PATHWAYS Study: Puberty Suppression

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the Minister. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, mentioned the need for data and scientific evidence. For the sake of transparency, we should mention that the Liberal Democrats received £1.33 million from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, which produces some of these puberty blockers. Further, just for clarification, Sex Matters has never believed that trans people do not exist. It is important to put that on the record.

I will press the Minister on the data linkage studies, because we would not need to put forward 226 vulnerable young people had NHS England and Ministers acted with a more robust strategy two years ago, when we raised this issue in the House, and forced the data linkage information from GIDS and others to be released so that it could be peer reviewed. Had that happened, we would have all the data on the short-term implications of these puberty blockers and on the long-term ramifications, and we therefore would not need this dangerous and risky puberty blockers trial, which, I have to say to the House, is going to be subject to very significant litigation.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am sure that the noble Lord will understand from my earlier comments that I do not accept the characterisation of the trial. I urge all noble Lords to look at the facts on the safety provisions, requirements and stringency, which have massively increased—perhaps since some noble Lords originally looked at the matter. Implicit in the noble Lord’s query is to question why we are having a clinical trial when there are a number of children who have already taken puberty blockers. That is a fair question, but I remind the noble Lord that the conclusion of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, was that there was not enough evidence, for all the reasons I referred to.

It might be helpful to make clear that the information collected by the linkage study, to which the noble Lord referred, is much more limited than the detailed information that the research team will be able to collect on the relative benefits and the risks. I confirm that NHS England, which is responsible for the data linkage study, is taking the time to ensure that data is shared by the relevant organisations—which, after all, is exactly what we are all after.