Gender Recognition

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Kemi Badenoch

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, not wishing to be upstaged by the ex-Home Secretary, the Minister whose job it is to defend vulnerable minorities chooses to make her first statement this year in the House to announce two measures attacking transgender people. Why does she think that the UK, which was the first for four years up until 2015 in the European league of LGBT rights, and has now fallen to 17th under her watch?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely reject the right hon. Gentleman’s assertion. I have come to the Floor of the House for an SI, which is unusual for a Secretary of State, because I think it is important that Members across the House have the opportunity to ask questions. I am not afraid of anybody on the Opposition Benches. I am not afraid of a single one of them, because I know that they do not take this seriously. The right hon. Gentleman asks why we have fallen. It is because self-ID is something that we differ in opinion with from other countries—[Interruption.] It is. It is a fact. We are different. But just because other countries believe that self-ID is the way does not mean that we in the UK have to do what everybody else is doing.