Virginity Testing

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We completely agree with my noble friend’s sentiments. It is really important that we ban virginity testing and hymenoplasty as soon as possible. The issue on hymenoplasty in particular is that, unfortunately, because it is classified as a cosmetic procedure, introducing legislation in this space might take away the right for women to make decisions about procedures that they wish to have and be counter to current regulation on cosmetic surgery. It is important that we work out how we can ban this practice, but those objections have been raised—and if those legal objections have been raised, we have to be careful that we work properly to make sure that we ban these procedures.

I give the commitment that I shall push as much as possible to make sure that we ban both virginity testing and hymenoplasty as soon as possible. My noble friend mentioned the amendments in the other place. The Member who submitted those amendments has been in consultation with the Department for Health and Social Care, and we hope to be able to introduce those changes, particularly those bans, as soon as possible.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, to the Dispatch Box. I want to pick up on points that the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, raised. Some private clinics advertise these procedures to women, which perpetuate myths around virginity, falling way below the standards of honesty and integrity that are rightly expected of doctors. Indeed, the GMC ethical guidance on communicating information explicitly outlines that, when advertising your services, you must make sure that the information that you publish is factual, can be checked, and does not exploit patients. We have waited far too long for this to be made illegal. Can the Minister please press to make this happen sooner rather than later?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question, but also for having a meeting with me to discuss some of the issues that we will debate in future weeks and months. All preparation and revision are welcome.

I give a pledge that I will push back at my department and push to have both these practices banned as quickly as possible. However, as I said, some concerns have been raised from a legal perspective, given that hymenoplasty is a cosmetic procedure. All of us would agree that this is an awful thing and that it should be banned, but I want to make sure that in doing it we are very careful. A few years ago, I was a research director for a think tank, and one issue that I always considered with any change of law was unintended consequences. We have to be clear that we do this in a proper way, and I hope that we can introduce these bans as soon as possible.