LGBT Action Plan

Debate between Caroline Flint and Penny Mordaunt

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

There are many things we can do. Clearly a lot of the services we are looking to reform are devolved, but the £4.5 million that my Department is making available is precisely for such groups. We will shortly be announcing how groups can apply for that funding, but it is vital that those groups are empowered at a local level to shape local services and ensure people get the support they need.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I very much welcome today’s action plan, and I look forward to reading the documentation on the reforms to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The truth is that equality is never a job done; it is something for which we always have to strive. We would not be here today if there had not been marked progress in this area between 1997 and 2010.

In creating a debate on the Gender Recognition Act, which I agree has to happen—there is a lot in the Select Committee’s report that needs to be attended to—it must be recognised that we do not want a situation in which, in the protection of services, there is competition between the rights of the trans community and the rights for which women have fought so hard for many years. There is a way through this if people on all sides can debate it in an informed and discursive way that does not shut down conversations.

There has been abuse against the trans community, but there has also been a lot of abuse and insults against anyone who raises concerns about some of the implications. Some of it may need to be discussed, but people are genuinely worried about some of these things, and this debate should allow us to put it to bed and to make sure that we come out of it with something that is better for everybody.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The right hon. Lady puts it very well. The questions raised by women’s groups, for example, are completely legitimate. Sometimes people forget what we require of people who are changing their gender identity. We require them to live in their new gender for two years prior to changing their gender, so we are not catering for something new. The nation needs to have a calm, grown-up conversation, and this consultation affords us the chance to have it.

We want a good outcome. We want a less bureaucratic and more supportive process for those who are changing their gender identity, and we want those other people to be reassured. Both those sets of people have legitimate desires, and we need to come up with answers so that we have clarity on this issue and so that people can be assured of what is expected, of what is right and of how to treat people when they try to access services, and so forth.

That is how we need to conduct this debate, and I am confident that, having dispelled some of the myths, we will be able to have that debate and come up with a good outcome that suits everyone.