Labour has delayed the publication of official guidance that would require businesses and public bodies to offer single-sex spaces to women.

Women and Equalities Secretary Bridget Phillipson described the proposed rules as “trans-exclusive” and has failed to sign them off more than three months after receiving them.

The guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was drawn up following a Supreme Court ruling that only biological women are women under equality law.

The full guidance from the EHRC has not yet been released, with sources telling The Telegraph Ms Phillipson had insisted on additional bureaucratic processes that have held the approval up.

In a submission given to the High Court, she said there were “many entirely plausible exceptions” to the single-sex rule.

According to Ms Phillipson, the guidance failed to take into account “common sense” exceptions.

This includes instances such as pregnant women using men’s loos to avoid queues at theatres and women being unable to take their “infant sons” into changing rooms at swimming pools.

She has been accused of “using every excuse in the book” to stand in the way of the Supreme Court ruling, in the hope that she will find a reason to force the EHRC to rewrite its guidelines.

Shadow Minister for Equalities Claire Coutinho said: “Government lawyers, working under Bridget Philipson’s instruction. are trying to rewrite the Supreme Court judgment that sex means biological sex.

“It is clear that they have no intention of complying with the law or implementing the ruling to make sure women’s rights to single-sex spaces are protected. The minister’s arguments would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous.

“Calling for sex-based rights on a case-by-case basis to try and appease radical gender activists in her own party is a betrayal of women and girls everywhere. Whether it’s this court case or failing to publish the EHRC’s draft code of practice, the Government is doing everything it can to deny women the right to single-sex spaces.”

A Government spokesman said: “The EHRC has submitted a draft Code of Practice to ministers, and we are working at pace to review it with the care it deserves.

“This is a 300-page long and legally complex document and it is important for service providers that we get this right.

“It would be catastrophic for single sex-services to follow guidance that wasn’t legally sound and then place them in legal jeopardy again. That is why it is vital we get this right.”

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Reform ‘will implode on first contact with reality’ rather than form a successful Government, says Sir Geoffrey Cox

Reform UK “will implode on the first contact with reality, like a bubble blown from a child’s wand” rather than form a Government able to run the country successfully, a former Conservative Cabinet minister has said.

Sir Geoffrey Cox, Attorney General between 2018 and 2020, said that Reform did not have the “regimental tradition to be able to face the enemy”.

Critics say that Reform could not match the Tories for the necessary organisation and experienced leaders to set up and run a Government if, as polls suggest, it wins the next general election, expected in 2029.

You can watch the former senior Tory on Chopper’s Political Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, GBNews, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kemi Badenoch calls for immigration crackdown ‘from cultures that don’t respect women’

Kemi Badenoch has launched a scathing attack on Labour, calling for a crackdown on immigration from cultures and countries “that don’t respect women.”

The Conservative leader attacked the Government’s strategy for halving violence against women and girls, saying it was too focused on young boys and too influenced by the hit Netflix series Adolescence.

Writing in The Telegraph, she said: “Lecturing schoolboys about respect, as Labour intend to do, is really an attempt to change the subject.

“The current Government don’t have the backbone to do what’s right.Conservatives take violence against women and girls seriously, because we focus on punishing the perpetrators, not performative gestures aimed at the innocent.”