Transgender Equality

Debate between Maria Miller and Mike Weir

Thursday 1st December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

One of the problems we uncovered through the evidence we gathered was that many doctors felt as disempowered as the hon. Lady implies, owing to a lack of training and, perhaps, continuous professional development in this area. However, I should say in response to her intervention that there were also some people who said that whenever they went to the doctor, even if it was somebody who had just a little knowledge, their transgender identity was always at the heart of the response they got from the NHS. We need to make sure that doctors understand the health issues transgender people have to deal with, but also acknowledge that not every health condition they have will be related to their trans identity. That is an important point to make at this juncture.

[Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

A constituent of mine came across a particular problem because she had reassignment surgery before the Gender Recognition Act 2004 came into effect. Fifteen years later, when she tried to get a gender reassignment certificate, she was asked for a great deal of information that was no longer available. The surgeon who had performed the operation was dead, the records were no longer available, and she had a terrible time trying to get the information. Surely that is unfair.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman highlights one of many problems with the Gender Recognition Act. That is why our Committee asked for an urgent review of it, and I am heartened to note that the Government have indicated they understand the sort of problem he outlined, and many others as well, and the very medicalised nature of the process people are asked to go through. That process is talking about something very personal, which is an individual’s identity. It is not something I would particularly like to be discussed by medics and lawyers in some room and in a very technical and quasi-judicial way. One of the recommendations of our report was self-declaration in that respect.

The other part of the Government’s response that I was heartened to read, as it is important for us in terms of planning for the future, was about the need to get the data right in this regard by better measuring the number of trans people in the UK, and also better monitoring people’s attitudes. If we are really going to tackle inequality in this area and really ensure trans people are able to enjoy the equality we all voted for in the Equality Act 2010, we need to make sure that we take the public with us and that there is the cultural change that is needed.

Perhaps today in her response, the Minister—who has been extremely generous with her time, thinking about these issues and talking to the Committee about them—will tell the House what issues in the 2011 action plan remain unaddressed, and what the status of the new plan is—when will it be published and how will the Government monitor its implementation? If we start to see this sort of certainty, trans people will have more confidence in the fact that not just the Government but public services are starting to get to grips with the issues they have to tackle on a daily basis.

The Gender Recognition Act was pioneering in its time. We criticised it slightly a few moments ago, but it was put on a pedestal as being pioneering—albeit a little late for the constituent of the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir). Now it needs updating, however. In particular, concern was voiced to us about the medicalised, quasi-judicial application process that is used. The Government have undertaken to conduct a review of the Act, and perhaps to de-medicalise the process and, as the previous Equalities Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), said, to

“overturn an outdated system and ensure the transgender person’s needs are at the heart of the process.”

Again, I was very heartened by that very positive response from the then Equalities Minister in July of this year.

Where is that review at the moment? Has the process been streamlined and de-medicalised, as indicated in the response to our report? Will the Government be considering again the Committee’s recommendations around the principle of self-declaration, which I believe would again put this country at the forefront of trans rights on the global stage, so that again we will be leading, as I believe we would like to as a country, on all LGBT rights?

Finally, I want to talk about primary legislation underpinning the rights of trans people. In our report, the Select Committee made the simple recommendation to change the terminology in the Equality Act by making the protected characteristic “gender identity” rather than “gender reassignment”. The Committee was concerned that, based on the evidence and on the legal advice that we took, the current wording does not adequately protect wider categories of people. It provides for trans people in the process of undergoing gender reassignment, but not the many people who may not have clear legal protection—those who do not live full-time in their preferred gender, non-binary or intersex people, or perhaps children whose gender identity is less well-developed than that of an adult.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended that a broader definition would be clearer and give more certainty. The current wording is outdated and confusing, and we believe that our proposed change would be in line with the Yogyakarta principles and with resolution 2048 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Government have not yet accepted this recommendation, but the Minister has undertaken to keep it under review. Will she update the House today and look carefully at the Bill that I have just presented to the House with the support of other hon. Members?

To get things right, we need the right laws, the right strategy and the right culture. The report we published in December 2015 revealed serious shortcomings in legal protection for trans people and in the delivery of public services. We need to have a clear direction of travel. Our Committee has set out more than 70 recommendations, and the Government have undertaken a considerable body of work as a result of that. I hope that today’s debate will give a flavour of their direction of travel, in order to provide clear optimism for trans people in this country. I hope that it will also remind Ministers of the human cost of not taking the actions that are needed.

Child Support Agency

Debate between Maria Miller and Mike Weir

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right that as a Government we have a duty to ensure that we have a system that operates correctly for families. I would like to take her back a step, though, to look at the fundamentals.

The reality is that every child in this country has two parents who have a commitment to that child for life. For too long, the evidence has been conveniently ignored that children who live in a stable family do better than those who do not, and the most stable families that we have are married ones. This Government do not ignore the evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), who is no longer in his place, was right to say that both parents have a right to stay involved in their children’s lives. I applaud the work being done by my colleagues in the Department for Education to make sure that that will happen more readily in the future.

Children thrive when both parents take an active role in their lives, and evidence from elsewhere in Europe underpins that. If adult relationships break down and parents do not work together to ensure that they both continue to play an active role in their children’s lives, it is the children who suffer. For me, that is the starting point for today’s debate. Having the opportunity to reframe the subject is important for all of us here.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) got it wrong, I think, when she said that we are trying to say that the CSA causes animosity. The Government are not saying that; we are saying that the CSA is making the situation worse not better, and at a cost of almost £500 million a year that is completely unacceptable. For too long, the child maintenance system has played a one-dimensional role—pretty badly—focusing almost exclusively on money transfer. IT breakdowns apart, perhaps that is why it has fallen so short of the mark and why so many Members have taken part in today’s debate. In the past, the Government have spent almost 10 times more on the CSA, its IT systems and administrative processes for money transfer and enforcement, than on supporting families to work together to fix their relationship problems, which the evidence indicates is a more successful approach. We have to change that.

