brewing following the Supreme Court's ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under equality law