A woman is “an adult female”, Sir Keir Starmer has said, in an apparent u-turn on the matter.

The Labour leader also said he did not believe the policy of self-identification was “the right way forward”, and that he believed that “the principle of safe spaces is very important for women”.

The Labour leader had previously pledged to change the law to allow trans people to self-declare gender, reflecting the plans from SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon that were later blocked by Rishi Sunak.

However, the leader of the opposition said that the party had had a “chance to reflect” on what happened in Scotland and now thinks that self identification is not “the right way forward.”

He told a BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in: “We want to modernise the process, get rid of some of the indignities in the process, [but] keep it a medical process.”

Sir Keir has been trying to clarify his views on gender since 2021, when he struggled to say whether or not a woman could have a penis. This year, he said that 99.9pc of women “haven’t got a penis”.

He appeared to go further when telling Nicky Campbell on Wednesday: “Firstly, a woman is an adult female, so let’s clear that one up.”