Sport England is the latest public body to ditch its Stonewall membership – the decision comes after business secretary and women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch warned quangos to cut ties with the charity amid fears its workplace guidance and training may not be aligned with UK equalities legislation (European Conservative, Mail).
The public body, under the auspices of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, spent more than £5,000 of taxpayers’ money in Stonewall fees over the previous two financial years. However, a spokesperson has now confirmed that following a “review”, it will not be renewing its membership. “This decision has been taken with value for money as our primary consideration,” they added.
Membership of the charity’s Diversity Champions Programme had seen Sport England receive “guidance for employers on pronouns and gender-neutral spaces”.
Freedom of Information request figures show Sport England paid £2,500 + VAT to Stonewall in the 2022/23 financial year and £2,575 + VAT in 2023/24 as part of the charity’s controversial diversity champions scheme, which includes guidance for employers on pronouns and gender-neutral spaces.
The body’s last payment to Stonewall was made last year and no further payments are due after a review of the partnership.
A Sport England spokesperson said: “We have reviewed the partnership, and Sport England will not be renewing membership.
“As a public body which scrutinises how we spend every penny of public money, this decision has been taken with value for money as our primary consideration.”
The decision was last night praised by gender-critical campaigners who described the move as a “relief”.
Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at Sex Matters said: “It’s a relief to see Sport England stepping away from Stonewall.
She added: “Sport England gets millions of pounds of public money, and it has a duty to make sport work for everyone.
“That duty is not compatible with taking advice from Stonewall, whose approach on sport pushes for men with transgender identities to be included in women’s sport.”
The charity’s annual accounts show that Stonewall received £572,868 in grants from government sources in financial year 2022-23, up from £426,390 the year before. In total the charity brought in £7 million in 2022-23. The majority of its income — £3.9 million — came from its Diversity Champions Programme.
At least seven other arms-length bodies are known to have paid thousands to the charity during the previous financial year, with Stonewall reporting its income from government-backed grants has been boosted by over half a million pounds.
News that bodies like Sport England, Arts Council England, the Pension Regulator, the Care Quality Commission, Historic England and the Tate have been receiving equalities guidance from Stonewall has long caused concern among government ministers, including Ms Badenoch.
Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference last November, the equalities minister said government officials had proceeded on the “wrong track on gender ideology” because it pandered to activist organisations such as Stonewall which were “pretending to be neutral”.
She went on to criticise Stonewall’s overreach in “giving people legal advice or advice that was certainly different from what the Equality Act said”, and said the Government should do more in “challenging activist groups that take over institutions”.
Last month, a legal opinion commissioned by campaign group Sex Matters found that King’s College London’s Stonewall-influenced EDI policies relating to sex and gender are “incorrect, as a matter of law, in several substantial respects”.
The legal opinion was produced by Akua Reindorf KC, the same barrister who was commissioned by the University of Essex back in 2021 to review the Stonewall-influenced harassment and bullying policies that led to the ‘no-platforming’ of two visiting gender-critical law professors. Her conclusion there was that the University’s guidance around trans issues was “misleading” because it “states the law as Stonewall would prefer it to be, rather than the law as it is”.
