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Rishi Sunak appeals to the right with vow to end ‘woke nonsense’ in sex education and equality laws overhaul

Meanwhile rival Liz Truss set her sights on younger Tory members with plans to allow renters to use monthly payments to 'unlock' mortgages

Rishi Sunak will pledge to end “woke nonsense” by curtailing sex education in schools and overhauling equality rules to prioritising biological sex in laws.

In a last-ditch attempt to win leadership support ahead of ballot papers being posted out next week, Mr Sunak will tomorrow set out a raft of policies designed to win over the right of the party.

He will promise to ensure “‘mothers’ and ‘women’ are not erased from public life, children are shielded from inappropriate material at school, and freedom of speech is protected”.

Under his proposals, the Equality Act will be changed and the Public Sector Equality Duty to stop controversial speakers from being “no-platformed”.

He also threw his backing being the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, currently in the House of Lords.

Mr Sunak also repeated a pledge to crack down on sex and relationship education to protect children from “inappropriate material”.

Sources would not say whether this was specifically referring to LGBT+ sex education, but the campaign material cited “contentious” issues it claimed have been “presented as fact” to children by LGBT+ charity Stonewall.

It comes after LGBT+ campaigners warned the rhetoric in the leadership race was echoing the debate around the Section 28 law which, under Margaret Thatcher’s government, banned the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools.

In a speech in the South East of England, Mr Sunak is expected to say he has “zero interest in fighting a so-called culture war” but, in the same breath, complain of the “woke nonsense” enabled by the Equality Act.

“We are determined to end the brainwashing, the vandalism and the finger-pointing,” he will say.

“Too often, existing legislation is used to engage in social engineering to which no one has given consent.

“The worst offender in this regard is the 2010 Equality Act, conceived in the dog days of the last Labour government.

“It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.”

Mr Sunak intends to review the Equality act to ensure sex refers to biological sex, not gender, to ensure female sports and services are for biological women.

He will prevent people from being able to legally change their gender on the basis of self-identification alone.

He will order Government departments and schools to refer to sexes based on law and biology, telling them not to promote the idea that “self-ID” is a legal force.

The Sunak campaign said it will mean the Gender Recognition Act protects a trans person’s privacy without “destroying protections for women and girls”.

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But the policy will be a blow to LGBT+ campaigners who have complained of transgender people being scapegoated by right-wing politicians in order to win votes.

Meanwhile leadership rival Liz Truss set her sights on younger Tory members as she announced plans to allow renters to use monthly payments as proof they can afford mortgages – to “unlock” the property market.

She vowed to “break down barriers” stopping people from getting mortgages by allowing tenants to use rental payments as proof they can afford to buy a home.

At present, lenders do not generally take someone’s ability to pay monthly rent as proof they could afford a higher mortgage. This means they will not be lent enough to afford to get onto the housing ladder.

The Government estimates more than half could afford the monthly cost of a mortgage but, due to constraints by lenders, just six per cent can access a first-time buyer’s mortgage.

Ms Truss said she would use an upcoming Government review to ensure rental payments be used as part of the affordability assessments.

And she said she would remove “red tape that is holding back housebuilding” by scrapping housing targets and scaling back planning restrictions.

Labour analysis of English Housing Survey data suggests the number of working-aged people who are homeowners has fallen by 211,000 during the last decade of Conservative government. In the same period, rates of private renting have also increased, Labour has said.

Ms Truss said lower home-ownership figures was “a problem not just for the Conservative Party, but for the future of the country”.

It is an issue that is repeatedly brought up by younger voters, including members of the youth arm of the Conservative Party, as something politicians should be prioritising.

The Truss team said she would work with local communities to identify sites ripe for redevelopment, giving more power to local governments and away from Whitehall.

The Foreign Secretary also said suggestions her tax cut plans would lead to high inflation and a crash in the housing market were “scaremongering”.

In an interview with ConservativeHome, she was asked about suggestions by one of her economic advisers that her package would amount to inflation levels of seven per cent. Rival Rishi Sunak said this could collapse the housing market.

“Frankly this is just scaremongering. Inflation is projected to come down next year. And the Bank of England is independent. It makes decisions about interest rates completely independently of government,” Ms Truss said.

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