Gender Recognition Act Consultation

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities if she will make a statement on the Government’s response to the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004 outlined in the Government Equalities Office update of 22 September.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Elizabeth Truss)]

We want transgender people to be free to live and prosper in modern Britain. We have looked carefully at the issues raised in the consultation, including potential changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It is the Government’s view that the balance struck in this legislation is correct, in that there are proper checks and balances in the system and also support for people who want to change their legal sex.

We will make the gender recognition certificate process kinder and more straightforward. We will cut bureaucracy by enabling applications via gov.uk, and we will also reduce the fee from £140 to a nominal amount. We know from our research that improving healthcare support is a priority for transgender people. That is why we are opening at least three new gender clinics this year, which will see waiting lists cut by 1,600 patients by 2022, and it is why the GEO is providing funding for Dr Michael Brady, the UK’s national LGBT health adviser, and working with him and the NHS to improve transgender people’s experience.

It is also important that we protect single-sex spaces in line with the Equality Act 2010. The law is clear that service providers are able to restrict access to single-sex spaces on the basis of biological sex. It is also important that under-18s are properly supported in line with their age and decision-making capabilities. That is why Dr Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, will lead an independent review into gender identity services for children and young people. The review will look to ensure that young people get the best possible support and expertise throughout their care, and it will report back next year. Together, this upholds the rights of transgender people and women, ensures that our system is kinder and more straightforward, and addresses the concerns of transgender people.

[Crispin Blunt]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for enabling the Government’s overdue response to this consultation to be questioned by colleagues so promptly. This issue is of first-order importance to between 200,000 and perhaps 500,000 of our fellow citizens and their families. Perhaps my right hon. Friend could begin her reply with her analysis of why so many trans people choose to hide in plain sight.

I welcome and enjoy the dynamism that my right hon. Friend brings to her unprecedented, historic responsibilities in retaking control of British trade policy after nearly half a century. The command of technical, economic and legal detail required is at once intimidating and inspiring. As a great trading nation, that needs all her attention, and she has risen to the trade challenge.

My right hon. Friend’s acquisition of the equalities brief in September 2019 was hardly planned. The Prime Minister has done her and the nation no favours by continuing to overburden her after the election at such an extraordinary time for trade. The contrast between her reputation between in responsibility is horribly stark. On women and equalities, it is horribly stark set against the reputation and achievement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). It was in her tenure that we created the expectations that we were finally going to deliver on equality for trans people in principle, based on a comprehensive consultation itself based on work under the coalition going back to 2011.

Does my right hon. Friend the Minister understand the crushing disappointment of trans people with the content of her statement on Tuesday, set against the consultation on which it was based? Does she appreciate that trans people cannot discern any strong or coherent reason for this screeching change of direction? They are aware of the fear being used against them and fears, void of evidence, to sustain them. Does she understand the anger at the prospect of their receiving their fundamental rights being snatched away?

The longer the uncertainty has been allowed to continue, the worse the fear and anger have become. Does my right hon. Friend understand that the delay in the statement helped to contribute to that? Does she see that the underlying trend of the majority of people in this country is following the path set by a change of attitude in society a generation earlier towards those with different sexualities? This time, despite the complexities of understanding around trans, younger people in particular are more starkly intolerant of the cruelty of wider society’s inhumanity towards trans people. The vast, vast majority of lesbian, gay and bisexual people will stand in solidarity with trans people.

Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that her statement does not command a majority in this House? Will she confirm that that is one of the reasons why she cannot propose any legislation? She has presented the House with an inherently unstable settlement that will have to be addressed—hopefully sooner rather than later.

Does my right hon. Friend understand that when the pre-emptive statement she made to the Women and Equalities Committee earlier this year was properly explained to me, I gave this issue my full attention and that of the all-party parliamentary group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights? I engaged with people who had different views to understand the compromises necessary to deliver reassurance around trans people, but also to be able to deliver trans rights. That work was done. It was given, quietly, in a comprehensive paper to the Government in early July and, tragically, it has been ignored.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I believe that the settlement we have reached balances and upholds the rights of transgender people and of women. It protects access to single-sex spaces. As I noted in my statement earlier, the number one concern of transgender people is improving healthcare services. The new clinics that we are putting in place will be the first new clinics in the United Kingdom for 20 years. We are also addressing people’s main concerns—the cost and bureaucracy—with the gender recognition certificate process, and I believe that we have come to the right conclusion, which is in line with other major nations.