THE shadow minister for women and equalities has said vulnerable female prisoners should not be put at risk by having biological men housed in female prisons.

Speaking on GB News, Claire Coutinho said: “We’ve been really clear cut on this, and I do think it is really important that only biological women should be in women’s prisons. I do think the Reform position is particularly disappointing because we’ve had politicians getting into a mess on this for years, and I thought we had moved past that.

“So to have their prisons advisor say that men can be housed in women’s prison once more on Monday, then I think they denied it, and then their justice spokesperson came out and confirmed it again. I do think it’s incredibly disappointing, and it will put women at risk.

“It was in 2023 where we said it absolutely crystal clear, if you committed a sexual offense for a violent crime, you will be not housed in the female estate. And then, since then, in the election, we said the Equality Act needed to be updated to be very clear about single spaces.

“There was a Supreme Court judgment earlier this year which made it crystal clear that it is legal for women to have their own spaces, which is why I think it is incredibly disappointing that after that judgment, people are still being confused.

“We are not confused. We have said very clearly that the Supreme Court judgment, as set out earlier this year, has said that women can have their own spaces, and women’s prisons are one of those places where we should be very, very clear that it is only for biological women.

“As someone who, before I came into politics, worked with the Centre for Social Justice, we looked at women prisoners. This is 4% of the theme of the prison population, and actually a lot of those women have experienced domestic abuse and sexual assault.

“Just to give you a sense of how vulnerable that population is, one in three female prisoners self-harm; one in three. So this is a particularly vulnerable group of people, and to say that once again, the women have to accommodate other people, I think, is just wrong.

“There is no excuse anymore. There is no excuse for politicians to be making these mistakes. We have been clear that this is what we should do. We should make sure that we’re putting the safety of those women first.

“What you can do now is you can house trans women in separate facilities. So actually there has been a prison facility called Downview which means that you can house trans women, not in the male estate.

“I understand that there are some people who’d be worried about that and you want to protect the whole of the prison population. What I don’t understand, and what no one can give me a good answer to, is why they would have to be housed in the women’s estate.

“It is a group of women who have often experienced extremely difficult circumstances, whether that is sexual assault or something like that, and we are able to protect both of those populations within the prison estate.

“So let me be very clear, we do not think there should be anyone who is biologically male in women’s prisons.

“We had said at the election, actually there was some confusion about the Equality Act, about whether you could make these provisions and make single sex places only for women.

“We had said we were going to change that anyway. In light of the Supreme Court, we do not need to do that but our position had been that we would change it if we needed to. We were arguing for that.

“I wrote to the shadow equalities minister in September last year, to say, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, even if the judgment had not made it clear that women can have their single sex spaces, we should change the law to make it such.

“So our position is very clear that women’s spaces and women’s prisons should only be for biological women.

“So firstly, you can house trans women separately, so you can keep them safe as well. And when you say ‘this is all about individual risk assessment’, which is what the Reform position is, we have seen time and time and time again that when it comes to individual assessment, our institutions making those assessments have let women down.

“Whether it’s nurses’ changing rooms, whether it’s women’s prisons where we have seen cases of serious sexual assault happen in women’s prisons, whether it’s sports and women’s podiums, these bodies that are meant to know better. There are meant to be experts…

“I think it is important to be clear cut. I think you can protect everyone, and what I do not see the reason for is why women should be the ones to make accommodations, particularly such a vulnerable group of women.”