Scottish Government bill for gender court case totals over £760,000
Ministers have paid out after campaigners at For Women Scotland last year won a landmark ruling at the UK Supreme Court.
The Scottish Government spent more than £760,000 unsuccessfully defending a legal challenge brought by women’s rights campaigners.
The group For Women Scotland (FWS) took Scottish ministers to court, winning a landmark Supreme Court case against the government.
The Scottish Government has now paid the group £540,000 in the wake of that ruling in April – where judges declared that the term “woman” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex.
The addition of the Scottish Government’s own legal costs however mean that it has spent a total of £766,498.80 of taxpayers’ money on the two judicial reviews involved in the case.
The first of these, held at the Court of Session in Edinburgh saw costs of £147,500 awarded to FWS, with the Scottish Government’s legal costs adding another £68,682.50 to the total.
The campaign group added it had been paid £392,500 for the Supreme Court case.
While the Scottish Government’s legal costs for this were put at £157,816.30, FWS noted that this was not the final total and the amount is “expected to rise slightly to reflect the legal work in settling FWS’s costs”.
It came as the group confirmed that “full and final settlement has been reached with the Scottish ministers regarding recovery of costs incurred in pursuing the judicial review all the way to the UK Supreme Court”.
FWS said the funds it had received had been lodged with solicitors, and would be used to cover the costs in its current case against the Scottish Government, challenging the housing of transgender women offenders in female prisons.
The group said the money would be “used to cover the costs of our current judicial review on prison guidance, plus any future legal action necessary to ensure the Scottish Government complies with the law”.
Scottish Conservative equalities spokesperson Tess White MSP said that the government had “taken far too long to pay what is owed”.
But hitting out at SNP ministers, she added: “They should never have squandered taxpayers’ cash in the first place on defending the indefensible.
“Worse still, the Nationalists have not learned their lesson and are wasting even more public cash on a legal fight to allow male-bodied prisoners to be housed in women’s jails.”
Challenging the First Minister, the Tory MSP blasted: “John Swinney’s refusal to accept the Supreme Court’s ruling is putting women at risk.
“He needs to grow a backbone and stop dancing to the tune of gender extremists.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government has made clear it accepts the Supreme Court ruling and is taking forward the detailed work necessary. There is an established process whereby parties seek to establish the final costs payable for a legal case. This has now concluded and payment has been settled.”
