Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he made of whether there has been a recent increase in referrals of girls to the Tavistock gender clinic; and what assessment his Department has made of whether there is a connection between (a) mental health problems and (b) autism and such referrals.

Since 2005, The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust reported that the number of girls (sex assigned at birth) referred to the services has been consistently greater than the number of boys (sex assigned at birth) referred.

In 2019, the National Institute for Health Research awarded Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust £1.3 million to fund a Longitudinal Outcomes of Gender Identity in Children (LOGIC) study looking into providing a better understanding of the development of gender identity in children and young people in the United Kingdom.