Transgender People: Provision of Healthcare

Oliver Ryan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) for securing this important debate. She is the champion we all deserve, and she almost brought me to tears with her passion in opening the debate. I commend her work and her advocacy. She is a modern-day LGBT icon, and I feel privileged to serve with her.

In a world that feels increasingly divided, debates like this matter because they force us to confront and test a simple but critical principle: the great, objective universality of our healthcare system—who gets access to healthcare, and who is treated? My gut, my politics and my experience as an LGBT person say everyone. I am sure that all Members present would agree that healthcare is not a privilege to be earned; it is a right grounded in dignity, compassion and evidence-based care. It is an inalienable right of every citizen of this country. To get to the nub of this debate, that means transgender people too, such as constituents who have come to see me in my surgeries. They are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for the same thing as any of us would expect: timely, safe and respectful healthcare, and dignity.

I am sorry to say, however, that healthcare falls short for them. Thousands of transgender people are waiting years for first NHS appointments. Those are not just statistics, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth said, but people spending years of life in uncertainty and distress—years when people put their lives and careers on hold, delaying their education and questioning whether they will even survive long enough to be seen. Where care is delayed, it is denied, and 48,000 trans people are currently on waiting lists. Many are pushed towards unregulated overseas routes, not because they want to bypass safeguards but because the alternative feels unbearable. Families make decisions out of love and desperation, often fearing self-harm or suicide if they are left without support. That is not a failure of those families; it is a failure of an outdated system, which apparently is unfortunately questioning its duty to these individuals.

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

Something that I hear from concerned parents of trans children and young people, who are often such powerful advocates for them, is that they feel powerless to help their children, so does my hon. Friend agree that support and guidance for families and friends must absolutely be embedded in gender-affirming care, as we hopefully expand and invest in that?

[Oliver Ryan]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very relevant point. He took the words right out of my mouth, to quote Meat Loaf. We must also recognise that the wider picture, though, is that transgender people face questioning or even denial of their very existence as people. They face barriers not just in specialist gender and transitioning services, but across society as well as our healthcare system, including GP surgeries, maternity care, cancer screenings and mental health support. Too many avoid seeking help altogether not because they are disengaged, but because they fear being misunderstood, judged and discriminated against, or turned away, as unfortunately they are, as the evidence tells us.

Taking this away from silly social media debates, evidence-led medicine, properly funded services and clear clinical guidance do not harm patients; they protect patients. In a world where there is still so much hostility, we have a responsibility and a duty to work harder to ensure that everyone has a place. I know that this Labour Government, at their core, believe that. This House has a responsibility to speak up for those individuals who are too often drowned out by fear and misinformation and by the madness of the online space because we owe it to the sort of country we want to be, where we consider everyone in a mature, dignified and rational way to be worthy of healthcare.

I am not transgender, but I believe in fairness and the principle of good, timely, effective, universal access to healthcare, which applies to transgender people as much as anyone else, because at its core, this is about whether we meet people at their most vulnerable moments with care or with closed doors, and I know which side of that choice I stand on. I hope to hear the Minister take up the points my hon. Friend has made, and I hope to see a more dignified approach to this debate from all concerned in future.

NHS: Winter Preparedness

Oliver Ryan Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am not a clinician or a scientist, but the JCVI is full of them and we follow its expert advice. It will, in the normal way, review how this winter has gone and look ahead to future pressures, but it is important that we are guided by the evidence, whatever the political pressure.

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am so angry. I am sorry to say this, but I feel that by its actions today, the BMA is killing our NHS, and quite possibly my constituents and patients over the Christmas period, and it has become almost the midwife for privatisation under Reform. The Secretary of State has been robust in his role as patient advocate in chief, and more power to him in that, but will he go a step further and join me in appealing to resident doctors in my constituency and elsewhere, and say, “Go back into work and look after my constituents.”?

[Wes Streeting]

I certainly hope that when making the decision about whether to go to work this week, resident doctors bear in mind the pressures that the NHS is under, the consequences of their actions on their colleagues not just this week but in the coming weeks, and—crucially —the impact that risks having on patients, which is the most important consideration. I ask resident doctors to bear in mind that we offered the BMA the chance to postpone the strike action into January. I think that is a reasonable offer, and the BMA’s rejection of it shows how thoroughly unreasonable it is. I follow what resident doctors say, and I worry that too many seem to think that these strikes are consequence free for everyone but the Government. If only that were true, and if only the strike was not placing intolerable pressure on other NHS staff, and an intolerable risk to patients, which I think is unconscionable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Ryan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am sure my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton), who is the Minister responsible for cancer, would be delighted to meet campaigners, particularly as we put together the national cancer plan. We want to ensure that we capture every type of cancer, and genuinely improve cancer care for everyone in our country.

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)]

The Minister may have seen my constituent Mollie Mulheron recently featured on “Newsnight”. Our local ICB recently refused her access to fertility treatment after recovery from an aggressive cancer with a high likelihood that her illness will return. Will the Minister meet me and Mollie to discuss that issue, and access to fertility treatment for cancer survivors and patients?