Bev White is standing as a Party Of Women candidate in Eaton Socon for the St Neots Town Council election, and in The Eatons for Huntingdonshire District Council election. For a number of years I have had an interest in policies, especially those related to Equality in councils and schools; are they in line with the law and do they offer protection to women on the basis of their sex?

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Usually the answer is no. Between 2023 and 2024 I began standing in the market square and inviting the general public to talk to me about the erosion of women's rights and information being imposed upon their children. In my first weeks I was alerted to the fact that I was not welcome in St Neots 'the community, the council and the police do not want you here'. In 2023 I informed St Neots Town Council that their Equality Policy was potentially unlawful and that most of the town's public toilets did not meet Regulation standards. It took several months before the council took note. Asking for the law to be applied correctly wasn't well received. Last year I alerted Huntingdonshire District Council that their Equality information was inaccurate and the council did not appear to be legally compliant.

 

This year I have emailed Cambridgeshire District/City Councils and Peterborough City Council suggesting that they check with their insurance providers as their interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 may leave them open for legal challenge. If a claim of discrimination is brought against a council due to their failure to provide single sex spaces in line with Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 will their insurer fund their legal costs if a council is knowingly breaking the law? As far as I am aware no councillor on St Neots Town Council or on Huntingdonshire District Council is concerned about these issues or the erosion of women's rights. Therefore a win for me would ensure that sex based rights receive consideration when required; safeguarding, employment related policies, leisure centres, youth work and public facilities.

 

School policies - In Feb 2024 I alerted my County Councillor that a local schools policies did not reflect the law and incoherent terminology may be contributing to the difficulties the school was having, I suggested this may in part be due to the County Council's LGBTQ+ Toolkit (2018) and (2022) which undermines safeguarding. In April 2024 I cascaded my concerns about the Toolkit to all county councillors and included a Barristers report which had assessed the source document that Cambridgeshire County Council had used to draw their own advice from, it was damning. I wasn't aware that the council withdrew the Toolkit from circulation the same day. In response to a Freedom of Information request the County Council have stated that the withdrawal of their biased and potentially unlawful toolkit had nothing to do with my letter, but was due to a change in government guidelines.

 

The council claim they "did not commission that opinion, did not seek external legal advice in response to it, and there is no record that it formed the basis of a formal review of Cambridgeshire County Council’s own toolkit or its lawfulness". The Toolkit was withdrawn because it did not meet government guidance, a fact that Senior Officers and Council Leaders had been alerted to in 2023!Since the General Election in 2024 I have been using the democratic process of elections to raise awareness of my concerns.

 

Where members of the public will approach me openly and talk of their concerns in relation to free speech, women's rights, education and employment, political representatives appear unwilling to discuss my concerns or how undermining safeguarding is beneficial for society generally, or women and girls specifically. I've been told unless I get a seat at the table I will not have a voice, to get a seat at the table I need your vote.

 

If I don't get your vote I will continue to fight, but it will be harder as you're also telling those who are actively eroding women's and girls rights, free speech and safeguarding that they can continue to do so.

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