As right hon. and hon. Members have said, more than half the parents who use the current system say that they would like to make their own arrangements if they had the right support to do so. That is not to say—

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division in the House, and I understand that there may be several. The sitting is suspended until the series of votes ends.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

The main players are all here, so we will resume the debate. Minister, you have 10 minutes.

[Maria Miller]

What I have said so far is the basis for the reform that this Government are putting in place. I pay tribute to the 8,000 staff at the Child Support Agency and all that they do, with the difficult system they work with, but I share the view hon. Members have expressed today that the current system is not working well enough for the people who need it the most. We inherited two sets of rules, three IT systems and more than 20,000 complaints every year, and reform that has failed to date. It is time to change the role of the child maintenance system and set it in context of the Government’s broader family and social justice policy, which is founded on the evidence that children have a better life with their parents providing support and protection throughout their childhood.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) was right to say that parents need support from each other. Indeed, we have recently set up a customer panel to do just that and we are considering how to develop it further.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East was right to say that we have to take into account the views of those who work in the field. They are indeed vital, but I caution her against focusing simply on the views of the legal profession, because as MPs who deal with such issues day in, day out, we all know that many people have more grass-roots experience, and we need to draw on that. Indeed, we as a Government have drawn on such voluntary and community sector experience in making our plans for the future scheme. A group of experts in the sector have worked with us to set out how we can ensure that parents have the right information and support, particularly early on, to work together post-separation and to make sure that both parents remain actively involved in their children’s lives. We have already announced £20 million to make that happen—that is in the current spending review. That £20 million, previously spent on IT systems and the rest, will now be used to support charitable organisations, which we all know do so much effective work with families. That funding adds to some £45 million that the Government are already spending in 2012-13 alone on supporting families and relationships.

The money will provide the sort of tangible help that makes a real difference to families’ lives when separation is involved, and it will do so in a way that supports children. It will cover the provision of an online distributable web application; training for voluntary and community organisations to provide telephone support and improved face-to-face support; and up to £14 million for the recently launched innovation fund, which will help innovative ideas to get off the ground and measure their success in supporting parents during family separation.

I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) that we know that not everybody will be able to work together. She is absolutely right about that. The hard work that she does in her constituency proves that not everybody can come to their own arrangements. That is why we will also introduce a new statutory child maintenance service for parents.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) has immeasurable experience, and on a number of occasions I have had the benefit of his wisdom regarding reform in this part of my ministerial portfolio. He is right that tough enforcement action is needed. The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 contains tough enforcement powers and we are committed to ensuring the implementation of the new statutory scheme, which will be introduced this year, along with powers to manage arrears of maintenance payments that have been accumulated under the existing scheme and are not collectible. We want to make sure, first and foremost, that we have the right statutory scheme before we take on those forcible powers that my hon. Friend thinks—and I agree—could work so well.

I will try to deal with the main issues raised in the debate. One that troubles many Members is that of non-resident parents whose lifestyles are inconsistent with their declared earnings. That is often coupled with being self-employed and other ways of playing the system that hon. Members have said some parents may be exploiting. The problem is not new and we think that our reforms will start to address it. We will use information from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about taxable income alongside other data to calculate the amount of maintenance that a non-resident parent is required to pay, and that information will be updated every year.

That is an important innovation, because we will no longer have to rely on declared income and will move instead to a system that relies on data provided to HMRC. Of course, some individuals may not declare all their income to HMRC, but that is a different matter. We are working closely with HMRC to do as much as we can to ensure that such income estimates are accurate and kept up to date, which, under the current system, they are not. The right hon. Member for Stirling is probably aware of all those issues from her time in government, and I hope she agrees that this is an important step forward.

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady will know that we are looking at those sorts of details right now. I take from her comments that she wants to ensure that we are dealing with an income that is representative of the income that an individual has, rather than an income that may be depressed for the purposes of the calculation that is being made. I assure her that those are exactly the sorts of conversations that we are having.

The change to using HMRC data will also give us a much more efficient system, getting money to children quicker and more effectively tracking down parents who fail to pay. On that note, my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon raised an important issue regarding armed forces personnel. We are reviewing how to provide a service to assist service personnel in this respect. I hope he finds that reassuring.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) raised an important issue relating to the 12-month rule. Since I became a Minister, I have looked at that in some detail. We are looking for the evidence needed to quantify the scale of the problem and to ensure that we understand it fully, but I understand her point. I have received other representations on the matter and officials are working with the legal community and with the Ministry of Justice to consider how we can resolve the problem. It cannot be right to have a system in which people can play the rules to their advantage. We must have a system that works equitably across the piece. I undertake to write to my hon. Friend in more detail about the actions we are taking and to keep her fully informed of how we move forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and various Scottish Members brought up the minute of agreement, which I have looked at in some detail. We do not feel that we can take that forward as part of the child maintenance system for which the Department for Work and Pensions has responsibility, but I know that my colleagues are well aware of it. If time were to permit—it does not today—I could talk a lot about the important innovations being made in the Ministry of Justice on mediation, which may well deal with some of the issues that the minute of agreement deals with.

In the few minutes that I have available, I wanted to address some of the other detailed points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough, who is an assiduous constituency MP—

[Mr Mike Weir (in the Chair)]

Order. We have run out of time for this debate.