Gender Recognition Act

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), the city of my alma mater. I enjoyed her contribution about listening before taking part in these difficult debates. I pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his tone when opening the debate. It was an important lesson in how to conduct these difficult conversations.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price); over the last two years I have spent many hours with her discussing these issues, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) rights. We tried to put together a common position in the group that could be agreed by all LGBT groups of all the major political parties, to understand all the reasonable concerns coming from people who are described as gender critical, and to meet those anxieties with all the reasonable reassurances that people ought to be able to expect. It is a great shame and pity that we did not manage to convince the Government to adopt that position within a wider statement of reform of the Gender Recognition Act. I urge the Minister to revisit that statement—it is still absolutely valid and is sitting on the website of the all-party parliamentary group. I urge him to look at it as a basis of how to move forward and find reassurance on the side issues around the Gender Recognition Act.

What we need is for the heat to be taken out of this debate and to let the light in. As many Members have pointed out, what a gender recognition certificate does is very limited. It simply allows a trans person to record their gender accurately on their birth certificate, and to be fitted into the appropriate actuarial models for pension provision and apply for a job or university degree without fear of being outed by default. They do not have any legal bearing on provisions around single-sex spaces, which are governed by the provisions of the Equality Act. These problems are in large part technical, but they have an outsized impact on an individual trans person’s rights to privacy and dignity. As a Conservative committed to protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual, I would like to see this process improved so that it can best serve the people it is meant to protect.

The current system is byzantine and bureaucratic, and contains provisions that, after 26 years—as others have said—seem to border on the cruel. In particular, I highlight the requirement to live in one’s new gender for two years, and the spousal veto. I am not sure that I can imagine a universally satisfactory benchmark of masculinity or femininity. Without any agreed definition, how can it be reasonable or fair to expect any person to live within such poorly circumscribed limits? I do not envy the members of the Gender Recognition Panel who have to hack their way through this Gordian knot of legal ambiguity and cultural stereotyping to implement their decisions.

As a gay man who was married to, and is now separated from, a woman with whom I have two children and am still friends, I know all too well that coming out as an LGBT+ person can have significant effects on a marriage. It is also clear that the current system serves only to make very personal decisions even more difficult, and giving one partner extraordinary control over another’s autonomy does not seem right today. I recognise that in certain circumstances, one partner’s transition may affect the integrity of a marriage, and I agree with the Women and Equalities Committee’s report that it would be sensible to offer more streamlined routes to annulment in this instance.

Ultimately, the failures of the system as it currently stands are evidenced by the minuscule take-up of the gender recognition certificate. Only 4,910 certificates had ever been issued at the time of the 2018 consultation—as little as 1% to 3% of the UK trans population. That is despite the fact that when surveyed, the vast majority of trans people declare an interest in obtaining a gender recognition certificate. It is patent that the process is not fit for purpose and does not adequately serve the population it is meant to protect, and none of the changes introduced in 2020 have changed that at all.

The recent appointment of Lord Herbert as the Government’s special envoy on LGBT rights, and my hon. Friend the Minister joining the equalities team and responding to this debate, are a happy harbinger of this Government’s renewed commitment to the dignity and rights of trans people. Reform of the GRA would not only bring the UK in line with other western countries such as Ireland, Denmark, France and Greece, but would bring the technical aspects of the law governed by the GRA in line with other aspects of UK law today.

[Layla Moran]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most egregious parts of the current process is that there is no right to appeal, which completely goes against the principles of natural justice in almost every other part of our statute book? That is one aspect that is not planned to be changed.

[Crispin Blunt]

The hon. Lady has made her point extremely well and succinctly.

Changing the gender recorded on one’s passport or driving licence does not require a gender recognition certificate. Changing the gender on one’s bank account or medical and employment records does not require a gender recognition certificate, and changing one’s name does not require a gender recognition certificate. I can see no logical reason as to why the gender marker on the fundamental document that gives entitlement to one’s nationality and from which every other piece of one’s identity flows should be subject to more prohibitive regulation than any of those other documents and processes, but the fundamental importance of the birth certificate means that there needs to be a gender recognition certificate process. To continue to enshrine that inconsistency within British equality law only exposes trans people to the threat of discrimination.

Reform of the GRA would form a simple and natural component of the Government’s agenda to harmonise equality law and implement a practical and purposeful policy to make a tangible change to the lives of trans people. Some 137,000 putting their name to the petition we are debating today ought to give the Government pause for thought. That is as many people as took part in a massive consultation on the GRA in the first place. This issue matters; it is not an enormous change and we should make it.

