Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord does not think I am being discourteous to the House by making a short intervention in this important debate. We have to be very careful about legal definitions of sex and gender. Primarily, the definitions are not legal but are in fact biological, as I have said in this Chamber before. That is a problem. That is one of the reasons why I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, just said. For example, we have to understand that there are situations in which there might well be problems with—whatever you call it—misogyny or hate. Take a transgender woman who was originally assigned as a male and still has the genes of a male, and possibly some of the hormonal function of a male, who competes in a sporting event. That is a difficult issue that has not yet been properly dealt with. Clearly, it is quite likely that from time to time those sorts of situations will cause considerable anger, hostility and all sorts of effects that might be an offence under the Bill. We at least need to record that and decide how we deal with it.