Furious Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir Starmer of a “shameless work of fiction” after the Government claimed it had always supported single-sex spaces for biological women. Women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson made the comment in the House of Commons on Tuesday after the PM performed a U-turn on his previous claim that “trans women are women”.

She said: “This Government will continue as before, working to protect single-sex spaces based on biological sex, now with the added clarity of this ruling.” But Tory leader Mrs Badenoch branded Ms Phillipson’s statement “mostly a shameless work of fiction”.

Mrs Badenoch said: “In 2021, the Prime Minister said it is not right to say only women have a cervix. In 2022, he said it is the law that trans women are women.

“In 2023, he said – and I quote – ‘99% of women don’t have a penis’.

“I know what a woman is and I always have. The people of this country know what a woman is. We didn’t need the Supreme Court to tell us that, but this Government did – a Labour Government so desperate to jump on a bandwagon that they abandoned common sense along with the SNP, who put rapists in women’s prisons, and, of course, the Liberal Democrats.

“The Supreme Court ruling is a powerful victory for the determined women behind For Women Scotland and for people all over the UK who know how important it is to give privacy and dignity to women and girls who need it, but it follows years of battle.”

Mrs Badenoch later added: “Labour now says that they know what a woman is and that transgender people should use services and facilities designated to their biological sex.

“They’ve never said this before. This is a U-turn, but we welcome it.”

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Independent MP Rosie Duffield, who has clashed with Sir Keir over the issue of gender, praised Mrs Badenoch’s intervention.

She wrote on X: “Thanks to Kemi Badenoch whose brilliant speech just now was the actual truth, not a new rewritten convenient version if it.

“She has been one of the most consistent supporters of feminists and women’s sex-based rights, unlike any of those opposite now pretending to be.”

It comes after the Prime Minister earlier declared that a woman is an “adult female” in a U-turn on his previous stance.

In a landmark ruling last week, the Supreme Court confirmed the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.