Legislation: Gendered Pronouns

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The suggestion from my noble friend was that it should be used in all cases. I have conceded that we should use it in some cases, and I cited an example from the Terrorism Act, where we do indeed use the word they in the singular:

“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action”.


But to insist that it should be used in every case would be to deprive parliamentary draftsmen—parliamentary drafters—of the flexibility they need.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, trans activists who I know very well do not wish to stop anybody using gender pronouns; they simply wish to add more ways in which people can use terms that describe them more accurately. Private sector companies are way ahead of us and are latching on to this. Will the Government review gender markers which they use in official documents to stop the practice of asking questions out of habit to solicit lots of information that is never used?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand the issue that the noble Baroness raises. We will soon be publishing a consultation on the Gender Recognition Act, and we will also be publishing the results from our national LGBT survey, which received over 7,000 responses from non-binary people. I hope that that reassures the noble Baroness that we take this issue seriously.