Cass Review

Anna Firth Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to make it clear again that this report is about gathering the evidence to help support our children and young people to the best care they can have. For a very small number that may well be a medical pathway, but for the overwhelming majority we know from Dr Cass’s report that there may be other ways in which they can be best supported and looked after. I do not want anyone to walk away from this debate thinking that this is somehow a report about those adults who have made that decision of their own free will and are living their lives as freely as we all want them to—it is not. It is about the healthcare and emotional care and support that we give to young people and their families, and the professional confidence we give to clinicians to ensure that we get to the right place for each and every individual child.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s powerful statement and the Cass report. However, we have to acknowledge that the report would not have been commissioned without this Government, with the support of some other parties. So many Opposition Members just stayed silent and thought the report was pretty much a waste of time, and to see the lack of any appreciation of that today is shocking and shameful.

On the timetable to enact the wider findings of the Cass report, I am grateful for what the Secretary of State said about meeting the GMC over the weekend, but there is work to be done. Secondly and really concerningly, what steps are—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sure the hon. Lady does not mean “secondly”, because she is not making a speech. She has one question to ask, and I would be grateful if she could ask it.

[Anna Firth]

What are we going to do to provide emotional and psychological support for those who have already undergone this treatment with irrevocable consequences?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend’s observations about Members from other parts of the Chamber and their response to this are well made, frankly. [Interruption.] Gosh, I am being told they are not true. Crikey, Opposition Members may have just opened up a Pandora’s box. On my hon. Friend’s point about supporting people who have gone through the process and are trying to detransition, she is absolutely right that they need particular care. I am actively looking into what NHS England needs to provide to look after the very complex needs that such people have.