“The PM is so uncomfortable talking about women’s rights. He supported an ideology that undermined women’s safe spaces for the sake of trendiness. Worst of all, he did not have the moral courage to apologise for hounding @RosieDuffield1 out of his party for views he now accepts.” Badenoch.

The UK prime minister urged MPs to ‘lower the temperature’ in the debate over trans rights, after the Supreme Court ruled that ‘woman’ in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman. The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, challenged him to admit he was wrong about defining women and said this is about ‘political courage

Badenoch on Wednesday during the Prime Minister’s Questions claimed Sir Keir Starmer  “doesn’t have the balls” to express his own views on gender.

Keir had previously said “trans women are women”, welcomed the Supreme Court ruling and said it is “time now to lower the temperature” of the transgender debate.

The P.M. sidestepped a question over whether he would reappoint Baroness Falkner to chair the Equality and Human Rights Commission and tried to switch focus on to a possible deal between the Tories and Reform UK, claiming Mrs Badenoch has “lost control of her party”.

The Supreme Court confirmed the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”.

The opposition leader asked: “Does the Prime Minister now accept that when he said that it was the law that trans women were women, he was wrong?”

Sir Keir replied: “Let me be clear, I welcome the Supreme Court ruling on this issue. It brings clarity and it will give confidence to women and, of course, to service providers.

“The Equality and Human Rights Commission will now issue updated guidance, and it is important that that happens and that all service providers then act accordingly.

“This Government’s approach, and my approach, has been as follows: to support and implement the Supreme Court ruling, and we will, to continue to protect single-sex spaces based on biological sex, and we will, but also to ensure that trans people are treated with respect, and we will, and to ensure that everybody is given dignity in their everyday lives.

“I do think this is the time now to lower the temperature, to move forward, and to conduct this debate with the care and compassion that it deserves. And I think that should unite the whole House.”

Mrs Badenoch said Sir Keir “can’t bring himself to admit that he was wrong” and asked the Prime Minister to apologise to the “very brave” Independent MP Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) for “hounding her out of the Labour Party, simply for telling the truth”.