Rishi Sunak pledges to protect women’s rights in first leadership policy pitch

His campaign has pledged to “restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country” and has garnered 10,000 online signups in the first 24 hours.

‘Biology is critically important’

Although he has generally avoided wading into the culture wars, Mr Sunak has previously said he thinks that government policy on toilets and transgender people participating in sports should be led by biology.

“You need to have compassion for those thinking about their identity and thinking about what that means for them, their families as they’re potentially going through a change and we need to be compassionate and understanding about that,” he said in April.

“And we also have to have respect, in particular for views of women who are anxious that some of the things they have fought really hard for and rights that are important to them will be eroded.

“We need to have respect for that point of view.

“Biology is critically important as we think about some of those very practical questions.”