Defence chiefs ‘facing U-turn after spending £1.3million building gender neutral toilets’
DEFENCE chiefs face an embarrassing U-turn after spending £1.3million building 160 gender-neutral toilets.
Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch said such facilities rob women of their rights — adding that all new buildings must have male and female loos.
Top brass spent most of the cash converting 36 male and female toilets at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Berks.
And £15,000 went on loos at the main MoD building in London.
Eight mixed sex loos were also created at Navy HQ in Portsmouth and six at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, Devon, Freedom of Information requests revealed.
The Army removed “Ladies” and “Gentlemen” signs from toilets at its HQ in Andover, Hants in 2018.
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And almost 100 gender-neutral toilets were built at RAF Cranwell, Lincs. Defence chiefs said throughout that they were proud to be “modern and inclusive”.
But on Sunday, the Department for Levelling Up said new buildings other than homes must provide “separate single-sex toilets for women and men or a self-contained, private toilet as a minimum”.
Ms Badenoch said: “It is important that everybody has privacy and dignity when using public facilities.”
Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, said yesterday: “It’s quite shocking that the Army is being dragged into this whole world of political correctness.
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“Given how stretched and busy our forces are, it’s surprising someone has time to worry about this sort of thing.”
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “It is factually incorrect to suggest that £1.3m was spent making toilets gender neutral.
“This investment reflects wider refurbishments across the Ministry of Defence estate over many years and these changes predate the Government’s recent announcements on the importance of providing separate toilets for men and women.
“The government has been repeatedly clear about the importance of biological sex, particularly when it comes to single sex spaces and the vast majority of toilet facilities across the Defence estate are single sex.”