Kemi Badenoch: 'Serious potential' Scottish public bodies breaking the law on single-sex spaces

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says there is a ‘serious denial of women’s rights’

Kemi Badenoch says there is “serious potential” Scottish public bodies have broken the law on single-sex spaces as she denied the trans debate in Holyrood was “toxic”.

The leader of the UK Conservatives was visiting Glasgow on Thursday when she said the “serious denial of women’s rights” was causing “serious problems” for vulnerable people in Scotland.

She also said Reform UK are “counting their chickens” when it comes to the 2026 Scottish Parliament election, and dismissed the possibility of the party out-performing the Scottish Conservatives.

Kemi Badenoch in Glasgow today | Jeff Mitchell / Getty Images

This comes after the Scottish Government was criticised for its lack of guidance for public bodies on single-sex spaces on the back of the employment tribunal brought by NHS Fife nurse Sandie Peggie.

Ms Peggie was suspended by the health board following an incident with transgender doctor Beth Upton in a female changing room, who made an allegation of bullying and harassment.

Ms Badenoch said: “Yes [public bodies] have the serious potential of breaking the law, and the Scottish Government hasn’t done anything anywhere close to giving the appropriate guidance.

“They regularly misinterpret sex and gender and use them interchangeably. The concept of gender identification is not established in law. They confuse it with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

“They’ve got themselves into a big mess, which is why when I was women’s minister I did everything we could to stop a serious denial of women’s rights, which is causing serious problems for vulnerable people.”

Ms Badenoch said the debate would not change until the SNP had been removed from power, saying the party’s "detachment from reality is harmful”.

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She also denied the debate on single-sex spaces in Scotland had become “toxic”, adding: “That debate’s not toxic, there are some people who have decided to make it an issue of toxicity.

“I don’t think it is a toxic debate, it is an honest debate. We cannot be afraid to tell the truth on biological reality. It is not something we can run from, whatever your ideology is.”

This is despite Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay posting on X only 24 hours prior: “I’ll lead my party’s debate on the harmful legacy of [Nicola Sturgeon’s] toxic gender self-ID policy.”

The Scotsman also asked Ms Badenoch what single-sex facilities trans men should use, as the party has said trans women should not be allowed to use female spaces.

She said: “Single-sex spaces should be based on biology and a trans man is still female. We should look at this on a case-by-case basis where there are extenuating circumstances, but the first thing is looking after those most vulnerable, and that’s women and children.”

Ms Badenoch also dismissed the claim that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK will do better than the Scottish Conservatives in the 2026 Holyrood election.

Research from the Scottish Election Studies suggests Reform UK will win 17.1 per cent of the constituency votes and 17.8 per cent of the list votes in next year’s election, putting them “comfortably” in third place behind the SNP and Scottish Labour.

The same research put the Conservatives on just 11.7 per cent and 12.1 per cent.

In the past few months there have also been several Conservative councillors defecting to Reform.

Ms Badenoch said: “Anyone who says anything about elections is counting their chickens.

“We live in turbulent, unpredictable political times and we’ve seen parties lose 20 point majorities as we did.

“When the time comes they will be counting their chickens.

“We need to acknowledge the difficult position we are in having just left government and the need to start rebuilding trust with the public.

“My job as the new leader is to acknowledge the mistakes we made and say there is a new story to tell, not just what happened over the last 14 years.”

She added the ongoing infighting amongst the group of Reform MPs in Westminster was a “sideshow”, and said her constituents “don’t know or care who the characters in Reform are”.

When asked if she was worried about the threat of Reform on her own party, she said: “No - otherwise we wouldn’t be the most successful political party in the history of western democracy.

“We’ve had our ups and downs, but the idea that we will disappear because we have competition on the right is not serious.

“We just got kicked out of government so of course people are going to go to a protest party until we rebuild that trust.

“But to allow a snapshot of today to determine everything that is going on is not a fait accompli.

“Voting for Reform helps the SNP.”

In response a Reform UK spokesman said: “Kemi Badenoch has now visited Glasgow more times than the majority of her Scottish Conservative MSPs and that speaks volumes.

“We are not counting our chickens or being in any way complacent, quite the opposite - we are out every day working hard and not taking voters for granted like the Tories did for years.

“The reality is she and her irrelevant party have been routinely beaten by Reform UK in Glasgow and across central Scotland - given the 14 years of failure of Tories in power, we’re not surprised about that.

“The Scottish Conservatives like to pretend only they can beat the SNP, but in reality they’ve been part of the bubble that has failed Scotland.

“If they’re serious about booting this rotten SNP government out of office they should step aside as it’s very clear only a vote for Reform can beat the SNP in communities across Scotland.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said: “The Scottish Government expects all relevant organisations to comply with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010.

“We have been clear in our support for the separate and single-sex exceptions in the act, which allow for people to be excluded when this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

“As employers, organisations may need to consider the impact of other legislation, such as the requirements of the w on health and safety in workplaces.”