PATHWAYS Study: Puberty Suppression

Baroness Alexander of Cleveden Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Baroness gives me the chance to reiterate that all the questions are valid. We are dealing with a complex, sensitive and difficult issue. What matters is that we get to the right place. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, said, I know we are all agreed on protecting children and young people. That is our motivation.

The noble Baroness asked about consent. As I said, children can participate only with the consent of a parent or a guardian, and the children themselves must consent or assent. The individual circumstances and nature of a child will be closely considered as part of the consideration. That is absolutely crucial. Children and young people may participate only if they are not subject to any safeguarding concerns. I am happy to speak in greater detail to the noble Baroness. All of this will be extremely rigorous, and rightly so. When we talk about the trial, we are talking about volunteers—that is crucial. They can participate only if they have been deemed clinically appropriate by both the NHS care team and the national multidisciplinary team. There is, correctly, the opportunity at every level to consider every child or young person as an individual, which is so important.

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)]

As some noble Lords know, I have some experience in my own family of the challenges around gender dysphoria and the difficulties for the trans community. I also have the experience of my mother, who was a haematologist at a time when there were great controversies surrounding that discipline. I was struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, said: there are GPs, psychiatrists and paediatricians—all sorts of medical professionals—wrestling with what the evidence may or may not show. While this is an extraordinarily difficult area, does the Minister agree that, in a world where there have been difficulties in the recent past, the responsibility of legislators is to try to equip all those professionals in the future with a clinically approved and evidence-led approach? It is only by having a highly safeguarded trial that we will move forward in a way that supports professionals operating in this area. If we demonise those individuals, the risk is that we never secure the evidence we need for the future.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I agree with that. In the Statement itself, the Secretary of State made the point that PATHWAYS is rightly one of the most scrutinised UK clinical trials of recent times. I am sure we all welcome that.