Pensions Bulletin 2025/16

Gender recognition and the Equality Act – Supreme Court judgment

The Supreme Court has handed down a landmark judgment on the meaning of “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers.

The case originated in statutory guidance issued by the Scottish Government regarding targets for the proportion of women on public boards in Scotland under a 2018 Scottish Act. This guidance states that the definition of a “woman” is the same as under the Equality Act 2010. The guidance also states that a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female is considered a woman for the purposes of the 2018 Act.

For Women Scotland (a campaign group) challenged the lawfulness of this guidance, arguing that the definition of “woman” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. This challenge failed in the Scottish courts (who upheld the Scottish Ministers’ counter assertion that the definition of “woman” under the Equality Act refers to “certificated sex”), but an appeal was allowed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the appeal, holding that the terms “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to biological sex.

The judgment was concerned with statutory interpretation. In broad terms the logic cited in the judgment for this decision is that “As a matter of ordinary language, the provisions relating to sex discrimination can only be interpreted as referring to biological sex”. Crucial to reaching this conclusion is that when Parliament used the words “man” and “woman” in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA) it intended to be referring to biological sex. Therefore, the context in which the Equality Act was enacted was that the SDA definitions of “man” and “woman” referred to biological sex as well as that trans people had the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

For readers interested in more detail there is a very helpful summary from paragraph 265 onwards of the judgment.

The Court is careful to emphasise in the judgment that “this interpretation of the EA 2010 does not remove protection from trans people, with or without a GRC. Trans people are protected from discrimination on the ground of gender reassignment.”

First pension provider finalises connection to pensions dashboards ecosystem

The Pensions Dashboard Programme has announced that the first pension provider has successfully connected to the live pensions dashboards ecosystem. This follows on from the completion of three ‘volunteer participants’ connection journeys in March 2025 (see Pensions Bulletin 2025/10), which will make connection possible for their providers and schemes.

The PDP says that more providers and schemes are registered and are currently in the pipeline for connection in April 2025, in line with guidance issued by the DWP. It also says that it is working with all its 20 volunteer participants to complete their connection journeys as soon as possible, but a number of these will not have done so by the end of April.

This in turn will mean that those providers and schemes relying on them in order that they connect by their April 2025 “connect by” dates set out in the guidance issued by DWP in March last year (see Pensions Bulletin 2024/12) will be non-compliant. However, the PDP says that it is liaising with the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator, who have provided reassurance that they will take a pragmatic approach in these cases. As a result, the PDP says that there will be no regulatory intervention at the current time for pension providers and schemes who are unable to meet their DWP guidance connection dates solely due to their dependence on a volunteer participant who has yet to connect.

Separately, the PDP is expecting to start user testing with its MoneyHelper pensions dashboard in summer 2025.