Global Britain

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con) [V]]

The importance of this subject, if not this abbreviated debate, with its précis-ed contributions, can be hardly overstated, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) noted, it goes much, much beyond trade. It remains somewhat vaguely defined by Her Majesty’s Government, so I hope this debate is part of a consultation process before the Prime Minister, supported by his Foreign and Development Secretary and his Defence Secretary, reinforces the Trade Secretary in defining what global Britain will mean under his Administration and how the United Kingdom will pursue those objectives. But this is not just about defining Britain to the world; it is about addressing our own electorate in the wake of the divisions that have riven our politics over the past five years around Brexit.

What global Britain says about our values has a vital audience, both domestically and internationally. We need to address the anxieties of those who voted to remain, who thought that the vision and values of Brexit were some kind of backward step to a nostalgia for an imperial Britain long gone. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), I much commend today’s paper “Global Britain, Global Broker” by Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House. I highly commend his 68 pages of analysis, which in many ways just pose the questions that we have to answer.

I believe that we have a golden opportunity to live and define our values in policies shorn of previous attachments to the interests of a great power, or being a leading member of a bloc aspiring to great power status. In previous times, those great power interests were often contradicted by the values that we wanted to express. Needing to protect our great power status meant that we could not express our values properly. British understatement was often the way in which we chose to express those values, but we can now be much more full-throated about what is right: the golden thread that is the British sense of justice, our standing up for the underdog—and that means standing up for minorities and individual liberty.

We can no longer afford to be careless about the signals that we send, and those signals are currently contradictory. The International Trade Secretary, in her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, knows the position that I hold on the Government’s response to the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. She knows that I believe that it was deeply unfortunate and that it will continue to take a toll on how we are perceived. The appointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) as the Prime Minister’s global envoy for freedom of religion has its own contradictions, but I much welcome her speech in this debate, in which she quoted Eleanor Roosevelt and the values to which she is attached. I hope that that sense of representing all the minorities will continue.

Development expenditure being cut is another sign that has caused concern for our allies around the world and for the presentation of the United Kingdom’s position, but I really hope that it can be made up for by how we develop the strategic defence and development review that will enable our diplomacy and values to reinforce it. There is a great opportunity, and I trust that we will take it, to address concerns both at home and abroad and make a very positive statement about the United Kingdom and its future.

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.

United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his answer to the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable).

My right hon. Friend says that when he goes to the United States, he will meet members of Congress. Will he continue to build the case with our Republican friends in Congress for the open, liberal trading system that we all support—on both sides of this House—to make sure that this can be delivered once we are out of the European Union?

[Dr Fox]

I would just correct my hon. Friend a little. We are not just talking to Republican members of Congress; there are very strong Democrat elements that are also in favour, and have long been in favour, of free trade. It is very important that in this country, in the United States and elsewhere, we work with like-minded people who believe in genuinely open, liberal global trade to achieve the ends that we have in common.

Export Licensing: High Court Judgment

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. As the judgment set out, the case focused on the airstrikes conducted by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia in support of the legitimate Government of Yemen against the Houthi rebellion. We need to put on record that that is the origin of the conflict. Of course the humanitarian issues in Yemen are deeply troubling to all of us; we have all seen the pictures. The United Kingdom, through our various agencies and Government Departments, has been fulfilling as much of our diplomatic and humanitarian actions as we can in the circumstances. This will only be brought to an end by a political settlement, not by a military settlement.

The hon. Lady talks about the “clear risk” test. The judgment could not have been clearer that the Government met the “clear risk” test of criterion 2c in the way they carried this out.

On the hon. Lady’s point about the Committees on Arms Export Controls, I have absolutely no objection to such a Committee being set up. In fact, I think it is beneficial to us to ensure at all times the highest reputation of our probity in these matters. I would have absolutely no objection whatsoever to such a Committee being in place.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the detail of the judgment makes clear what a great job his civil servants, and other civil servants and officials in both the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office, have done and the rigorous way in which they have gone about their responsibilities? The judgment states that the process was “highly sophisticated, structured” and “multi-faceted”. They deserve congratulations today.

[Dr Fox]

I do not think that the judgment could have been more unequivocal. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. We have been utterly vigorous in the process. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the MOD and the Department for International Trade have worked extremely closely. Our officials have done a wonderful job. I am not sure that they necessarily appreciated the number of letters between us to ensure that the process worked as tightly as it has, but I am sure that they will all feel totally vindicated by the judgment on the way in which they have carried out their duties on behalf of this country’s international reputation and law.