John Swinney fails to apologise to women after Supreme Court gender defeat (2025)

EXCLUSIVE: The First Minister spoke exclusively to the Record's Planet Holyrood podcast.

John Swinney has declined to apologise to women after his Government crashed to defeat in a pivotal court case on the definition of woman.

The First Minister insisted his government acted in “good faith” after the Supreme Court loss.

He also said he did not know how much the legal bills would cost the taxpayer.

In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

Campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) had brought a series of challenges – including to the UK’s highest court – over the definition of “woman” in Scottish Government legislation mandating 50% female representation on public boards.

The dispute centred on whether someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) showing their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the UK 2010 Equality Act.

In an interview for the Daily Record’s Planet Holyrood podcast, Swinney said:

“I accept the outcome of the Supreme Court case. I believe in the rule of law. The right and the immediate thing to do is to accept without question the judgement of the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court has brought clarity to two pieces of legislation that the Scottish Government was navigating its way through.

He added: “It has brought absolute clarity on that question, so we need to reflect on that ruling. We need to engage constructively with all voices in Scotland about the ruling and I think it’s really important for me at the outset to say …that I lead a government that protects the rights of everybody is fundamental to my response to the judgement of the Supreme Court.

Asked if he would apologise to women, he replied: “We have acted in good faith on this question. We have tried to navigate our way through two pieces of legislation, during which of course our position has been supported twice by courts in Scotland in this particular case.

“So the debate has been around very uncertain areas of definition, and the Supreme Court has concluded on that, and that is an end to the matter.”

He was also asked how much the case, which has also gone through the Scottish courts, would cost the taxpayer:

“Obviously all that detail will be published in due course. I don’t know what the financial implications of a court case that’s just concluded today will actually be, because that obviously is determined by judgements that the court makes.”

“There were genuine questions that had to be addressed here, and I suppose that is the justification I would use for the use of public money, that where there are genuine questions to be resolved we should do that in good faith and use public money wisely.”

The Holyrood legislation is also the latest law to be passed by MSPs that has fallen foul of the courts.

Asked if there was an impression MSPs and Ministers were incompetent legislators, he said:

“There’s vast amounts of legislation that gets passed that is not in any way shape or form challenged in the courts. The reason for that is because the legislation is beyond dispute. There are obviously issues of intense debate here.”

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