Dan Carden
Main Page: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)Department Debates - View all Dan Carden's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Dinenage
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is misinformed. We are absolutely committed to making the UK the safest place to go online. The online harms White Paper will set out how we are going to make world-leading legislation. We intend to publish that before the end of the year and the legislation to follow at the very beginning of next year.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Elizabeth Truss)
We want to make sure that everyone in the UK is free to live their lives and fulfil their potential regardless of their sex, gender identity or sexual orientation. We will soon be hosting the Government’s first-ever international LGBT conference to advance LGBT rights across the world.
Dan Carden [V]
After an organisation in Anfield in my constituency was exposed for offering “cures” for homosexuality involving rituals and starvation, the Government gave me a commitment in this House that they would ban these so-called conversion therapies. That was back in 2018 and there is real concern that the new Government are backtracking on LGBT rights. So when will the Government bring forward a ban on these harmful practices, as promised in their own LGBT action plan? Following the Minister’s response yesterday on changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which fell well short of what is needed to secure the rights of trans people in the UK, will she make a full statement in the Chamber to allow proper debate on it?
Elizabeth Truss
Conversion therapy is a completely abhorrent practice. We are working to end it. We are currently conducting research and I will be coming back shortly to talk about the future and how we do end it, but it is important that research is conducted. As I made clear in my written statement yesterday, it is very important that we protect transgender rights but also improve transgender healthcare. That is what we are doing by opening more clinics and also making the process of gender recognition certificates kinder and more straightforward.