Consultation Submissions & Letters
Our responses to consultations, calls for evidence and inquiries and letters.
February 2026
Following our co-produced response (alongside LISG and women in the FiLiA Women's Assembly) to the Government's consultation on the 'Earned Settlement’ policy, Project Resist and FiLiA have released a joint statement calling on the Government to reconsider the policy in its entirety. If enacted, it will have a terrifying impact on the poorest and most vulnerable migrants, particularly women. The political direction of travel could not be clearer, and we must resist. Read the statement and join our call.
As part of our commitment to women’s rights and to ensuring that women’s voices, especially those most marginalised, are heard in political and policy spaces, we have submitted a response to the Government’s consultation on A Fairer Pathway to Settlement and shared a briefing with Parliamentarians based on this. This is a proposed overhaul of the UK’s legal migration model and we are concerned these changes could disproportionately harm women. Our submission was developed with input from FiLiA team members with lived experience of immigration and asylum, as well as two focus groups: an in-person session in Manchester with the Lesbian Immigration Support Group (LISG), and an online session for women across the UK. Our submission is also informed by the expertise of Project Resist and is supported by members of The Resist Network. This response reflects the voices of women navigating these systems and calls for a fair, transparent migration policy that centres women’s rights, needs and lived realities.
January 2026
FiLiA’s response to the call for input on violence and discrimination to lesbians from the UN’s Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, which explains that the novel grouping of Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer (LBQ), created for this survey, will render lesbians invisible by including them within an amalgamation which covers men with various gender identities, and by the use of the undefined term of ‘queer’, which has multiple and changing meanings.
November 2025
FiLiA's letters to both the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Welsh Government in response to the EHRC’s formal enforcement action concerning serious failures in the Welsh Government’s compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). The EHRC identified significant shortcomings in how the Welsh Government conducts Equality Impact Assessments and engages with those affected by its decisions. In our letter to the EHRC, we welcome this intervention and offer our support and collaboration to help strengthen the implementation of the PSED in Wales, ensuring women’s voices, experiences, and rights are central to policy making. In our accompanying letter to the Welsh Government, we urge officials to reform their approach to Equality Impact Assessments and widen stakeholder engagement to include grassroots women’s organisations. Drawing on our research, strong community base and practical toolkits, we provide concrete recommendations to help restore trust and bring policy making in line with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010.
October 2025
FiLiA’s response to the POST, (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology), an ‘impartial research and knowledge exchange service based in the UK Parliament’ consultation on surrogacy. POST announced its consultation on 1st August this year with the consultation closing on 5th October, and described the current law as ‘outdated’ and used biased language in its call. Whilst the reason for the consultation was cited as being to ‘describe current surrogacy practice in the UK, and suggestions for reform’, the scope to respond meaningfully was significantly inhibited by a frustratingly restricted word count. There was only scope within the consultation to essentially answer two questions, within a 500 and 1500 character count. The consultation sought, within these brief limits, feedback on what the key issues were around surrogacy in the UK. You can see our extremely limited response here and no doubt share both our vexation at the depth of response allowed and our concerns for this to inhibit the potential for meaningful consultation.
June 2025
We spoke to women across the UK with disabilities or caring responsibilities about the Government’s welfare reform proposals as outlined in the Department for Work and Pensions’ Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper. Read our statement here and the full response here. Submitted 30th June 2025.
Our response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) Code of practice for services, public functions and associations: consultation 2025. The consultation aimed to gather feedback on changes the EHRC made following the UK Supreme Court ruling on 16 April 2025 in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers (For Women Scotland), which found that the definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010 means biological sex. Read our full response here. Submitted 30th June 2025.
Critical protections for women are too often unconsidered and failing in their purpose. We responded to the Office for Equality and Opportunity (OEO)’s Equality Law Call for Evidence to raise the alarm that the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) is failing women. The OEO is interested in whether non-public bodies exercising public functions are meeting their obligations under the PSED. However, this narrow focus misses a more fundamental opportunity. Read our statement here and our full response here. Submitted 30th June 2025.
March 2025
Our detailed response to the Bertin Review, in which we drew on the experiences shared by Women with direct experience of the industry, and we continue to push for them to be consulted in any further reviews. We welcome the Review and its recommendations and are reassured to see the Government recognise the urgent need to tackle the harms of pornography. However, we are clear there is no such thing as ‘safe’ pornography and more needs to be done to protect and support women and girls who are harmed by pornography. Read our detailed response here.
“It’s important that you’re doing this. I have felt excluded by other disabled groups.”
