LGBT Action Plan

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that suggestion. I am in complete agreement with him. In my time in this place, I have seen the effect of whichever party has been in government advancing the rights of LGBT people on other nations around the world. We now have a huge opportunity with our chairing of the Commonwealth, and there are many other opportunities coming up. I agree with him wholeheartedly on this.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

We have come a long way since my Conservative opponent in 1997 described me as a sterile, disease-ridden homosexual who would put my constituents’ children at risk. I warmly welcome the right hon. Lady’s announcements today. I thank her for the announcement on gay conversion therapy, and I ask her to thank the public health Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), and the Second Church Estates Commissioner, the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) for the roles that they have played in helping to deliver this. On trans rights, though, will she talk to her Health colleagues about the horrendous waiting times, particularly for young people who are waiting to see a specialist and to have the counselling necessary to undergo eventual gender reassignment? They are waiting far too long at a time of great vulnerability, and many are at suicide risk. This is a critical period in their lives, and the waiting times are currently completely unacceptable.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would like to add my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester, and to others who have helped to get us where we are today. I made some detailed remarks about waiting times this morning, and about other issues relating to gender identity clinics. The Care Quality Commission is going to start inspecting those clinics, and there are many other things in the action plan that will help. The survey has given us a good understanding of the inadequacies of some services, and a good base for where we need to get to. We are determined to improve the situation.